Circling the Square

The day before Barack Obama announced his candidacy for president in Springfield, I was having breakfast in Chicago with my friend Paul Smith. Paul's what might be called an Obama "early adopter." Like a lot of young, Chicago progressives, he threw himself into Obama's senate candidacy when he was just a long-shot in a crowded primary field. In fact, Paul and I first met at an Obama fundraiser in the fall of 2003. So few donors had bought tickets for the event that a mutual friend on the campaign asked us to show up just to fill the room.

Over breakfast we talked about Obama's impending announcement. Paul was preparing to drive down with me on Saturday to watch the speech in person, but feeling ambivalent about the candidate himself. "I can't quite figure out where to plant my flag on him," he said. "I was looking back at my blog from 2004 and the posts I wrote about him and I was so completely committed to him and so convinced he was special and wanted to convince others. And now, I just, I can't quite get back to that. I want to recapture it, but I can't remember what it was."

In the car-ride down to Springfield on Saturday, we were also joined by our friend Dan, another early supporter. He met Obama through a mutual friend around the same time Paul became involved with the campaign. He donated money, organized friends, and became close with many of the campaign staff. I asked Dan if he shared Paul's doubts. "I have issues," he said with a frown. "He's so fucking coy. I mean, I love the guy, but there are things that really matter to me, and they've got to really matter to him. And it's not clear to me right now that they do."

This sentiment is pretty widely shared among the Chicago progressives I know. Many have grown disillusioned with a man they once thought was one of their own and now seems in danger of becoming just another politician. Part of this can be chalked up to a kind of punk-rock-band-gone-MTV disaffection. People who were into Obama when he was an underground, authentic phenomenon aren't necessarily so into the slickly produced, more pop-friendly version.

But then, music can be both really predictable and really popular, and the same is true of politicians. When I talked to people on Saturday, who'd come out on a freezing February morning to stand in the cold and hear a speech they recited, with an almost unsettling fidelity, the campaign's own buzzwords: A college student from downstate said she liked Obama because he was from a "different generation," and that she'd decided to come to "be part of history." A recovering Republican grandmother said she admired Obama because he was "fresh" and two middled-age men with Obama t-shirts spent several minutes telling a Chinese news crew that Obama was a "uniter not a divider." The reporter kept pushing the two men to name specific examples of this quality, but they just kept repeating the point.

Having it both ways, attempting to be at once a progressive champion and an ideological cipher, has become the hallmark of the Obama rhetorical strategy, but there are still so many circles this campaign is trying to square, you wonder if it can last. On the one hand, Obama wants to present his campaign as something more than a campaign, a kind of grassroots, people-powered movement. "That's why I'm in this race," he said Saturday, "Not just to hold an office, but to gather with you to transform a nation." When people like Paul and Dan and others were working on Obama's senate campaign in 2004, that's how it felt. But now he's running for president at a moment in history when the national media rewards the kind of air-tight focus and message discipline that are not exactly what actual grassroots movements are known for producing. So as people entered the square outside the old state capitol in Springfield, security confiscated any home-made signs (all they need is one off-message slogan -- "Destroy The Zionist State!" -- in the frame to cause a week of headaches.) But inside the entrance to the plaza, someone, most likely the campaign, distributed ersatz homemade signs with slogans like "Barack the Vote!" and "Vote 4 Obama" all painted with the same multi-colored palette.

Then there's the other major contradiction of the campaign, the fact that it is simultaneously promising two things -- progress and unity -- that have an uncomfortable relationship to each other. In his speech, Obama recited moments in American history when politics became something more than the mundane mechanics of governing and effected a true transformation of the polity: the civil war, the New Deal, the civil rights movement. But the problem is that those were moments not of unity, but of extreme polarization. The South only granted rights to black citizens under force of arms, armies of unruly war veterans gathered in Washington DC during the Great Depression to demand the government provide them with a safety net, and when Martin Luther King Jr went marching through the South, he was met with batons and firehoses and accusations that he was dividing people and stirring up trouble.

Standing on the site of where Abraham Lincoln gave his "house divided" speech, Obama invoked him as a model:

"[T]he life of a tall, gangly, self-made Springfield lawyer tells us that a different future is possible. He tells us that there is power in words. He tells us that there is power in conviction. That beneath all the differences of race and region, faith and station, we are one people."

It's hard to quarrel with the sentiment. But Obama didn't mention that Lincoln was also the most hated and polarizing figure in American presidential history. Sometimes unity is the price of progress.

Comments (64)

1. ........ But Obama didn't mention that Lincoln was also the most hated and polarizing figure in American presidential history.

   I thought that was George W. Bush....But, seriously, Senator Obama definately risks going Hollywood with his oh so carefully scripted moments like the Springfield speech...People outside of Illinois forget that Obama only made it to the senate by default, winning against a far-right Alan Keyes from Maryland, for God's sake... With such a brief record in the Senate, and fearing few prospects for significant accomplishment, Obama may actually calculate that he can't get re-elected (ala "John Boy" Edwards) and, like Edwards, actually be angling for the VP spot on the 2008 ticket.

