Two men now offer themselves to America, as the race starts over. My take on two very American Americans in the Sunday Times:
Obama’s Americanness, however, is deep, for all the aspersions of otherness
thrown at him. His DNA combines two of the more indelible American
identities: heartland grit and immigrant dreams. Half his family has roots
in Kansas, the heart of the heartland. His largely absent father came from a
distant place, Kenya, and Obama grew up in, among other places, Indonesia.
These two identities place him at the centre of a churning, yet
traditionally immigrant country.
His eclectic Americanness reveals itself elsewhere as well.
He is at home in the rabble-rousing church of his former pastor Jeremiah
Wright and yet he is also in his element at the University of Chicago and
Harvard Law School. He plays basketball and can write like a professional
novelist. He is a product of modern Chicago and premodern Indonesia - and
able to note similarities in each.
It is hard to think of a man with this story existing in any other country,
let alone being in a position, in his mid-forties, to become the president
of it. In the context of America, though, the strangeness of Obama is not so
strange. It is imbued with the possibility of self-reinvention. Nothing is
more American than that.
The raw appeal of McCain as a candidate, on the
other hand, is rooted in another form of Americanness.
...toward Burma specifically, U.S. policy seems guided more by strategic myopia. The Bush administration, like its predecessors, has loudly embraced the cause of Burmese democracy but has done too little to advance it, either by driving diplomatic initiatives in the region or by supporting any of the ethnic insurgencies. Indeed, Special Operations Command is too preoccupied with the western half of the Indian Ocean, the Arab/Persian half, to pay much attention to Burma, which lacks the energizing specter of an Islamic terror threat. Meanwhile, the administration’s reliance on sanctions and its unwillingness to engage with the ruling junta has left the field open to China, India, and other countries swayed more by commercial than moral concerns.
Leaving aside all the necessary gaming of how this affects the election, what does the selection of Biden tell us about Obama's potential decision-making as president? This is the second big decision of the national campaign (the first
was opting out of public financing). I'd say it suggests a serious, adult attitude toward the enormous burden that the next presidency will be, especially in foreign policy.
We've learned how disastrous a vice-president can be, in the current administration. No vice-president in American history has done as much damage to national security, constitutional integrity and the moral standing of the United States as Dick Cheney. Biden has aspects of the Cheney pick - he's older, more seasoned and more adept at foreign policy than Obama. But no one imagines that Obama would delegate - and all but abdicate - critical decisions to Biden the way Bush has to Cheney.
Nonetheless, it seems obvious that Biden speaks his mind frankly, and would have real heft and independence in the office. He knows enough that foreign leaders call him in international crises. That reassures me, as we face some grim days in the coming years in the war on terror.
This strikes me, in other words, as a pick for a candidate who is already very serious about governing - and making calls that forgo a campaign buzz for the sake of the country if he wins. Putting country first, you might say.
3.10 pm. So far, Obama's praise of Biden's character hits some key points: character, tragedy, family. The story of Biden's family's car crash and his wife's and daughter's deaths is a gripping one. Nicely done.
3.16 pm. A "statesman" a man who can represent strength without bluster. An emphasis on his toughness - against Milosevic. The "scrappy kid from Scranton" ... "who knows every conductor on that Amtrak train to Wilmington."
3.20 pm. "We will restore that fair shot at your dreams." I'll note two things: the fundamental theme is changing the direction of the past eight years. The stronger message is working class optimism and struggle. Biden is doing more than cement foreign policy experience; he is recasting the ticket as a regular guy, working-class, get up off your feet Democratic combo.
3.28 pm. Biden looks pumped, and Teddy Kennedy-like. The message is economic distress and the need to restore the American dream. Biden's speech sounds like the latter part of the Clinton primary campaign. Clintonism without the Clintons: that's what Biden is now offering.
3.30 pm. "The reckoning is now ... These times demand total change in Washington's worldview."
Ron Fournier's dramatic use of opinion in the first paragraph of the Biden story going out on all the wires is an aggressive Republican spin. Fournier has already weakened the AP's rep for pretty straight-up reportage. It just got a lot weaker. Last spring, by the way, Fournier was lambasting Obama for arrogance. Now, apparently, it's a lack of confidence. Whatever works, I guess. But please, get a blog.
