McCain and Obama Coming Together on Iraq?

Are candidates John McCain and Barack Obama seeing eye-to-eye on Iraq?

McCain's been criticized for allegedly pledging a 100-year commitment, while Obama's been one of Democratic Party's most vocifererous Iraq critics and surrender hawks.

Can these two be reconciled on the war?

Well, with John McCain's major address yesterday on his presidential vision and goals by 2013, there's speculation that the Republican and Democratic Party Iraq positions are merging toward a happy medium.

The Los Angeles Times make the case:

After launching their candidacies with opposite positions on the Iraq war, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama seem to be edging toward a middle ground between them.

McCain has long denounced timetables for withdrawal, but said for the first time Thursday that he would like to see most U.S. troops out of Iraq by a specific date: 2013.

Obama has emphasized his plan to withdraw all combat brigades within 16 months of taking office, but also has carefully hedged, leaving the option of taking more time -- and leaving more troops -- if events require.

The positioning is noteworthy because McCain and Obama have made Iraq war policy a core element of their campaigns. But McCain has bowed to the political reality that American impatience with the war is growing, and Obama to the fact that a poorly executed exit would risk damage to other vital U.S. interests.

"It's one thing to stake out a relatively uncompromising position early in the presidential process," said Stuart Rothenberg of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. "But when the idea that you might move into the Oval Office hits you squarely between the eyes, it reminds you that there's a time to be pragmatic about these things."

The maneuvering also reflects the increasingly difficult politics of the Iraq war as the country heads into a general presidential campaign in which the candidates must broaden their appeal for votes. In a debate, the clearest differences between McCain and Obama on Iraq would be their prewar positions: McCain was in favor, Obama opposed. Somewhat less clear, however, would be their approach to the Iraq end game.

The general thrust here is to paint McCain as making a huge concession to the realities of public opinion on Iraq, which has long questioned the decision on invading, but has not demanded an immediate withdrawal.

By contrast, the Times makes it seem if Obama's one of the Democratic Party's "wise men," suggesting that he's practically the party's leading foreign policy moderate:

Obama also has modified his positions as a presidential candidate, toughening his stand on normalizing relations with Cuba, for instance, by insisting on democratic reforms.

On Iraq, the senator from Illinois has made it a point in public comments to guard his prerogatives as president. At campaign stops and in interviews, he has regularly emphasized his promise to start bringing home troops as soon as he is elected, and to bring home one or two combat brigades each month, so that the approximately 19 combat brigades are out within 16 months.

Less noticed is his promise that he will listen to military commanders and react to events on the ground -- caveats that give him wide latitude.

Obama says he wants to keep a "follow-on force" in Iraq that would fight terrorists, protect U.S. forces and facilities, and train Iraqi forces. Obama has not provided an estimate of how large that force might be.

If there's anyone who's bowing to reality it's Obama.

As Peter Wehner has argued, the Illinois Senator has advocated more troops when the war was going badly (an opportunistic attack on the administration), and he's called for an immediate withdrawal when things have turned around under General Petraeus' counterinsurgency strategy. In other words, Obama's been consistently wrong.

So the issue should not be about public opinion jockeying to get closer to public preferences on the war. The question is which candidate possesses the requisite foreign policy judgment in a time of great international challenges?

Just last year Obama proved himself to be one of the most strident Iraq opponents in Washington, for example, when he called the war "a complete failure" on the campaign trail.

Obama's foreign policy calls for diplomacy with Iran "without preconditions," which is tantamount to giving Iran anything it wants and demanding nothing in exchange: "Oh, sure, Mahmoud, you can keep your nuclear program if you'll just cut back a little on IED deliveries to Iraq ... thanks buddy!"

Obama has proposed a "global antipoverty act" that would commit the U.S. to spending a 13-year total of $845 billion above and beyond America's current level of foreign aid. This would amount to a massive new tax on Americans and redirect the United States to a foreign policy of social work.

There are considerable foreign policy differences between John McCain and Barack Obama.

McCain will not blame America first, and then try to make up for it through appeasment and profligate foreign aid largesse.

McCain will stand up to our enemies. He'll tell them America will not tolerate your nihilist mayhem and the slaughering of innocents. We will never surrender.

Liberal Internationalism and Regime Change Myanmar

In my earlier entry, "Regime Change Myanmar?," I noted:

The humanitarian crisis in Myanmar is the most recent example of state failure among the developing world's authoritarian regimes.

Yesterday's Los Angeles Times noted, for example, that the Myanmar government's initial refusal to accept international relief reflected the junta's indecision and fear.

Whatever the cause, it's simply unacceptable for the world community to stand by idly while hundreds of thousands perish, and the nation descends into a nightmare of disease and hunger.

I suggested too that I was seeing little support for outside intervention on either side of the political spectrum, although liberal internationalists have long argued for regime change in precisely situations like these.

Well it turns out that the hippest liberal internationalist du jour has done a little writing on this, and Ross Douthat offers his response:

Matt has an interesting post on the questions that Burma raises for liberal internationalism of the sort he advances in Heads in the Sand:

Realistically, you're not going to see a forceful U.N. intervention in Burma because no country capable of mounting such an operation (basically the U.S. and maybe Britain and France) would want to mount one, while Russia and China (and probably even post-colonial democracies like India) would be opposed to anyone mounting one, and democratic countries would be secretly glad that Russia and China would block a move like this because they could blame inaction on Russia and China ... for a domestic audience even though they wouldn't want to step in themselves.

That said, if you could sort of bracket the logistics/will/capabilities issues, with any proposed humanitarian military intervention I've come to think that we need to think seriously about two issues - legitimacy and sustainability. We really might be greeted by the Burmese as liberators ... The trouble is what happens the day after you're greeted as a liberator. An occupying foreign power is naturally going to come to be viewed with suspicion by the occupied. This is in many ways an intrinsic problem, but it can be ameliorated a lot by legitimacy -- especially the kind of legitimacy you get from the U.N. where precisely because the UNSC decision-making process is cumbersome you can be ensured that a UNSC authorization reflects a broad international consensus ...