   Sounds far fetched, but not as far fetched as President Barack Hussein Obama..........

   Posted by davebarlett at 02/11/2007 @ 7:43pm

2. "progress and unity not compatible"!?!??!...rubbish.

   Why "liberal" and "jingoism" are compatible....what you say? How about fighting a war AND the importance of paying your taxes???

   and Donald Duck too! [youtube.com]

   Posted by Mask at 02/11/2007 @ 8:12pm

3. Still two years out....hard to get excited over anyone at this point. Still it is going to be interesting...Hillary and Barack Huessain Obama are going to try and out LEFT each other..it will be fun.

   Then there is the trick about not appearing too looney lefty, because the general population doesnt really like that.

   Posted by CPT at 02/11/2007 @ 8:44pm

4. This is hardly original. So far Obama has done absolutely nothing surprising, revolutionary, or in any way out of the ordinary. I begin to wonder if he has built a career on hype surrounding very little substance.

   Posted by ZERO

   Good God! I agree with Zero! Can Red be far behind? heh, heh..

   Posted by davebarlett at 02/11/2007 @ 9:48pm

5. armies of unruly civil war veterans gathered in Washington DC during the Great Depression to demand the government provide them with a safety net,

   well, good attempt at trying to string together short elucidations of each of the four historical examples mentioned without creating a way too long and convoluted sentence to be considered respectable, but i think you combined "civil war" with "new deal" it was the ww1 bonus marchers...surviving civil war vets would have been more likely "wheeling" than "marching" by this point in history.

   but an understandable slip in the effort to string together a long complex sentence on limited space...

   regardless, the rock star has hit the big time, and much like shakira, i'm sure we can expect a blonde hair dying, dumbing down of lyrics, and gringo slutification of his image...or the political equivilant of such...

   not having been in on the early college radio days of barry hussein, obamapaloosa niether raises nor lowers my opinion of the guy...

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/11/2007 @ 10:10pm

6. Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 02/11/2007 @ 10:10pm

   ROFL...I didn't even notice that.

   Let's say Great Depression...1929.

   Young Civil War recruit at end of war was 18...1865.

   That means in 1929, the recruit would be ...EIGHTY-TWO years old and "marching on Washington"?!?!!? Hobbling, maybe, but not marching!

   (Yes, yes...of course... it was the "Bonus Army" of World War-ONE vets he meant! But that's the kind of "People who need to put food on their family" Bushism that...well...I'm sure Mr Hayes noted when Bush would say them!)

   Posted by Mask at 02/11/2007 @ 10:26pm

7. Posted by MASK 02/11/2007 @ 10:26pm

   it was an understandable brainfart...heehee.

   maybe he had this in mind...

   http://www.atomfilms.com/film/holidayforce_south.jsp?channelKeyword=chan nel_holiday_force

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/11/2007 @ 10:38pm

8. actually, i worry that the "politician polishers" may end up ruining a potentially good candidate. imagine what gore would have been like in 00 if those stiltifying vampires of conventional wisdom had not gotten their hands on him? or did his personality only emerge after defeat?

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/11/2007 @ 10:51pm

9. CPT, I temporarily took you off ignore about two days ago and you're going back on. You upload some of the singularly dumbest posts I've ever seen.

   Posted by fromredbird at 02/11/2007 @ 11:13pm

10. So far Obama has done absolutely nothing surprising, revolutionary, or in any way out of the ordinary. I begin to wonder if he has built a career on hype surrounding very little substance.

    Posted by ZERO 02/11/2007 @ 9:29pm

    He appears to be contentless. It's all rhetoric and that's the end of it.

    If we want to know what his allegiances are I suggest we have to take a look at any private meetings he took part in not long before being anointed to give a keynote speech at the Democratic Convention. He made commitments there to get that favored treatment and if we knew who he made them to and what they were the mystery would disappear. You can bet that the counterparties to that agreement got very specific and detailed answers. You can also bet that is something they don't ever want us to know.

    Posted by fromredbird at 02/11/2007 @ 11:20pm

11. Posted by MASK 02/11/2007 @ 8:12pm |

    HA HA! TAXES TO BEAT THE AXIS!

    shit...save? har har! not patriotically spend oneself into debt and take out a car title loan to go to disneyworld?

    oh - that was rich!

    Posted by ZERO 02/11/2007 @ 11:20pm

    nothing like a little canned, preplanned, youthful, sponteneity...obamapaloosa.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/11/2007 @ 11:33pm

12. Nice catch Ibble. Of course you're right. I took out "civil" to make the sentence correct.

    -Ch

    Posted by Nation Intern at 02/12/2007 @ 12:32am

13. This is an outstanding analysis. See Paul Krugman's column in the NY Times about one week ago for similar thoughts. As a slighter older Chicago progressive, I share these concerns. Obama has a choice--try to become president like Lincoln and Roosevelt did or like Bill Clinton did. While there are lots of people in this country who can and will be united around programs that help poor, working and middle class America and offer a much different foreign policy, there will be opposition to such programs. Is Obama ready to take a stand? Hillary won't because she and Bill are too imbedded in corporate power and small government, but Edwards may be ready to do so. Time will tell.