I went to bed with a wary soul, visions of OBAMA/KAINE bumper stickers
dancing in my head. Thank God, it's Biden. Love the guy, love the
pairing. Can't wait to see them together. I'm thinking it's like Astaire
and Kelly, two equal but different talents. Elegant cool versus muscular
earthy.
Now Lord, please give us Romney.
And another:
I think there really is something to this idea that older women
voters love Biden. My 65 yr. old mother adores him because "he's real
and has been through a lot of stuff" (referring to the death of his
wife and daughter.)
A bunch of reaction from around the web. Ambinder:
Obama-Biden
will be a formidable ticket, and a risky ticket, and not a comfort zone
choice for Obama. "It's a big ball pick, not a small ball pick," an
adviser said...
I gather that what impressed Obama about Biden is that Biden gets
things done. He's a man of action. He's not a bullshitter. I also get
the sense that Biden, 65, is pretty well aware that, at age 73 in eight
years, he's not going to be a viable presidential choice, and thus was
able to convince Obama that because the vice presidency would be his
terminal position, the famous Biden ego will take a subordinate role.
When Bill Clinton chose Al Gore, this was rightly seen as a template for modern VP selections. The traditional notion of "balancing" the ticket with someone of a different state or background gave way to the idea of using the VP as device to reinforce the message of the guy at the top. So, in the last change election, you had two young Southern party modernizers on the ticket. You couldn't argue their message was not about change.
Instead of reinforcing Obama's message, Biden muddles it. Biden is the ultimate Washington insider, having been in the Senate for 36 years.
Much has been said about the potential
consequences of failure in Iraq--how it would provide a new haven for
terrorists, deal a blow to reformers and modernizers throughout the
region, and encourage radicals in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. But
perhaps failure's most pernicious legacy will be a further hardening of
the Democratic Party's Vietnam syndrome--its distrust of government and
the use of American power.
That syndrome is one reason why, from day
one, many of us in Congress pressed the president to level with the
American people about what would be required to prevail in Iraq. But he
didn't. He didn't tell them that well over 100,000 troops would be
needed for well over two years. He didn't tell them the cost would
surpass $200 billion--and far exceed Iraq's oil revenue. He didn't tell
them that our children and grandchildren would pay the bill because of
his refusal to rescind even a small portion of the tax cut he gave to
the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. He didn't tell them that, even
after paying such a heavy price, success was not assured, because no
one had ever succeeded at forcibly democratizing a nation in the Middle
East, let alone an entire region.
As a result, today those who recognize that
we must persevere in Iraq risk losing public support.
Thanks for making my pre-dawn with the gentle but deadly skewering of Jonah G over the Balzac bon mots idiocy. I'm sure Jonah at heart is a delightful fellow but it's always-always amusing to see someone throwing stuff around when it's clear they've not done their homework and don't know what the f they're talking about.
And he got to use proleterian too. Clever lad -- Made my day.
I'd say we qualify around here as pointy-headed elites. Down on our luck too which is, after all, the ultimate qualifier.
Here are the sources of the bon mots we reach for and repeat tediously on a daily basis -- Stuff from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Eddie Izzard (as James Mason), The Simpsons (from the glory days), and most anything South Park. Sometimes when we're feeling uber & languid we devolve and head for George Bernano. He's got some great pithy simple stuff about the necessity and futility of dusting.
Speaking of elites, caught a few minutes of the fantabulous Marlene Dietrich serving post-concert coffee to a bemused Spencer Tracy in Judgment at Nuremberg.
"It's ersatz but I make it strong."
Marlene was so skilled at being able to convey a lifetime of experience in one simple sentence.
So very very elitist. And what a body for terrific clothes.
Okay with Biden -- He can speak English in a way folks get and that's a good old thing.
Matthew Mitcham of Australia celebrates his gold medal in the Men's 10m Platform Final diving event held at the National Aquatics Center on Day 15 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 23, 2008 in Beijing, China. Mitcham is the only openly gay male athlete at the games, and prevented a Chinese sweep of the diving medals with a perfect final dive. By Jamie Squire/Getty.
As he speaks, as he goes on and on and spins his long statements, hypotheticals, and free associations--as he demonstrates yet again . . . that he is incapable of staying on the river of a thought, and is constantly lured down tributaries from which he can never quite work his way back--you can see him batting the little paddles of his mind against the weeds, trying desperately to return to the river but not remembering where it is, or where it was going.
