|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Articles
By
Dave & Ariel Lindorff
Accredited
-
Associated |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Great Speech, Big Questions, and a
Curve Ball from McCain |
|
|
|
Posted By Dave Lindorff August 30, 2008
Sen. Barack Obama scored big in the Invesco
Stadium last night with an acceptance speech
(viewed by 42 million people) that managed to
do everything that the political operatives,
pundits and critics had argued he’d have to
do: It was at once impassioned, full of actual
policy plans, and aggressive in its attack on
John McCain, his Republican opponent for the
presidency.
But the speech also raises some important
questions. Biggest among these was Obama’s
continued insistence that he will expand the
military and, instead of bringing the troops
home from Iraq, will shift at least some of
them to Afghanistan where he’s calling for an
escalation of a war that seems doomed to
failure. The expansion of the military that he
is proposing, furthermore, would be unrelated
to the Afghanistan conflict, and is of a more
long-term nature, suggesting that Obama is
envisioning even more future conflicts.
That in itself is disheartening and represents
a failure of vision, but it also begs the
question of how he can hope to achieve any of
his major domestic goals, if he is intent upon
increasing the already $600-billion Pentagon
budget further. The reality is that he cannot.
Until Obama and Democrats acknowledge that the
US cannot continue to be the new Rome, with
800 bases scattered around the globe, and with
a foreign policy that is based on gunboat
diplomacy, any high-minded talk about national
health care, universal college education or
even pre-K education, or a crash program to
combat climate change is simply hot air and
wishful thinking.
Perhaps most Democrats and progressives will
be willing to ignore this internal
contradiction and failure of vision on the
part of the Democratic candidate, and will
enthusiastically support his campaign. Perhaps
many independents too will not dig too hard
into the numbers and will go for the softer
part of his message—that the country has been
misled and divided for eight years and that we
need to come together, and that America is
“better than” the America of George Bush and
John McCain.
But now McCain has tossed a monkey wrench into
the Obama campaign strategy, with his
selection of Sarah Palin, the new governor of
Alaska, as his running mate. Palin, unlike
McCain, is a genuine maverick—a woman who
defied her party, running in the Republican
primary against a seated Republican governor,
Frank Murkowski, and defeating him, and then
going on to win the governorship handily, a
woman who personally turned in her own party
chairman and her own party’s attorney general
on ethics violations, forcing both to resign,
and who has gone on to make a reputation as a
corruption fighter, mostly against members of
her own party’s entrenched political
establishment. Palin will be appealing to many
women and men who backed Hillary Clinton and
who remain bitter about her defeat. Married to
a main who is part Inuit, and with five
mixed-race children (one of whom, at 18, is
about to deploy to Iraq), she can expect to
appeal to some non-white American voters, on
whose support the Obama campaign is counting.
Her candidacy, a bold and perhaps even a
desperate stroke by McCain, will also pose
tactical problems for Obama and his running
mate, Joe Biden. If she plays the traditional
vice presidential candidate role of attack
dog, Obama as a man, and especially Biden, as
a gray-haired older white guy, will have to be
careful about how they counter-attack. There
is a strong sense across the country that it
is unseemly for men to attack women, at least
in the same manner that they might attack
another man. Some women who otherwise might
back Obama, could rise to Palin’s defense if
attacks on her are perceived as sexist or
bullying.
The Obama/Biden campaign has avenues of attack
available to it. Palin is an ardent
anti-abortionist and a fundamentalist
Christian who opposes gay marriage and who
advocates creationism being taught in schools.
She is also weak on the environment, backing
more drilling in the Arctic Refuge in a state
where the evidence of the terrifying impact of
climate change and the continued reliance upon
oil is already everywhere, in the form of
drowning polar bears, drunken forests,
receding glaciers and sinking villages being
swallowed up by melting tundra.
There is also the charge currently being
investigated that she abused her power of
office as governor to attack a state cop who
had divorced her sister and was involved in a
bitter custody dispute. If she used her office
to pressure police authorities to fire her
brother-in-law, she is a welter-weight Cheney
in the making, and the country has seen where
that kind of lawlessness leads.
Still, Palin has demonstrated that she’s a
gold-star campaigner, handily winning over a
majority of the voters of a very
libertarian-minded and macho state despite her
anti-abortion stance. I would say those Obama
backers who scoff at the selection of Palin
and ignore her obvious appeal to some segments
of the electorate outside of her right-wing
Christian base are going to be stunned and
dismayed. The Obama campaign needs to work up
a serious battle plan to combat this new
opposition formation.
The one big plus for Democrats in the Palin
nomination is that it completely undermines
McCain’s biggest campaign theme to date: that
Obama is too young and inexperienced to serve
as president. Given that McCain is turning 72
today, and that he is entering an age bracket,
even before assuming office, that actuarially
puts him at risk of death, particularly given
his poor health record to start with (two
bouts of melanoma included), it has been
repeatedly argued that voters will pay close
attention to whether his vice presidential
pick would be ready to take over in the event
of his dying or having to leave office
mid-term. If McCain is saying that Palin,
whose resume is even thinner than Obama’s, and
who is even younger than Obama, meets that
standard, he cannot with a straight face,
argue that his rival does not.
|
|
|
|
|
Place Your Comments On This Story | |
|
|
|
©
esinislam.com No Copyright
Reserved For Da'wah And Muslim Services Users |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Internet Window That Gives You Instant Access To Media, Broadcasters And Publishers For Information And References Especially About The Muslim World :: نافذة الانترنت التي تمنحك الوصول الفوري الى وسائل الاعلام ، والمذيعين والناشرين للحصول على معلومات ومراجع خاصة عن العالم الاسلامي
Revenues From This Site Are Endowed To Muslim Welfare, Education And Da'wah :: مصادر الدخل لهذا الموقع وقف لرعاية المسلمين والتعليم والدعوة
Awqaf Africa Bazaar promotes collection of Islamic heritages and possession of its items, enabling people to proudly display their faith as well as their identities as Muslims while generating revenues for sole purpose of Da’wah and releief programmes :: بازار أوقاف إفريقيا تعزّ جمع التراث الإسلامي وحياز مواده ممكنة للناس من إعلان إيمانهم بكل فخر وكذالك عرض هاوياتهم الإسلامية في حين أن تدر الجمعية الخيرية إيراداتها لغاية الدعوة والإسعاف
This Is EsinIslam.Com The African Muslim Portal Also Available Via IslamAfrica.Com
We Are Awqaf Africa The Muslim Communities And A Non-Profit Making Organization Established For Da’wah, Education And Relief Inside And Outside Africa :: نحن أوقاف إفريقيا المجتعات المسلمة وجمعية غير هادفة للربح موسسة للدعوة والتعليم والإسعاف
Balanced news and safe information about the Muslim World covering the Arabs, African World and beyond with pure Islamic perspectives in a way of Da'wah :: الأخبارالمتوازنة والمعلومات المأمونة عن العالم الإشلامي فيما يتضمن العرب والعالم الإفريقي وأبعد من وجهة النظر الإسلامية السليمة بشكل دعوي
The African Muslim Portal Tip
|