The other thing is sustainability. The international system needs to have some kind of recognized rules of the road. "The United States topples foreign regimes when we decide their government is bad" isn't a reasonable proposal for us to ask people in Beijing, Moscow, New Delhi, Teheran, Brasilia, or anywhere else to live by. By "any large country topples any foreign regime when it decides their government is bad" is a terrible rule that would lead to a lot of destructive conflict of various sorts. At the end of the day, great power conflict -- even if it "only" takes the form of cold war-style standoffs -- will do immense humanitarian damage to the world and avoiding it should be a very high priority. Does that mean we should do nothing? No, it doesn't, it means American officials (and, indeed, civil society figures) should keep pushing the international community to move to a world where something like the Responsibility to Protect has some force in the real world. But it has to be done in a reasonable consensual way that tries to stitch together America and its traditional allies with new emerging powers in various regions ...

I think this argument captures what I take to be the central difficulty with Matt's thesis: Namely, the extent to which it's offering a long-term agenda as a response to a question - how, when where and why the U.S. and our allies should intervene abroad - that tends to manifest itself as a series of discrete and very immediate challenges. It's all very well to say that the United States should be trying to build a world order in which great powers like Russia and China are willing to sign on whatever sort of Burmese intervention might theoretically be sanctioned under the "Responsibility to Protect" umbrella, but even if you're optimistic that such a world order is attainable - which Matt is, and I'm not - it's still far enough off that we can expect many more Burma-style (or Darfur-style, or Kosovo-style, or Rwanda-style) quandaries in the meantime. And answering the "what is to be done?" question that invariably accompanies these crises by saying that "American officials ...should keep pushing the international community to move to a world where something like the Responsibility to Protect has some force in the real world" amounts to answering it by saying "in the short term, nothing."

Now, that may be the right answer, but it's an answer that's more likely to appeal to realists and non-interventionists of the left and right than to the liberal internationalists to whom Matt's addressing himself. Basically, it amounts to telling people who are ideologically invested in the idea of interventions to halt wars, genocides, famines and so forth that they need to accept today's famine, and tomorrow's genocide, and the day after that's bloody civil war ... and someday, if the U.S. plays its cards right and invests heavily enough in a multilateral framework for international relations, the other great powers will come around to "rules of the road" under which it's plausible to imagine the UN conducting humanitarian interventions inside the borders of its more misgoverned member states. And while the Iraq invasion has made this Yglesian, "choose the UN, and patience" approach to world affairs much more appealing to the liberal-internationalist set than it was in, say, 1999 or 2002, as time goes by and more Burmese-style crises pass without an international response, I expect that most liberal hawks will default back toward the more aggressive and UN-skeptical approach to the world's troubles that at present is defended primarily by neoconservatives.

This is a long way of saying what I was trying to get at, clumsily, in my conversation with Matt about his book - namely, that he's trying carve out a "liberal internationalist" middle ground between the sort of liberal hawkery that helped give us the Iraq War and the non-interventionist (or pacifist) left, but that in practice (at least when the U.S. isn't just coming off a disastrous overseas intervention) this middle ground tends to get very narrow very fast: From JFK down to Bill Clinton and the liberals who agitated for the invasion of Iraq, it's hard to find all that many prominent liberal internationalists (at least within the Democratic Party) who resisted the temptation, when it presented itself, to choose interventionist ends even when the multilateral means that liberal internationalism is theoretically committed to weren't available.

I indulged the full quote so readers can digest it themselves - but also because I simply can't stand Yglesias' radical foreign policy project, and I want to give full play to Douthat's takedown.

Douthat mentions his "conversation" with Yglesias (available here), where he frankly puts Yglesias in a bind by suggesting that the international system doesn't just float by itself after one establishes some "legitimate" set on multilateral institutions and rules. The maintenance of international order is a collective action problem, and to overcome the system's inherent free-riding behavior (that will likely kill the regime), a "privileged group" or hegemon is required to bear the greatest burden in supporting the institutional order.

That hegemon is the United States, and since Yglesias detests not only U.S. power and prepondrance, but the use of any and all military force as well, there's no way he's going support a U.S.-led invasion of Myanmar to topple the military junta and open up that country to the world's humanitarianism that's practically pleading to help Burma's afflicted.

I've read Yglesias' Head in the Sand, and I'm planning to post a review on it sometime soon.

The book is inconsistent and utopian, and fails because it refuses to see any useful role for the deployment of American hard power.

Douthat is indulgent toward his colleague, who I imagine he has to see at the office quite frequently, and thus prefers some semblance of collegiality.

But let's be honest: Heads in the Sand is a long treatise in the foreign policy of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Yglesias comes out and says at least once explicitly, and by implication on a number of other occasions, that there's nothing - not one thing - redeeming about the Bush administration's foreign policy: Not breaking free from the outdated Cold War arms control framework, not resisting Kyoto-style hypocrisy on international climate change, not on Afghanistan (a war that had bipartisan support, but is pilloried by Yglesias as simply a "superficially important" warmup for toppling Saddam), and not the war in Iraq (where the surge is now looking to be the most important U.S. military turnaround in history).

And that's a serious problem, for even Yglesias' liberal international mentors see elements of utility in American leadership in security affairs, even in cases like Iraq, where (dubious) questions of international legitimacy constrained the American exercise of power.

I'll have more on these themes later.

But regarding regime change Myanmar, see Anne Applebaum, "A Drastic Remedy: The Case for Intervention in Burma."

Photo Credit: "Video footage has emerged showing the bodies of children who died in the cyclone, laid out in a row in a makeshift riverside morgue," BBC News

Hillary Clinton's Lessons for McCain

I just love the picture! A bipartisan smooch!