    Posted by SSaltzlaw at 02/12/2007 @ 01:11am

14. I have my hopes pinned on Dennis Kucinich.

    Posted by Dale-Z at 02/12/2007 @ 01:59am

15. Posted by NATION INTERN 02/12/2007

    heehee. welcome to the blog response pits of hell, chris. i got yer back man...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/12/2007 @ 07:01am

16. CPT, I temporarily took you off ignore about two days ago and you're going back on.

    Posted by FROMREDBIRD 02/11/2007 @ 11:13pm

    Shortest measurement of Time...is it-

    A. a pico-second?

    B. being put on FRB's Ignore List "for atleast 2 weeks!!!"?

    Posted by Mask at 02/12/2007 @ 07:25am

17. i only have a couple on iggy...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/12/2007 @ 08:30am

18. Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 02/12/2007 @ 08:30am |

    Me too. RESE and PLUNGER ...of course. Nobody wants to see the same TWENTY cut & pastes from www.jews&jesuitsmindcontrol.org. And "LIBSZUK" (though BARRY25 might join him soon) for being just frothing at the mouth...and ORWELL2005, cuz he's just pointlessly snotty.

    Other than that, I enjoy even the rantings of most everybody else, Left or Right.

    BTW...I found that Donald Duck "Pay Your Taxes To Stop The Axis" cartoon, looking for some cartoons to watch with my son. It's pretty hilarious considering. The idea that Disney was propagandizing for people to pay their taxes (and to SAVE up to pay them)...as part of the civilian effort to support World War-2.

    I guess that's part of the reason the so many, like Al Franken, keep talking about how "we never had a tax cut during a war". Of course they're being disengenuous.

    They don't care about "funding the war". They're concerned that the deficit created by it won't let them have any play money in 2008 when they get the Total Package. If Dems are forced to work on REAL fiscal discipline, but are scared crap-less about raising taxes....it means no "vital, needed new programs".

    Maybe President Hillary can resurrect "Donald Duck--The Spirit of '43" and get the guys who make "Family Guy" or "Drawn Together" to make it!

    Posted by Mask at 02/12/2007 @ 08:50am

19. Posted by RIO BRAVO 02/12/2007 @ 12:11am

    Rio Barf-o

    Once again, you prove that one can be a total dipshit and survive - nay, prosper - in America.

    That you rise to the occasion so often is a testament to your staying power.

    Posted by skeletonman at 02/12/2007 @ 08:51am

20. For some Republicans, the Democratic takeover of Congress has been liberating. A barrage of recent hearings into malfeasance under the U.S. occupation authority in Iraq, the stretched state of the military and the cost of the war have brought to light new information while underscoring congressional acquiescence under GOP control, said Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.), a longtime war critic.

    "My party did not want to do anything to embarrass the administration," he said.

    ----who knew that was part of the oath of office? To not embarrass a chimp.

    Posted by crabwalk at 02/12/2007 @ 09:10am

21. "If it's all right for us to go, it's all right for the Americans and the British to go, and if everybody goes, Iraq will descend into total civil war and there'll be a lot of bloodshed."-RIOPOLLO channelling another Wrong Man.

    Unlike the utopia it is now?

    Are the borders secure? Is Baghdad safe? Is it safe for female soldiers to walk around the Green Zone at night? Is there a stable guvt in Iraq?

    Come on Chickensht RIO, answer the simple questions! admit to the world that your military cannot rebuild Iraq.

    How about you, CPT. Will you answer for RIO?

    Posted by crabwalk at 02/12/2007 @ 09:16am

22. Since the fall of 2003, the Miles Foundation has documented 518 cases of sexual assault on women who have served or are serving in Middle Eastern countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain and Qatar.

    Rev. Dorothy Mackey, executive director of Survivors Take Action Against Abuse by Military Personnel (STAAMP), was raped and assaulted while serving as a U.S. Air Force Captain and Commander from 1983-1992. Her cases were never prosecuted after a Justice Department attorney stated they "could not bring this case to trial for national security reasons; to do so would be contrary to good order, morale and discipline in the military."

    Cute.

    Posted by crabwalk at 02/12/2007 @ 09:21am

23. next on candidate obama's checklist: a hawkish speech about bombing iran for the benefit of the AIPAC crowd. ten bucks says it will come before the end of the month (the speech, not the bombing ... although ...).

    Posted by katamantulo at 02/12/2007 @ 09:28am

24. Blah blah blah, I am not energized by any of the candidates so far, and '08 may be the year I don't make up my mind until November.

    There's a first time for everything.