I love him. He's human, like a garrulous uncle after a drink.
"In naming my colleague and friend Joe Biden to be the vice
presidential nominee, Barack Obama has continued in the best traditions
for the vice presidency by selecting an exceptionally strong,
experienced leader and devoted public servant. Senator Biden will be a
purposeful and dynamic vice president who will help Senator Obama both
win the presidency and govern this great country."
This post from an anonymous Democrat, published a few days ago by Mark Halperin, is a pretty good summary of the case:
“Biden is deeply thoughtful, serious, passionate, experienced, highly knowledgeable, and incredibly sensible and clear when talking about major issues. He has a vast and creative understanding of politics and policy, a sharp mind, and a sincere heart. He’s totally ready to be president. Together, Obama and Biden would represent the best of the last 30 years of the Democratic Party, and the hope for the next 30.
Biden may be a ridiculous, overbearing blowhard, and he’ll doubtless make foolish blunders and imprudent comments if he’s on the ticket, but he’d still be an excellent campaigner, surrogate, and debater. He’d be thrilled at the prospect of being vice president (his own aspirations aside), and grateful and proud to have been chosen–he’d work hard to make Obama look good, and not deliberately outshine him–plus the chemistry will be appealing, and they genuinely like and respect each other, which will be winningly apparent.
Conservatives will blast [Biden's] record, just as
surely as liberals will (or should) celebrate it. But one of the
virtues of having Biden as the vice presidential nominee is that he
won't take those kinds of attacks lightly. He'll fight back. He'll
remind people, rightly, that being a liberal Democrat means raising the
minimum wage, making sure everybody has affordable health care,
providing strong public schools, and protecting human rights. Then,
he'll ask why conservative Republicans don't want the same things.
That's exactly the kind of political debate this country needs. By
picking Biden as a running mate, Obama has signaled that he welcomes
this argument--and intends, finally, to win it.
If you're going to announce your veep in an innovative way, follow through. One of many readers writes:
I signed up for Obama's "first to know" e-mail from one of your posts. Since I heard about Obama's Veep pick from CNN and MSNBC and NYTimes, I realize I've been played.
Still no e-mail from Mr Obama.
That was from 2.57 am. That was when the texts and emails went out. That 3 am idea wasn't far off the mark, was it? Many readers got it then. I confess: I went to bed.
The clip above explains the rationale, I'd say. The biggest emerging problem with the Obama campaign is Obama's reluctance, lack of talent and lack of will to get into lively, feisty, pissing matches with his opponent. This was brought home in the Saddleback forum. What he needs is a plucky, fun, free-wheeling attack machine, with the necessary gravitas to express adequate contempt for the Bush administration's fatally misguided foreign policy without in any way seeming defensive.
"I refuse to sit back like we did in 2000 and 2004. This administration
is the worst administration in American foreign policy in modern
history — maybe ever. ... Every single thing they’ve touched has been a
near-disaster."
"Rudy Giuliani... I mean, think about it! Rudy Giuliani. There's only
three things he mentions in a sentence -- a noun, a verb, and 9/11.
There's nothing else!"
I have to say his inability to shut up drives me up the wall. But there's also an appealing lack of guile to the man; he wears his flaws like his hair-plugs - out and proud.
To a certain extent, Russia's rebirth was inevitable (it's got a ton of
stuff and it's a highly literate population), and as we've seen in past
history, its depressive phases are always followed by some manic
episodes. Again, we've had years and years to work this one and we did
little to prepare for this moment. If I'm king of the West, Russia is
already deep inside a revamped Northern Hemispheric Security Alliance
(a term from an old CNA pub I did in the mid-90s that looked ahead to
roughly now). Would that have prevented all such turbulence from
Russia? No. But better to finesse it within that context than to face
what we face now: Russia is simply marking its sphere of influence more
overtly and proposing its own rule set for its management. We didn't
invite Russia properly into our 21st century, so, denied any acceptable
ownership of its own 20th century history (better it be all buried, say
I), it slipped back into its 19th (quelle surprise, mes ami!), and
yeah, that makes our management of Russia's membership in the Core a
lot more complicated. We denied them proper attention for a long time
and now they're acting out to garner negative attention: "You don't let
us decide some of your rules, then we'll simply decide on our own where
we can!"