It reminds me of Mike's America's unhinged attacks on John McCain during the primaries, when he was slurring McCain as RINO.

But check out Jennifer Rubin's article, "Hillary’s Lessons for John McCain":

Barack Obama has won the Democratic nomination. Magnanimous Democrats might applaud Hillary Clinton for energizing the party and helping to register millions of new voters, but her contribution was not merely to her own side.

Clinton’s failures and successes provide some invaluable lessons for John McCain as well—if he’s alert enough to heed them.

Clinton’s most serious error, her delinquency in recognizing that this is the greatest “change” election in a generation, should serve as a warning to McCain, who is already saddled with the most damaging label in this election season: “Republican.” The winning message in this election is not likely to be “Experience” or “Ready on Day One.” And it certainly won’t be “How to Build on the George Bush Legacy.”

In every poll, voters overwhelmingly tell us that they think the country is on the wrong track and want someone who can take us in a new direction. McCain might be able to argue that Obama’s direction is faulty or even dangerous. But McCain is unlikely to convince voters that the best reason to vote for him is, as Obama ever so indelicately points out, his “fifty years of service to his country.” (Conversely, Obama’s own modest résumé never seemed to bother most voters.)

If the McCain camp had been paying attention, they might also have noticed that Clinton got nowhere with cynical attacks on Obama’s inspirational rhetoric. “Change you can Xerox” will go down as one of the lamest debate insults in modern times. Whining about his big rallies and fancy phrases sounded envious and small-minded and severely underestimated Americans' desire to be inspired by leaders. Republican heirs of Ronald Reagan should know better than anyone that politics is the art of inspiring people to join your cause. Grousing that Obama does it exceptionally well is not a recipe for success.

But Clinton did not just leave the campaign trail littered with mistakes and miscalculations. In her run of successes through Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania, she also carved a path that a savvy McCain team might follow.

While some conservatives are loath to admit it, millions of working-class Americans don’t feel like they have benefited from macroeconomic growth, free trade and globalization. By identifying on a visceral level with these voters, pledging to fight for them and offering specific policy prescriptions aimed at their daily concerns, Clinton found her greatest electoral success.

If McCain commits to expanding and reinvigorating the American dream of upward mobility and to ensuring that the playing field is at least level for these voters, he stands a chance to inherit these voters who, Clinton has shown, admire a feisty, combative and world-wise champion.

Rubin makes some additional observations on Barack Obama's weaknesses, issues which I don't think are lost on the McCain campaign (although it doesn't hurt to emphasize those liabilities).

Photo Credit: New York Observer

Winning Late: Can West Virginia Change Democratic Race?

Check out the Economist's take on Hillary Clinton's big win in West Virginia this week:

IN LOGAN, the local high school's cheerleaders wrote a chant for Hillary Clinton's visit on May 12th: “H-I-L-L-A-R-Y, Hillary, our nominee!” In Fairmont, her supporters printed T-shirts reading, “We Need A Mama, Not Obama”. And on May 13th Mrs Clinton won West Virginia's Democratic primary by a whopping 41 points, almost the largest margin of her candidacy so far. For Mrs Clinton, the state is “almost heaven”, she said, quoting John Denver's “Country Roads” to a raucous crowd of supporters.

The state's profile is, indeed, perfect for Mrs Clinton: West Virginia's Democrats are relatively poor, undereducated, ageing and overwhelmingly white. With one of the highest number of veterans per head in the country, the state takes displays of patriotism—such as flag pins—very seriously. Barack Obama visited the state only once, and when he did he admitted he was likely to lose.

Although Mrs Clinton's head is in Appalachia's heavenly peaks, only a miracle can save her candidacy now. On May 14th John Edwards, who ran a respectable third in the Democratic stakes thanks to his appeal to white working-class voters, endorsed Mr Obama. Mr Obama has just taken the lead even in superdelegate endorsements, the last meaningful measure to favour Mrs Clinton. And despite her thumping victory in West Virginia and her likely win in Kentucky on May 20th, Mr Obama will finish the primary season with more delegates and more votes than Mrs Clinton. In Washington, regardless of both successes, the debate is still all about not whether she will concede but when, and how.

So, that's it, only a miracle can save her?

Not everyone thinks so:

"It's not over! It's not over!" The chant echoed through the Charleston Civic Center last night as defiant Hillary Clinton supporters urged their candidate to keep on fighting. The almost all-white crowd included a disproportionately large number of elderly women. The sparsely decorated main hall of the civic center—the barren walls made it all too obvious that Clinton's campaign is desperately low on funds—didn't matter, because the crowd kept things festive. Teenage girls wore homemade T-shirts saying "Hillary's Tag Team." A young man standing behind the podium where Clinton delivered her victory speech steadily punched an invisible opponent with red boxing gloves. A group of union members launched into a booming "Madame President" singsong.

More than a dozen Clinton supporters interviewed by NEWSWEEK said they believe Clinton can still win, and many faulted a biased media for prematurely writing her off.

See more news and analysis at Memeorandum.

Oh, the Misogyny!

Historians, sociologists, and feminist scholars, in the months and years ahead, will no doubt be busy sorting out all the gender implications of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

I spend a lot of time on women's equality issues on my sections on civil rights in my courses, so naturally I've paid attention to developments. Indeed, I've joked about some of the feminist outrage of campaign '08, for example, on the backlash following Charlotte Allen's tongue-in-cheek essay in March, "We Scream, We Swoon. How Dumb Can We Get?"

Remember what Noemie Emery wrote about the episode:

LAST SUNDAY, OUR friend Charlotte Allen wrote a gentle spoof for the Outlook section of the Washington Post on the general subject of feminine ditziness, suggesting that at times members of her and my gender could be ineffectual, overemotional, sometimes irrational, and, now and then, "dim." Readers swooned, feminists shrieked (Katha Pollitt in a riposte on the Post's website), and Post higher-ups raised the white flag of contrition, unaware, so it seems, that exactly two days later--on Tuesday, March 4--the paper itself had run two major stories that proved every point Allen made.