    Posted by ILOVEPHYSICS at 02/12/2007 @ 09:35am

25. Posted by MASK 02/12/2007 @ 08:50am

    actually i'm not too uncomfortable with a managed and controled deficit...if the deficit is an investment in infrastructure. the deficit we rolled up in WW2, taken in context of inflation and percentage of gdp, dwarfs anything since.

    ut back then we had a vibrant manufacturing sector and by the end of the war most of our economic competition was in shambles...

    therefore the insane and unnatural economic growth of the fifties and early sixties which we americans have ever since mistakenly identified as the natural economic state of affairs, our economic birthright or something...

    what worries me now is that as we run this debt up it is niether for investment in infrastructure nor happening in the millieu of an economically competitorless world...we have outsourced a dangerous amount of our manufacturing base (to china, mainly) and are now in the process of outsourcing a huge chunk of our service economy (largely to india)...which i find especially galling (although i like india) in that the oft repeated lullaby to those who expressed concern about loss of manufacturing was that the future would be all service service service...

    really?

    i heard or read someone blab about how those with college degrees are making so much more these days than those without than 30, 40, years ago. i believe the citer was trying to encourage everyone and their grandmother to get a bachelors degree (brilliant, water it down even more then look around at everyone else who has a bachelors degree...magic) but i think the conclusion reached by the citer was flawed. rather than "you will earn so much more money with a bachelors degree because you have a bachelors degree" i think what this stat means is that you will earn (when adjusted for inflation, etc, of course) so goddamned much less WITHOUT a higher degree than you would have 40 years ago because we have outsourced all those jobs...

    so what happens when the communist chinese call in their debts? or simply stop lending us money to buy their stuff? i wonder how much of our military hardware parts are manufactured overseas...and by god, ayn rander wallstreeters are hell bent and determined to roll the stock market back to 1929 levels. it is their wet dream...our nightmare.

    eventually, if current economic and geopolitical trends continue, we will very soon find our nation in marginalized economic, military and cultural semi-retirement, like the uk in the post colonial afterglow of her empire...and i'm not too concerned...i dont think we are responsible nor compassionate enough to ear the burden of world leadership, based on our behavior over the last seven (actually a lot longer...) years, and it will be a relief to slip into non dominant status, although the rise of china is not exactly comforting (facilitating a long partnership between us and india, i would say).

    the long term consequences of short sighted greed, arrogance, sloth, rage, etc. on the part of these neocon monsters is quite possibly, especially if the global warming thing is even half as bad as most reputable scientists claim, the decline and fall of the american empire at precisely the moment these morons are guiding us into "a new american century", and, ironically, to a large extent a result of everything that makes up this feel good fascism...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/12/2007 @ 09:42am

26. Posted by KATAMANTULO 02/12/2007 @ 09:28am

    "The Nation" in a bit of a fix on finding a "true anti-war" candidate...as everybody in the Top Tier, from Hillary to Obama to even Edwards have given speeches that seemingly endorse keeping "all options open" on Iran. Edwards was just a week or so ago....Obama as you noted...and of course Hillary the Hawk is just NOW getting "dove-ish".

    The Editorial Board said they would NOT endorse any candidate that wasn't for an immediate pull-out of Iraq...well, they'll probably get that, as HRC has said "When I become President, I'll bring the troops home". But they aren't going to get anywhere CLOSE to a "Kucinich/Dept. of Peace" type.

    Posted by Mask at 02/12/2007 @ 09:46am

27. and if these slimy shits get us into a war with iran any and all reservations i or anyone else who has half a brain and one iota of concern for our country's future had concerning impeachment better throw those concerns out the window and scream bloody murder for impeachment...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/12/2007 @ 09:48am

28. WES CLARK 08!!!!

    hover around the spotlight wes, waiting for one democrat after another to implode, then jump in...you are the best combination of smarts, wisdom, charisma, compassion, and experience (the lack of which in some areas is actually a plus, something barry hussein should recognize)...and you are a four star general with the very best of military can-do mentality in the midst of scary militarized times...

    who better in these days?

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/12/2007 @ 09:53am

29. clark obama 08...would be a great internship for barry and niether have a record to defend...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/12/2007 @ 09:54am

30. Posted by MASK 02/12/2007 @ 09:46am |

    unless of course they endorse kucinich, or hagel (yes, i know they won't endorse a republican, i'm just saying if they really cared, they should consider it).

    on that last point, i'm making a normative argument, not a predictive one.

    Posted by katamantulo at 02/12/2007 @ 09:56am

31. Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 02/12/2007 @ 09:42am

    Sorry, IBBLE, but I've already lived through ONE wave of "Those Asians are going to buy us out and we'll be in a 2nd Great Depression in five years" hysteria.....

    the last one was in the late 80s, when it was the Japanese and "Surviving the Great Depression of 1990" by Ravi Batra. (search on amazon.com)

    So I tend to be a bit skeptical....and watch Jane Fonda and Kris Kristofferson in "Rollover" for laughs!

    Posted by Mask at 02/12/2007 @ 10:08am

32. Posted by KATAMANTULO 02/12/2007 @ 09:56am

    "The Nation" might FAVOR a primary challenger, but they won't endorse one, in case they "go rogue" and try some independent candidacy which could threaten the Democratic nominee.

    They all LIKE Dennis...I'm sure. But they, like the realists among us, know he's "in it to keep the rest honest"...and he's not going to win it.

    Posted by Mask at 02/12/2007 @ 10:10am

33. Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 02/12/2007 @ 09:53am

    Sorry, IBBLE...but on General Clark's "smarts"...he may have them on the battlefield or even in general (no pun), but not so much when it comes to campaigning....