You can let the suspense build and build if you've got a Hillary or a Gore socked away somewhere. Possibly a Biden or a Webb (or some unorthodox pick like a general or a Republican). But you'd better not come with Jack Reed or Evan Bayh after toying with people for over a week.
We believe Obama will see a significant bump, and believe it is reasonable to expect nearly a 15-point bounce out of a convention in this political environment.
"...perhaps there’s no mystery at all, and Obama’s problems are the same problems Democrats always have at the presidential level: He’s an elitist. Oh, I know. Upon reading that, some liberal spluttered herbal chai tea from her nose at the injustice of this whole elitist canard, and the earnest Ivy League interns at some liberal magazine have burst into laughter, offering the appropriate bons mots from Balzac at the preposterousness of such a suggestion, saying: 'Don’t you conservatives understand? Democrats care about the little guy. They’re on the side of the proletariat — I mean workers — and as Obama has so eloquently put it, if the workers would only stop clinging to their silly sky god and guns, they’d understand that,'" Jonah Goldberg, NRO.
Lighting technicians check levels and camera angles at the Pepsi Center in preparation for the Democratic National Convention August 22, 2008 in Denver, Colorado. By Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.
No, not the 2008 campaign. Charles Mann is worried about the world's soil. Adding charcoal to it might increase its fertility - and even have potential for arresting climate change:
Heavily plowed soil releases carbon dioxide as it exposes once buried organic matter. Sombroek argued that creating terra preta [rich, fertile soil] around the world would use so much carbon-rich charcoal that it could more than offset the release of soil carbon into the atmosphere. According to William I. Woods, a geographer and soil scientist at the University of Kansas, charcoal-rich terra preta has 10 or 20 times more carbon than typical tropical soils, and the carbon can be buried much deeper down. Rough calculations show that "the amount of carbon we can put into the soil is staggering," Woods says. Last year Cornell University soil scientist Johannes Lehmann estimated in Nature that simply converting residues from commercial forestry, fallow farm fields, and annual crops to charcoal could compensate for about a third of U.S. fossil-fuel emissions. Indeed, Lehmann and two colleagues have argued that humankind's use of fossil fuels worldwide could be wholly offset by storing carbon in terra preta nova.
Hijacked by a relatively small few, the GOP of today bears no resemblance to Lincoln, Roosevelt or Eisenhower’s party, or many of the other Republican administrations that came after. In my grandparents’ time, the thrust of the party was rooted in: a respect for the constitution; the defense of civil liberties; a commitment to fiscal responsibility; the pursuit and stewardship of America’s interests abroad; the use of multilateral international engagement and “soft power”; the advancement of civil rights; investment in infrastructure; environmental stewardship; the promotion of science and its discoveries; and a philosophical approach focused squarely on the future.
As an independent I will now feel comfortable supporting people of any political party who reflect those core values.
I've never been a member of any political party, but I sure know I couldn't be a Republican these days.
Jonah
Lehrer cites a recent study
to support his theory that many “undecided” voters are not really
undecided – they just can’t articulate the reasons for their
preferences.
Carl Elliott, who teaches at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota, has an interesting dispatch on beta blockers (which ease anxiety) and Olympic doping:
One of the most compelling arguments against performance enhancing drugs is that they produce an arms race among competitors, who feel compelled to use the drugs even when they would prefer not to, simply to stay competitive. But this argument falls away if the effects of the drug are distributed so unequally. If it's only the nervous performers who are helped by beta blockers, there's no reason for anyone other than nervous performers to use them. And even if everyone did feel compelled to use beta blockers, it's unlikely that anyone would experience untoward health effects, because beta blockers are safe, cheap, and their effects wear off in a few hours. So unlike users of human growth hormone and steroids, users of beta blockers don’t have to worry about their heads growing or their testicles shrinking. You don’t even have to take them regularly. All you have to do is take a small, 10 mg tablet about an hour before your performance.
From January 2007 to March 2008, the McCain campaign paid Scheunemann $70,000 -- pocket change compared to the $290,000 his Orion Strategies banked in those same 15 months from the Georgian regime of Mikheil Saakashvili.
What were Mikheil's marching orders to Tbilisi's man in Washington? Get Georgia a NATO war guarantee. Get America committed to fight Russia, if necessary, on behalf of Georgia.