Well it turns out that even if the Post's own reporting bears out some of Allen's points, perhaps the feminists have a case on gender-baiting mysogyny this season.

Marie Cocco has an interesting piece providing evidence to that effect:

As the Democratic nomination contest slouches toward a close, it's time to take stock of what I will not miss.

I will not miss seeing advertisements for T-shirts that bear the slogan "Bros before Hos." The shirts depict Barack Obama (the Bro) and Hillary Clinton (the Ho) and are widely sold on the Internet.

I will not miss walking past airport concessions selling the Hillary Nutcracker, a device in which a pantsuit-clad Clinton doll opens her legs to reveal stainless-steel thighs that, well, bust nuts. I won't miss television and newspaper stories that make light of the novelty item.

I won't miss episodes like the one in which liberal radio personality Randi Rhodes called Clinton a "big [expletive] whore" and said the same about former vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro. Rhodes was appearing at an event sponsored by a San Francisco radio station, before an audience of appreciative Obama supporters -- one of whom had promoted the evening on the presumptive Democratic nominee's official campaign Web site.

I won't miss Citizens United Not Timid (no acronym, please), an anti-Clinton group founded by Republican guru Roger Stone.

Political discourse will at last be free of jokes like this one, told last week by magician Penn Jillette on MSNBC: "Obama did great in February, and that's because that was Black History Month. And now Hillary's doing much better 'cause it's White Bitch Month, right?" Co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski rebuked Jillette.

I won't miss political commentators (including National Public Radio political editor Ken Rudin and Andrew Sullivan, the columnist and blogger) who compare Clinton to the Glenn Close character in the movie "Fatal Attraction." In the iconic 1987 film, Close played an independent New York woman who has an affair with a married man played by Michael Douglas. When the liaison ends, the jilted woman becomes a deranged, knife-wielding stalker who terrorizes the man's blissful suburban family. Message: Psychopathic home-wrecker, begone.

There's more at the link, but it's hard to miss Cocco's message.

I'm a McCain man, but I'd be supporting Hillary over Obama in the Democratic primaries (so no mysogyny here!). Not only can she pound 'em back like a parched West Virginia coal miner, she's tough on the Iranians too!

So, readers should't read too much into my fun-feminist posts. I've already lost one reader who didn't appreciate the political humor!

Obama Tax Proposals Stir Backlash on Left

Barack Obama's tax proposals are generating backlash among centrist Democrats.

How far left can the shady Chicago socialist go? It turns out there might be a limit even in the Democratic Party:

The centrist Democratic group instrumental to former President Clinton's rise to the White House in 1992 has some advice for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.: get to the center, starting with taxes.

"In the fall, our nominee will have to do what John Kerry had to do in the 2004 debates, which is turn to the camera and say, 'No, I will not raise taxes on people making less than $200,000,'" said Bruce Reed, the president of the Democratic Leadership Council, in an interview with ABC News.

During ABC News' April 16 debate in Philadelphia, asked whether he would take an absolute "read my lips" pledge not to increase taxes of any kind for anyone earning less than $200,000 a year, Obama seemed to agree.

"Well, I not only have pledged not to raise their taxes, I've been the first candidate in this race to specifically say I would cut their taxes," Obama said.

Reed, however, does not think Obama's answer in Philadelphia qualified as a pledge to protect those earning less than $200,000 because the Democratic front-runner has left open the possibility of raising Social Security taxes for those making as little as $97,000 per year.

Asked about the DLC's advice, Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in an e-mail message, "We've said countless times we'd consider a donut," referring to the idea of exempting income between $97,000 and $200,000 from facing the 12.4 percent Social Security tax.

Reed, however, does not think Obama's promise to consider a donut goes far enough. A chief domestic policy adviser under the Clinton administration, Reed thinks that in order to get through the general election, Obama should make it absolutely clear that higher Social Security taxes will not start below $200,000 per year.

"It's exceedingly unrealistic to expect that you could raise taxes on people under $200,000 anyway, so why not be honest about the circumstances and fight for responsible restoration of tax rates on the wealthy," said Reed. "That will be an extremely difficult battle, but we might win if we have a supportive enough Congress."

Beyond ruling out higher taxes on those making less than $200,000, Reed wants Obama to get specific on his proposed spending cuts.

"We need to show as much enthusiasm for controlling spending as we do for proposing it," said Reed.

This is an interesting debate, particularly in that public opinion supports increasing taxes, "Dems Favor Economic Redistribution by 2 to 1 Over Republicans."

Keep an eye on this debate, because, as Leon Wieseltier has noted, Obama has demonstrated Marxist tendencies, and the Illinois Senator has yet to make a national address defining his measurement for determining the income qualifications for capitalists and proletarians.

The Case for a League of Democracies

I love John McCain's proposal for a international league of democratic states.

The idea's bipartisan, (relatively) new, and exciting.

The notion of a concert of great democratic powers augmenting the moribund international institutions of the post-World War II-era couldn't come at a better time, as the United Nations descends into further irrelevance amid Third World radicalism that enables the worst excesses of rogue state manuevering in the new global system of transnational terror.

Current American preponderance will be more effective with a new array of structures conducive to cooperation among liberal democratic polities.

Robert Kagan makes the case for a league of democracies at the Financial Times:

With tensions between Russia and Georgia rising, Chinese nationalism growing in response to condemnation of Beijing’s crackdown on Tibet, the dictators of cyclone-ravaged Burma resisting international aid , the crisis in Darfur still raging, the Iranian nuclear programme still burgeoning and Robert Mugabe still clinging violently to rule in Zimbabwe – what do you suppose keeps some foreign policy columnists up at night? It is the idea of a new international organisation, a league or concert of democratic nations.