    I keep thinking back to his comments on "travelling faster than the speed of light" and "Warp Drive Wesley" or "Wesley 'Crusher' Clark" posts back in the 2004 primaries.

    Posted by Mask at 02/12/2007 @ 10:12am

34. Posted by RIO BRAVO 02/12/2007 @ 12:11am

    Rio Loco...sound to me like the Aussie PM needs to put up or shut up, what with 1,400 "non-combat" troops. A real warrior that one, right mate?

    Posted by leftofcenter at 02/12/2007 @ 10:15am

35. Posted by MASK 02/12/2007 @ 10:08am

    yeah...i know what you mean...but this is different. the fact that china, if it continues to economically develop at its current rate, will soon have a domestic market that in and of itself marginalizes our importance to their economy, is telling...and twenty years ago we still had some manufacturing base to defend. smoke and mirrors only goes so far...

    i hope i am wrong, but fear my near omniscient perceptive abilities are on target...

    but i hope i am wrong...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/12/2007 @ 10:20am

36. rio bravo Try being pro America for a change of pace.Howard hasn't earned the right to express a pro war view considering the fact that he hasn't put his troops lives in danger.He wants our troops to die for him and his country and you agree that they should be able to hide while our troops die.Bush gave you on the right a bad example when he said it's okay to support a war that you're too big a coward to fight in.

    Posted by i'm nobody at 02/12/2007 @ 10:22am

37. Posted by MASK 02/12/2007 @ 10:12am

    mask, god will not be on the ticket in 08 for either party...the "faster than light" flap seems to me yet another example of right wing noise making, like accusing al gore of having said he invented the internet, or playing howard dean's primal screech without the thunderous background noise that in fact made it practically inaudible at the time and place...

    i have no problem with a pres that suffers from some funny gaffs from time to time, as long as he/she is not evil or really stupid...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/12/2007 @ 10:25am

38. Posted by CRABWALK 02/12/2007 @ 09:16am | ignore this person

    The ROE changes are the most significant change....answer your questions....no, no, yes, relatively.

    I will admit that we cant rebuild Iraq by ourselves, IF you admit that you WANT the US to lose.

    The ROE changes are the key, to success. But i doubt it will happen as soon as you want. And even when it does succeed...there will be undoubtedly some violence still occurring, but on a much smaller scale

    Posted by CPT at 02/12/2007 @ 10:46am

39. I am not in love with Barack Obama, but

    Fuck John Howard anyway.

    Posted by drhammer at 02/12/2007 @ 10:52am

40. the "faster than light" flap seems to me yet another example of right wing noise making

    Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 02/12/2007 @ 10:25am

    Well, IBBLE, the argument that Gore "didn't really say 'I invented the Internet'" or Dean's "scream" can be made....but...

    US News & World Report October 1, 2003 General Relativity (Retired)

    While attending a party at a private home in New Hampshire last weekend, presidential candidate Wesley Clark, a retired four-star general and former NATO commander, went a bit off message when he decided to offer up his thoughts on the work of Albert Einstein:

    "I still believe in E=mc², but I can't believe that in all of human history, we'll never ever be able to go beyond the speed of light to reach where we want to go," said Clark, as reported online by Wired magazine. "I happen to believe that mankind can do it. I've argued with physicists about it, I've argued with best friends about it. I just have to believe it. It's my only faith-based initiative."

    That's his quote. Now, suppose Bush made some comment on...say....global climate change and said he "argued with climatologists" and "just had to believe it"?

    Plus, the basic problem with Clark....we've elected about FOUR generals President in history--Jackson, Taylor, Grant, Eisenhower.

    Jackson "won" the War of 1812. Zack Taylor "won" the Mexican-American War. Grant obviously won the Civil and Ike free Europe.

    Now General Clark is a fine officer, but ..."watching bombs get dropped on Serbia from 15,000 feet" isn't exactly like saving New Orleans, taking Vicksburg, or storming Normandy beach.

    Posted by Mask at 02/12/2007 @ 10:56am

41. I will admit that we cant rebuild Iraq by ourselves, IF you admit that you WANT the US to lose.

    Posted by CPT 02/12/2007 @ 10:46am

    See how generous CPT is being. He's "willing to admit" that we might need a cooperative government and national military in Iraq to win....if you'll just admit you love the "terrorists" (i.e. Sunni Iraqis) and want us to be humiliated!

    I wonder if he'd admit that we CAN "lose in Iraq"...even if Bush gets everything he wants (which he is) and that when we finally pull-out in a fighting retreat that MAYBE ol' George was wrong?

    doubt it....it'll be "Hillary and the Dems and the liberal media".

    Sad to say, buy like Bush, I think CPT would LOVE it if the "Saigon 1975, helos on the embassy" moment comes post January 20, 2009....and under President Her Majesty!