Scheunemann came close to succeeding.
That a key McCain adviser nearly got NATO committed to a war with Russia over South Ossetia should send up alarms about a McCain presidency. Is there any war McCain would not be prepared to launch if he felt his honor were impugned or a bully was getting his way? Just because Putin is paranoid doesn't mean McCain isn't out to get him.
Zogby (yes, I know, not the best pollster) finds more than 60 percent of Americans could support a gay presidential nominee. And over 70 percent would support the appointment of a gay cabinet secretary.
Ryan Avent predicts that car sharing will go electric. He thinks "technology is likely to blur the lines between transit and driving, and make both greener and more flexible."
If he announces at the convention, it’s going to be Hillary Clinton. A Hillary selection works best at the convention, providing a dramatic moment of unity. If he waits until the media Dead Zone, I’d guess either Joe Biden or Evan Bayh. However, one very pragmatic problem comes with Hillary: her debt. She only retired $1.3 million off of a debt that surpassed $20 million, and that would kill Obama’s fundraising advantage over McCain — and that’s without counting the RNC’s whopping advantage over the DNC.
I have to say I'm getting more and more jittery about the global situation. This story from Iraq is just one story - but if the Shiite government really does want to get America out of the way and is now targeting key members of the Sunni Awakening movement, the current lull in violence may well be just a pause before another bout of brutal civil war ahead. In the world as a whole, no progress has been made in restraining Iran's nuclear ambitions; no breakthrough has occurred between Israel and Syria; and Russia's invasion of Georgia is a clear sign from Moscow that it is an independent player in this global system, and has many cards to play against the West if it so chooses. Among those cards is a de facto alliance with Iran. And this axis also makes it likelier that Israel will seek to pre-emptively attack Iran in ways that would instantly throw the world into a global conflict, with religious overtones.
Am I being excitable again? Perhaps. But sober minds should take a moment to read Paul Berman's latest piece in TNR. It's very shrewd on a variety of points, not least of which is the Russian leadership's obvious, and dangerous, sense of their own vulnerability. But what Paul really grasps is that the post-1989 era may really be over. He worries that a more traditionally realist conservative foreign policy will now gain ascendancy - to the detriment of democratic movements in the Russian orbit, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. He may be right. But the truth is: the time for such an adjustment is surely overdue.
Glenn Greenwald has a post about the impact of John McCain's living off the fabulous wealth of his heiress wife. When John Kerry's marriage to Teresa Heinz was part of the 2004 election cycle, the hard right didn't pull punches:
I mean, [Kerry]'s been there, but he's basically a skirt-chaser, folks. He's a gigolo. . . .Kerry is cheap. Most gigolos are. I mean -- I think it -- I think it goes with the, with the definition. . . I mean, he's a gigolo. Everybody knows this. There's nobody in our party really has much respect for this guy and you can see it last night, but I can't say that. I mean, you got sugar daddy wife back then. You got sugar daddy wife now. He worked his way up from a blue blood to a platinum American Express card, and it doesn't have his name on it.
Mickey Kaus's friend was also on the case:
[Kerry is] a kept man. He lives off the money made by other men and left to their daughters or wives.
And that would make McCain what exactly? Could it be that in this election cycle, the tactics of the far right are beginning to turn around and bite them?
Noam Scheiber dug up a 1982 McCain ad for Congress. Yes, he was running on the POW card back then as well. And wasn't shy in using it again and again and again:
As Stu Rothenberg notes, it is actually the norm rather
than the exception to have the VP named relatively close to the
convention. Still, there is cutting it close, and then there is leaving
yourself no time at all. Geraldine Ferraro and Al Gore were named 4
days before the opening gavel at the convention, Lloyd Bentsen 6 days,
Joe Lieberman 8 days, and John Edwards 20 days ... so this pick will
set the modern record for the Democrats, although the Republicans have
sometimes waited even longer....All of this points strongly to the
known knowns: Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton.
I have to say that the choice of Springfield suggests Clinton to me. It's the whole Team Of Rivals concept reborn. Texting the selection of Hillary at 3 am this Saturday morning would be the coolest campaign gimmick of all time. Except that every indication we have is that Clinton was never seriously considered.
August 17, 2008 - August 23, 2008
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