“Dangerous,” warns a columnist on this page, fretting about a new cold war. Nor is he alone. On both sides of the Atlantic the idea – set forth most prominently by Senator John McCain a year ago – has been treated as impractical and incendiary. Perhaps a few observations can still this rising chorus of alarm.

The idea of a concert of democracies originated not with Republicans but with US Democrats and liberal inter­nationalists. Madeleine Albright, former secretary of state, tried to launch such an organisation in the 1990s. More recently it is the brainchild of Ivo Daalder, a foreign policy expert and senior adviser to Barack Obama. It has also been promoted by Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton university, and professor John Ikenberry, the renowned liberal internationalist theorist. It has backers in Europe, too, such as Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister, who recently proposed his own vision of an “alliance of democracies”. The fact that Mr McCain has championed the idea might tell us something about his broad-mindedness. But Europeans should not reach for their revolvers just because the Republican candidate said it first.

American liberal internationalists like the idea because its purpose is to promote liberal internationalism. Mr Ikenberry believes a concert of democracies can help re-anchor the US in an internationalist framework. Mr Daalder believes it will enhance the influence that America’s democratic allies wield in Washington. So does Mr McCain, who in a recent speech talked about the need for the US not only to listen to its allies but to be willing to be persuaded by them.

A league of democracies would also promote liberal ideals in international relations. The democratic community supports the evolving legal principle known as “the responsibility to protect”, which holds leaders to account for the treatment of their people. Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, has suggested it could be applied to Burma if the generals persist in refusing international aid to their dying people. That idea was summarily rejected at the United Nations, where other humanitarian interventions – in Darfur today or in Kosovo a few years ago – have also met resistance.

So would a concert of democracies supplant the UN? Of course not, any more than the Group of Eight leading industrialised nations or any number of other international organisations supplant it. But the world’s democracies could make common cause to act in humanitarian crises when the UN Security Council cannot reach unanimity. If people find that prospect unsettling, then they should seek the disbandment of Nato and the European Union and other regional organisations which not only can but, in the case of Kosovo, have taken collective action in crises when the Security Council was deadlocked. The difference is that the league of democracies would not be limited to Europeans and Americans but would include the world’s other great democracies, such as India, Brazil, Japan and Australia, and would have even greater legitimacy.

Note Kagan's key point: The new body would act when "the UN Security Council cannot reach unanimity," which is most of the time!

During the Cold War, precisely two major multilateral actions were taken under traditional theories of collective security: In Korea in 1950, when the Soviet Union boycotted the Security Council vote on North Korean aggression, and in 1990, at the end of the Cold War, when both President G.H.W. Bush and Soviet Premiere Mikhail Gorbachev joined together in a New World Order to authorize the repellence of Iraq's invasion Kuwait.

Despite the democratic league's origins in Democratic Party foreign policy circles, the proposal will be resisted vigorously by leftists now that McCain's endorsed it.

McCain's recently backed off the proposal, but he shouldn't.

The idea offers a genuinely important alternative to the postwar system of international institutions. As Kagan notes, the traditional order of multilateral institutions will not be replaced, but facing a little competition, they might improve their speed and efficiency in responding to the world's contemporary crises.

Barack Obama, the Crossover Vote, and the White Working Class

Republican John Weiler, the winner of MoveOn's "Obama in 30 Seconds" contest, endorses Barack Obama in the video:

I don't see how any Republican could endorse Obama, but it turns out there are quite a few, including some of high prominence:

Susan Eisenhower is more than just another disappointed Republican. She is also Ike's granddaughter and a dedicated member of the party who has urged her fellow Republicans in the past to stick with the GOP. But now Eisenhower, who runs an international consulting firm, is endorsing Barack Obama. She has no plans to officially leave the Republican Party. But in Eisenhower's view, Obama is the only candidate who can build a national consensus on the issues most important to her—energy, global warming, an aging population and America's standing in the world....

Eisenhower is one of a small but symbolically powerful group of what Obama recently called "Obamacans"—disaffected Republicans who have drifted away from their party just as Eisenhower Democrats did and, more recently, Reagan Democrats in the 1980s.

So apparently MoveOn, in selecting Weiler's story - from a selection over 1100 submissions - sees this message as a chance to capture a large crossover vote in the fall, not unlike the "Reagan Democrats" from the 1980s.

I'm skeptical of the strategy frankly, considering Obama's dramatic weakness with conservative white working class voters, many of whom may have registered or voted GOP in recent elections.

I'm particulary unimpressed with Weiler himself. Perhaps he's suffering from BDS, but Weiler ought to realize that Obama's turning out to be even more lightweight on foreign policy than was suspected.

As Captain Ed notes, with reference to Obama's gaffes yesterday on Afganistan and Iraq:

Obama’s rhetoric calls into question whether he has any real knowledge of the issues in either Iraq or Afghanistan in any depth beyond that of the latest MoveOn talking points.

Note something too: Gallup today reports that Obama essentially ties John McCain in attracting political independents, but he's having a harder time keeping Democratic partisans in his column:

Each candidate wins the vast majority of votes from his own party, with Obama currently holding a 76% to 15% edge over McCain among Democratic registered voters and McCain leading Obama by 84% to 12% among Republican registered voters.

The candidates' own party support has been very stable thus far this year, with Obama's share of the Democratic vote ranging from 73% to 76% since mid-March and McCain's share of the GOP vote between 84% and 87%.

Obama is able to hold his own against McCain despite receiving less support from his fellow partisans because significantly more Americans currently identify as Democrats than as Republicans.

Independents are usually one of the most closely watched swing voter groups each presidential election. However, contrary to expectations, they are not always decisive, in part because turnout among independents is usually lower than it is among those with a political party affiliation....

It would seem more critical that McCain prevail among independents in order for him to win the November election, given the deficit in Republican identification and voting enthusiasm to the Democrats.

Barack Obama appears vulnerable to me.