    Posted by Mask at 02/12/2007 @ 11:01am

42. "I will admit that we cant rebuild Iraq by ourselves, IF you admit that you WANT the US to lose."CPT

    that would be lying CPt. I wouldn't do that to you. Was that so hard, to admit that the military solution has not worked? Is flattening Najaf going to do it? I don't think so. How much more time do you want? I think the Iraqis have given us four years and hundreds of thousands of their lives. And we are farther from victory now than in 2004. 70 dead in one blast today.

    I hope you are right CPT, that this final push (too small in my view) will do it. History is not on your side though. Recognizing inevitable defeat does not equate to desiring it. Ignoring it will bring it on.

    [RIOexcrementosdepollo, as usual, has let some one else do his fighting for him. Cluck.]

    Posted by crabwalk at 02/12/2007 @ 11:07am

43. "Relatively stable guvt". Compared to what, Chechnya? Somolia? I would argue that for practical purposes, there is no guvt in Iraq.

    Posted by crabwalk at 02/12/2007 @ 11:09am

44. Posted by MASK 02/12/2007 @ 10:56am

    CPATAINKIRK was around yesterday. I think he would be best suited to talk about FTL travel.

    Better a belief in FTL than a belief in a winged horse bringing about righteous destruction in Gods name .

    Posted by crabwalk at 02/12/2007 @ 11:17am

45. Posted by MASK 02/12/2007 @ 11:01am

    well, i'm comfortable with a closet trekkie as pres...but i think what he was referring to was more in the theories of creating wormholes and such...not actually travelling faster tha the speed of light but getting around the same by folding space blah blah blah...

    as i am eminently unqualified to comment on the science, that is all i have to say....

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/12/2007 @ 11:21am

46. Re-reading Mr Hayes article....

    Interestingly, he seems to be arguing that Obama, as President....should act like BUSH.

    He's saying that for Obama to be a "real progressive", he's going to have to govern and enact policies that are quite un-popular (dipping down to low 50%s on approval no doubt) and that he would have to set himself up as a "divider, not uniter" to enact politically ACTIVE ideological ideas.

    Well...isn't that what Bush did? Took a slim MINORITY victory and enacted a group of policies that didn't "unite" Americans, and even "used 9/11" to do things that maybe a MAJORITY would disagree with.

    So would Mr Hayes begrudge or even support a President Obama who took an "economic 9/11" to run with a partisan economic agenda.

    Would he like a "progressive PNAC"?

    Again, just seems like Mr Hayes wants a candidate to play the Bush Game...."do what's right, even if it's unpopular"....with, of course, Mr Hayes and his ideological compatriots deciding "what's right"....like Bill Kristol, the Weekly Standard, Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney did?!?!?!!?

    Posted by Mask at 02/12/2007 @ 11:24am

47. Posted by CRABWALK 02/12/2007 @ 11:17am Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 02/12/2007 @ 11:21am

    Maybe I should have been clearer. My problem isn't with Clark's "beliefs"...he could have gone indepth and discussed "Alcubierre Drive" link [en.wikipedia.org], if he wanted...

    it's about DISCIPLINE. Campaign discipline and not "shooting off at the mouth" on weird ass topics.

    I think both you guys would agree that, if there is a double standard for Democrats with the "Right Wing Noise Machine" (Fox, Rush, etc)....that a Dem has to be MIGHTY CAREFUL about what they say on the campaign trail.

    Today it's "I think we'll go faster than the speed of light".....tomorrow, maybe "I actually voted for it, before voting against it"....hmmm?

    Posted by Mask at 02/12/2007 @ 11:28am

48. CPT,

    Though some here may see your recent quasi-admission of failure by the US military as a monumental step out of the idiot box you've been the boss of for four years now, I beg to differ. No matter what you say in light of the events of the past four years and of those to come, you have been nothing but a blind epigone attempting to make the rest of us hip to the splendor of imperial war masquerading as humanitarian intervention. It takes a certain breed of cur to come here day in and day out to speak of the military solution as cocksurely as you do do while your "brothers" fight and die for the lies you spill here, showing us time and again that might, while sufficient to down an opponent in a street fight and perhaps intimidate a few of his thuggish friends, isn't the keynote to leading a civilized world as you'd have us believe and as the USA's diminished stature in the world indicates. For eventually what goes around comes around, though there is reason to believe this is the reasoning behind some of what appears to be the dumbest decisions made by so many supposedly unerring men whose shoes you figuratively lick here on a regular basis - that perpetual war is the health of the state, an idea often evinced by your masters when they talk of the current struggle lasting beyond our lifetime.

    You live in a cloudland, plain and simple, but there too what goes around will come around, and you'll get yours for being complicit in this bloody mess and for aiding in the procurement of fresh meat for the battlefield where US foreign policy took a trip to Crazy Town.

    Posted by chimichenga at 02/12/2007 @ 11:57am

49. Posted by MASK 02/12/2007 @ 11:28am |

    either that or...completely shoot of at the mouth to such a level that people want to hear more...

    but 04 was a learning experience for clark - since then he has been a behind the scenes machinating and strategizing and learning.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/12/2007 @ 12:15pm

50. "People outside of Illinois forget that Obama only made it to the senate by default, winning against a far-right Alan Keyes from Maryland, for God's sake... With such a brief record in the Senate, and fearing few prospects for significant accomplishment, Obama may actually calculate that he can't get re-elected (ala "John Boy" Edwards) and, like Edwards, actually be angling for the VP spot on the 2008 ticket."