While MoveOn's angling to attract crossover Republicans with ads like the one above, the immediate challenge for Obama will be in winning over the vast bulk of Middle American conservatives from his own party, many of whom have been voting for Hillary Clinton in high and increasing numbers.

See also, the New York Times, "After Big Loss, Obama Woos Blue-Collar Voters."

Who's to Blame When Students Fail?

Remember my post from last week, "Blaming Teachers? Educational Accountability and Student Performance?"

I noted in that entry how I'm hesitant to base tenure decision on student perfermance indicators, such as testing results and percentages of students mastering course curriculum.

Well, check out this piece from Inside Higher Education, "Students Fail — and Professor Loses Job," which chronicles the story of Steven Aird at Norfolk State University:

Who is to blame when students fail? If many students fail — a majority even — does that demonstrate faculty incompetence, or could it point to a problem with standards?

These are the questions at the center of a dispute that cost Steven D. Aird his job teaching biology at Norfolk State University. Today is his last day of work, but on his way out, he has started to tell his story — one that he suggests points to large educational problems at the university and in society. The university isn’t talking publicly about his case, but because Aird has released numerous documents prepared by the university about his performance — including the key negative tenure decisions by administrators — it is clear that he was denied tenure for one reason: failing too many students. The university documents portray Aird as unwilling to compromise to pass more students.

A subtext of the discussion is that Norfolk State is a historically black university with a mission that includes educating many students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The university suggests that Aird — who is white — has failed to embrace the mission of educating those who aren’t well prepared. But Aird — who had backing from his department and has some very loyal students as well — maintains that the university is hurting the very students it says it wants to help. Aird believes most of his students could succeed, but have no incentive to work as hard as they need to when the administration makes clear they can pass regardless.

“Show me how lowering the bar has ever helped anyone,” Aird said in an interview. Continuing the metaphor, he said that officials at Norfolk State have the attitude of “a track coach who tells the team ‘I really want to win this season but I really like you guys, so you can decide whether to come to practice and when.’ ” Such a team wouldn’t win, Aird said, and a university based on such a principle would not be helping its students.

Sharon R. Hoggard, a spokeswoman for Norfolk State, said that she could not comment at all on Aird’s case. But she did say this, generally, on the issues raised by Aird: “Something is wrong when you cannot impart your knowledge onto students. We are a university of opportunity, so we take students who are underprepared, but we have a history of whipping them into shape. That’s our niche.”

Now, think about that: Something's wrong WITH THE PROFESSOR, who's being portrayed as unable to impart knowledge. He has "failed to embrace the mission of educating those who aren’t well prepared. "

I guess that answers the question on "who's to blame when students fail?"

Aird was in a catch-22 situation, for even when students did well in classes, he wasn't credited as being a successful teacher:

Some of the students writing on his behalf received grades as low as C, although others received higher grades.

But although DeLoatch held Aird responsible for his failures, she wrote that he did not deserve any credit for his success stories and these students, by virtue of their strong academic performance, shouldn’t influence the tenure decision. “With the exception of one of these students, it appears that all have either excelled or are presently performing well at NSU. Given their records, it is likely that that would be the case no matter who their advisors or teachers were.”

Sounds a bit double-standard-ish, no?

Note Aird's explanation of the situation:

“I think most of the students have the intellectual capacity to succeed, but they have been so poorly trained, and given all the wrong messages by the university,” he said.

The problem at Norfolk State, he said, isn’t his low grades, but the way the university lowers expectations. He noted that in the dean’s negative review of his tenure bid, nowhere did she cite specific students who should have received higher grades, or subject matter that shouldn’t have been in his courses or on his tests. The emphasis is simply on passing students, he said.

“If everyone here would tell students that ‘you are either going to work or get out,’ they would work, and they would blossom,” he said. “We’ve got to present a united front — high academic standards in all classes across the institution. Some students will bail, and we can’t help those, but the ones who stay will realize that they aren’t going to be given a diploma for nothing, and that their diploma means something.”

I feel the same way sometimes, when I have students complaining about my policies on late work, or something, when they say, "well, professor so-and-so lets me turn my stuff in late..."

He sounds like a crusader, but he's going to have to battle like Syssiphus to change the system.

See also, Paul Trout, "Student Anti-Intellectualism and the Dumbing Down of the University."

Economic Recession? These Aren't the Worst of Times

According to the most recent Gallup data on the public's economic perceptions, "87% of Americans say economic conditions are getting worse."

But they're not. We're having rough economic times, and while some in the blogosphere are quick to pin blame on the Bush administration, the most dire predictions of an economic downturn have not come true.

Here's this morning's Wall Street Journal, "Recession? Not So Fast, Say Some":

A funny thing happened to the economy on its way to recession: It's taken a detour.

That, at least, is the view of a growing number of economists -- including some who not long ago were saying a recession was all but inevitable. They note that stock and credit markets have steadily improved since the Federal Reserve intervened to keep Bear Stearns Cos. from bankruptcy in early March, while a series of economic reports have been stronger than expected.

Economists also cite swift policy responses, including a sharp reduction in interest rates by the Fed -- to 2% from 5.25% last September -- and the distribution of fiscal-stimulus checks to millions of Americans, as factors possibly easing the downturn.

"A couple months ago it seemed like we were on the abyss," said Jay Bryson, global economist with Wachovia Corp., referring to the seizing up of credit markets and the collapse of Bear Stearns. "Things have changed....The numbers we've seen recently haven't been as bad as we were led to believe just a few months ago."

Wachovia now puts the odds of recession at 45%, down from 90% in April, and expects growth in gross domestic product of 0.6% at an annual rate in the first and second quarters of this year, followed by 1.2% growth in the third and fourth quarters. While he doesn't expect a recession, he says growth will be very weak through next year.

Indeed, plenty of economic warning signs remain, as reflected in plunging consumer confidence data and polls reflecting deep unease among voters. Rising prices for food and other commodities are prompting Americans to trim some spending and stoking concerns about inflation. The ongoing run-up in oil prices has pushed the average price of a gallon of gasoline to $3.73 as of Tuesday, according to AAA, the automobile group. Home prices continue to decline and many economists expect that to depress spending in the months ahead.

The article goes on to suggest that consumer confidence is low, and some economic data show continuing difficulties, but unemployment claims remain historically low and employers are not radically shredding the size of the workforce.

Zachary Karabell comments on the public's perceptions, and warns that pervasive pessimism threatens to sap America's normal chin-up-can-do-it-tiveness:

There is no denying that the current financial morass is deep and painful. But taking the long view, there is something both startling and disturbing about the gloom that has settled over Wall Street and the country in general. In fact, looking back over the past century, it would be a stretch to rank the current problems as especially notable or dramatic. Something else is going on – namely a cultural rut of pessimism that is draining our collective energy, blinding us to possibilities, and eroding our position in the world.

Right now we have an unemployment rate of 5% and headline inflation topping 4%. We have economic growth of 0.6%, extremely low consumer confidence and weakening consumer spending, small business optimism at a 28-year low, and of course a housing market that is showing declines in excess of 20% in some parts of the country.

These are hardly statistics to celebrate, but they are a far cry from the crises of the 20th century. Next time someone compares the present to the Great Depression, stop them. Between 1929 and 1932, the Dow Jones index went to 41.22 from 380.33, a decline of 89%. Today's hang-wringing about a 20% decline in the major indices (much of it since recouped) doesn't come close.

The unemployment rate in 1933 was 24.9%; seven years later, after the intensive efforts of the New Deal, it stood at 14.6%. Even adjusting for changed methodology since then, today's jobless situation hardly compares. While the recent collapse of Bear Stearns shocked Wall Street, in 1933 alone 4,000 banks failed, and millions not only lost their homes but were rendered homeless.

It is also common today to hear comparisons to the stagflation and grim economy of the 1970s. Here too perspective is in order.

For all the present talk of volatility, in 1973 and 1974 the economy expanded 10% in the first quarter of 1973, contracted 2.1% in the third quarter, went up 3.9% in the fourth quarter, went down 3.4% in the first quarter of 1974, then up 1.2% in the second quarter – continuing like a bouncing ball for another year.

The unemployment rate went from 4.9% in 1973 to 8.5% in 1977, and then nearly broke 10% in 1982. Meanwhile the stock market went from 1067 in January 1973 to 570 in December 1974, a drop of 46%. And there was double-digit inflation and a sharp rise in the price of oil, which represented a higher percentage of consumer spending than today.

Karabell concludes thus:

The path to a more balanced view of ourselves is impossible to chart, but the first step is surely to have better perspective on where we are and where we have been. The alternative to grime-encrusted lenses isn't rose-tinted glasses, but more equanimity about our weaknesses and our strengths would surely help us navigate.

I've made similar points as well, for example in my post, "Data Suggest Economic Recession":

Actually, just last weekend I let out a few musing on the economy and housing market ("Housing Woes: Borrowers Abandoning Mortgages Amid Falling Market"), and I mentioned how I noticed one of the first true signs of a recession in the "store closing" sign that went up on the big Wickes furniture storefront down the freeway from my home.

But frankly, things just don't feel that recession-like to me. SoCal's usually behind the market in any case, but things are still pretty robust in my area.

My neighborhood housing situation seems to have improved a bit since I last wrote about it, although, sure, it still looks pretty rough on the market.

Still, it's amazing how robust local job activity is, as evidenced by help wanted signs all over, and by my wife's own recent experience on the retail executive hiring circuit.

It'll be interesting to see some in-depth analytical theories as to why the public's so glum. Perhaps things have been so good the last decade and a half (nothwithstanding the 2000-01 recession), that amid significant market difficulties we forget our history and start clammoring about how this is the worst economy we've ever seen.

I'll have more later!

Maliki's Surge

In my earlier post, "Basra Marks Big Shift in Iraq Progress," I noted that recent events in Iraq herald some of the most significant progress in the war.

The Wall Street Journal affirms the point in its editorial today:

When Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered a military offensive against rogue Shiite militias in March, it was widely panned as a failure that was one more reason the U.S. needed to abandon Iraqis to their own "civil war." Well, several weeks later the battle for Basra and Baghdad against Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army looks to be both a military and political success.

Mr. Maliki took a big risk when he decided to move against his fellow Shiites to reclaim Basra for the government. Iraqi troops were untested for such a complex, divisional-level operation and, in hindsight, their battle plans were too hastily drawn. The early setbacks might easily have emboldened Mr. Sadr, caused the Iraqi army to crumble and led to the end of Mr. Maliki's government.

Instead, Mr. Maliki and Iraqi forces persevered. And two months later, hundreds of Mahdi Army fighters have been arrested and weapons caches found. Following the model of the U.S. surge in Baghdad, Basra's streets are far safer thanks to the visible presence of 33,000 Iraqi troops. The Mahdi vice squads that terrorized the city's population are gone. The U.S. and Britain provided air support during the early stages of the operation, and continue to provide advisory support. But the Basra operation has clearly been an Iraqi success....

In the last year we were told first that the surge was a military failure, and later that it was a military success but that Iraq's political class had not lived up to its end of the bargain. In fact, just as surge supporters said, the Iraqis have become more confident and effective the more they have become convinced that the U.S. was not going to cut and run.

See more at Hot Air, "Maliki Visits Mosul."

Barack Obama and the Progressives

Chris Bowers at Open Left has a new "hypothesis" on Barack Obama's "synthesis" of the "progressive" movement, with this introduction:

Despite the consternation that I, and others, have shown over Obama altering the progressive movement to become less partisan, less leftist, more compromising, and more conservative media friendly, Barack Obama is instead an excellent reflection of the current state of the progressive movement.