    That's not quite right. Yes, Keyes "filled in" when Ryan quit the campaign, but Obama had a sizable lead of Congressman Ryan and, unlike North Carolina, Illinois is a solidly Democratic state and has been for quite some time.

    Posted by hhemwm at 02/12/2007 @ 12:26pm

51. Obama is a "Star," no doubt about it. But the question becomes whether or not he really does see what needs to be done out there in the land. And that is hard to tell. Political veterans like Senator Kerry or Clinton or Biden tend to play it too carefully and they have experience. Then you get the Kucciniches who are also veterans and are not afraid to take controversial positions and they go nowhere in the polls.

    It is difficult in this day and age to galvanize people and retain momentum when we have the media culture that we have, the author is quite right.

    What I am waiting to hear is where Obama's moral compass come through. What does he really see and what must we do to move in that direction?

    Posted by hhemwm at 02/12/2007 @ 12:29pm

52. I rather like the guy. My only reservation at this point is his position on "Illegal Aliens". He appears to support Bush's position on a path to citizenship. Anyway you slice it this is AMNESTY! Illegal is illegal and these people should be deported, not pushed to the front of the line ahead of others who are trying to immigrate here by following the rules.

    Posted by Hernova at 02/12/2007 @ 2:01pm

53. Fuck John Howard anyway.

    Posted by DRHAMMER 02/12/2007 @ 10:52am | ignore this person

    If Obama becomes Pres and withdraws US troops from Iraq, boy old Johnnie is going to look like a complete moron, because he employed to the letter -- practically plagiarised -- the whole 'withdrawing troops emboldens terrorists' tune.

    Australians are very much against their troops being in Iraq. Luckily for Johnnie it hasn't been a political issue so far because we've only had one (non-combat) death, although it gave the govt as much grief as it possibly could in many ways.

    To start with, the whole scenario of a 'soldier accidentally shooting himself in the head with his own gun in the presence of his fellow soldiers' smells kinda fishy. Plus, the investigation didn't start until a few days after it all happened.

    On top of it all, the private contractor delivered a wrong body to the grieving family in Australia.

    Posted by vvvenus at 02/12/2007 @ 2:18pm

54. Sorry about going on a tangent.

    Posted by vvvenus at 02/12/2007 @ 2:19pm

55. since then he has been a behind the scenes machinating and strategizing and learning.

    Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 02/12/2007 @ 12:15am

    Yes...but not FUND-RAISING. Presidential primary politics is probably the only TRUE example of a "limited pie" theory there is. Between Hillary, Obama, and Edwards...at this point, even 2nd Tier guys like Richardson, Vilsack, Biden are left picking up crumbs....and they're IN the race already.

    General Clark will have to announce....A MONTH AGO..to try to get upto speed for another run. The first debate is in two months, for crap's sake and he's still only at the "a few posters are 'drafting' him" stage.

    Veep...maybe? Veep is easy, you don't even need to be IN the race and can get picked....a la Cheney in 2000, Gore in 1992, Mondale 1976, etc. He'd add "military gravitas" to any of the others, who for the most part, are NOT veterans and have no military background. He'd be helpful to Hillary and Edwards.

    BTW, CAN Obama have Clark as Veep? I thought there was some "rule" against having a Prez and Veep run who are from the same state???

    Posted by Mask at 02/12/2007 @ 3:40pm

56. I liked the post, and I thought it was more effective than the other writing I've read on the same theme. Two thoughts:

    1. Hayes talks about the civil war, the great depression and the civilrights movement, three cataclysmic events in our history. Our current time is nothing at all like any of those moments, and the reason is not simply that our leaders have avoided the big issues. While the progressive hunger for greater equality might feel akin to the civil rights movement for people like Hayes and Sirota, it does not feel that way to most Americans. We're at a fundamentally different time in history, and I do not think the particular challenges facing us today call out for the kind of revolutionary, unrelenting leadership Hayes, the progressives, et al, crave.

    2. Obama is new and magnetic and hard to define, and as a result, a lot of groups want to claim him as their own, or, are disappointed if he does not cohere to the exact image they have in their minds of the leader they have been waiting for. The progressives are starving for leadership, a national voice, and there are a lot of things about Obama that suggest he could be that person. But that's not who he is. At least, that's not all he is. Same with the black community. Obama teases them with the suggestion that he could be the breakthrough leader they have been looking for, but resist Obama because he does not wholly fulfill the image they have in their minds. For my part, I want Obama to embody my American pragmatism, my proclivity for communicative action over ideological fervor, and I feel a little disappointed every time he strikes a more strident note. But of course it is ridiculous for any of the three groups I just mentioned-the progressives the African-Americans or me, to turn away from Obama because he represents or embodies more than the necessarily provincial perspectives we hold. He is the best thing that has happened for progressives, blacks, and pragmatists and it would be a shame if any among the groups withheld their support because Obama's so good,but not quite perfect by their standards.

    Posted by klhartnett at 02/12/2007 @ 5:02pm

57. Why do progressives continue to criticize Barack Obama for his lack of political experience? Bill Clinton didn't have the most impressive resume prior to coming into office. I think the appeal of Obama is that he is actually honest and intelligent. Who else do the democrats have that has any amount of charisma? Hillary? Its easy to criticize the candidate that is getting all of the media attention. The fact is Obama has more of a message than any other candidate currently running, that has any kind of chance of winning.

    Posted by crroyal7 at 02/12/2007 @ 6:04pm

58. I could care less about Osama or Obama but I did hear him reply to the other War-Prezint, John Howard. That G.D. Australia sides with this country every time when it comes to war. WTF! They even had troops in Vietnam along with the Amerikans. Pigs!

    Posted by jazzfan at 02/12/2007 @ 10:14pm

59. Look into the faces of Obama's crowds, see the hopeful smiles, then watch their eyes close, as they look upward, and start to softly moan............

    Suddenly, they pant and gasp, faster and faster, until they all erupt into spontaneous, joyous and sobs.......

    they've just had an OBASM!

    Posted by davebarlett at 02/12/2007 @ 10:52pm

60. From all that went before it in the article I think the last sentence -- "Sometimes unity is the price of progress." -- expresses an unsupported conclusion. My take would be, unity is the price of winning an election. Progress is the random happenstance that comes later, if ever. Look around and note the still smoldering piles of exquisite rhetoric, mostly lies, that has been spewed forth by our current administration. Unity "won" the election but progress is no where to be seen. It is positively and regrettably invisible.

    Posted by arclight at 02/12/2007 @ 10:59pm

61. "But the problem is that those were moments not of unity, but of extreme polarization."

    Yes and no. Much depends here upon the perspective one assumes in looking at the events in question.

    The civil war was, in one sense, about as polarizing as a event can be, of course. But Obama's explicit appeal, in the announcement speech, was to the newly-forged unity of the Republican coalition of the 1850's -- a coalition that brought very disparate and previously-scattered Northern political forces together around the shared principle of opposing the extension of slavery in the territories. It was on this topic that Obama directly quoted Lincoln.

    And while the Civil Rights movement was, again, highly polarizing from one perspective, it was an occasion of extraordinary unity from another. Those firehoses and clubs and police dogs, wielded against unarmed and unresisting protestors, helped galvinize northern opinion around the idea that we could wait no longer as a people to right the great national wrong of segregation. The 1963 march on Washington is rightly remembered as a singular moment of shared political-moral resolve.

    I think Obama knows exactly what he is doing here, and the analogies he is drawing are entirely apt. Progressive change always meets fierce resistance. Just for that reason, it never succeeds without exceptional unity and shared moral purpose, on the part of the majority that alone has the power to make that change. When that unity and sense of shared moral purpose flags or falters (as for instance in the later stages of Reconstruction, or when the Civil Rights movement turned its attention northward in the later 1960's), so too does the cause of progressive change.

    Obama is not calling for unity at any price, any more than Lincoln or King did. He is calling for unity in the cause of justice. There will be those (mostly on the right) who reject his demand for justice, claiming it gives the lie to his stated aim of unity. There will be those (mostly to his left, I expect) who reject his plea for unity as fatally compromising the cause of justice. It was thus for Lincoln too, and for King.

    It is comparatively easy to be for justice, but to exempt oneself from the task of building a majority to enact justice; and it is easy to be for unity, if one is ready for every compromise with injustice that unity might require. The hard road, the road that shuns both political moralism and political vanity -- both Garrison and Douglass -- is try to bring together enough people to enact justice in the world as it is. This I take to be Obama's goal, and the underlying reason why unity and justice keep pace with each other in his public rhetoric.

    Posted by Amileoj at 02/13/2007 @ 12:53am

62. I think the 'veterans' the author is talking about would be WWI veterans, not Civil War Vets, ey?! Must be a bunch of stupid Republicans on here or something.....

    Posted by mjvivien at 02/13/2007 @ 12:54am

63. Hayes' assessment of Obama is as banal as it makes Obama out to be. What is missing here is an understanding of the "existential" inflection of Obama's political speeches and texts; at times, Obama reads more like a political philosopher than a political scientist, and the subtleties and nuances of this existential difference are really what matters here.

    Progress and unity might have no real precedent in the violences of American history, but this does not mean it is impossible. Nonetheless, even if progress and unity are together impossible, we must "demand the impossible"--as the students of May '68 called--from our political figures. Why do complain about so-called liberal leaders when they show no "spine," but when Obama runs a carefully considered, articulated, and sophisticated campaign that aims for progress and unity we set out to first critique his "audacity"?

    If Obama inflects an existential quality to his politics, he also inflects a pedagogical perspective that becomes the ground for social, cultural, and individual transformation.

    Posted by anarkissed at 02/13/2007 @ 09:49am

64. Oh My!

    The world begins to learn that Obama is a fake!

    Posted by srsjones825 at 02/13/2007 @ 12:06pm