Bowers lays out a number of subsequent points, but check out this key summary:

The contemporary progressive movement is steadily swelling its ranks, and continues to reorganize the relationships more and more individuals with dominant cultural institutions. However, at this point in time, the movement still only impacts what can be understood as more "elite" demographics, such as the highly educated, those with higher incomes, and those already highly engaged in both media consumption and political activism. Obama's anti-partisan message appeals to this grow[th] not despite the implied elitism of the message, but rather because of the elitism of the message. His message reflects the more "elite" concerns of the movement, rather than changing those concerns.

If you can get through the god-awful prose, Bower's basic point is that Obama's leading a movement of elite "progressive activists," but the progressive legacy that's argued in the piece is a reference to the "turn-of-the-century" reform movement that weakened the 19th century patronage machines, and instituted direct democracy procedures in the states, like initiative petitions and the recall mechanism.

This comparison's not that compelling if one takes a look around at precisely which elite "demographics" are represented among today's self-styled progressives, for instance, Daily Kos, Firedoglake, and Hullabaloo, for starters.

This is the same coalition of activists and bloggers that's backed a "responsible plan" to force a total capitulation to terror in Iraq, to be implemented in Darcy Burner's call for an immediate and unconditional withdrawal from the engagement.

No, today's progressive don't hark back to the Hiram Johnsons of yore, but to the 1960s-era radicals, like Tom Hayden, who called for a revolution overthrowing American militarism and racial oppression.

Hayden's now leading the charge of a new generation of "progressives" backing Obama's candidacy.

The fact is, today's "progressives" hope not for political reform - like that advocated by the original political reformers such as Johnson and former President Theordore Roosevelt - but social revolution.

Today's "progressives" are in truth internet radicals, who have abjured street protests for political mobilization, online policy advocacy, and campaign fundraising:

"The term 'progressive' has evolved a great deal over the past 35 years. By the ’70s, many ’60s veterans had concluded that working 'within the system' had become a viable option. As a result, many leftists stopped using rhetoric and slogans that had marginalized them from the political mainstream. Labels like 'radical', 'leftist', and 'revolutionary' sounded stale and gratuitously provocative. And so, gradually, activists began to use the much less threatening 'progressive.' Today, 'progressive' is the term of choice for practically everyone who has a politics that used to be called 'radical.'

A popular perception currently is that political progressivism (or leftism) represents idealism and a bold revolutionary spirit -- "the courage to change," as some modern politicians have put it. By contrast, many deem the political "right" (or conservatism) synonymous with social reaction or counter-revolutionary tendencies.

Bowers at Open Left simply builds on a left-wing pattern of obfuscation regarding the true motives of extreme left-wing political action. The Vietnam generation of the '60s helped end a war, leaving a legacy of debilitation in American foreign policy until the Reagan administration.

Today's "progressive" radicals want more than an end to the American "occupation" of Iraq. They're looking for a whole overthrow of existing institutions, to move America to a model of European continental democracy of anti-hegemonic welfare state corporatism. Taxes will go up, freedom down, and troops abroad will be down and out.

Don't believe the blather about the futuristic "reorganization of the public sphere" for a minute.

These folks are wreckers, and their outrage at the "Bush/Cheney regime" is just the pretext for the establishment of their own Jacobin reign of terror for the coming age.

Photo Credit: "Engraving 'Closing of the Jacobin Club, during the night of 27-28 July 1794, or 9-10 Thermidor, year 2 of the Republic'" (here).

The Realities of Left-Wing Race-Baiting in America

I want to be clear on my post from this morning, "Obama Canvassers Seeing the Real "Racial" America," so I can contrast my views with what the radical lefties are proposing.

In response to the Washington Post's article today, "Racist Incidents Give Some Obama Campaigners Pause," I wrote:

I've blogged on the racial elements in the recent controversies surrounding Barack Obama's campaign, even noting that white opposition to Obama is rooted much more in values than skin color.

But race still is significant in American politics, and what polling surveys can't capture, anecdotal stories remind us that there's some rank stupidity or ugliness in the electorate.

These were my quick reflections after just skimming the article at 5:00am, but look at what the Post notes further down in the essay:

Pollsters have found it difficult to accurately measure racial attitudes, as some voters are unwilling to acknowledge the role that race plays in their thinking.

But some are not. Susan Dzimian, a Clinton supporter who owns residential properties, said outside a polling location in Kokomo that race was a factor in how she viewed Obama. "I think if it was somebody other than him, I'd accept it," she said of a black candidate. "If Colin Powell had run, I would be willing to accept him."

As noted, Ms. Dzimian is a Clinton supporter, and apparently is supportive of the Democrats this election, but she'd have supported Colin Powell if he was a candidate this year as well.

Dzimian's views - which are just one point on a potential scatterplot - nevertheless illustrate, first, that if we can call the woman's views as racially-motivated (even "racist") they don't seem to be bound to any particular expression of partisanship. Second, since Dzimian would likely support a black candidate other than Obama, it's likely Obama's far left-wing views - on the war, the economy and health care, along with his toxic relationship to Jeremiah Wright and '60s-era domestic terrorists - that are driving voting preferences, not racial animus.

This is just one woman, of course, and while the article does indicate some crass racism at play in the election, most of the white working class opposition to Obama among old-line Democrats is values-based, rather than racially tinged.

John Judis discusses this at the New Republic, where he notes:

Obama's connection with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, which exploded into the news after the Ohio primary, may do lasting damage to his candidacy by undermining his attempt to transcend race. Wright's words tie Obama to the stereotype of the angry, hostile--and also unpatriotic--black who is seen as hating both whites and white America. Wright turns Obama into a "black candidate" like Jackson or Sharpton.

Sure, Judis also reviews some of the literature on contemporary racism, but from my studies and my personal experiences, there's very little Jim Crow-style racism in America today. If there was, Barack Obama would have never gotten this far in national politics.

Moreover, to the extent we're seeing racial resentments coloring electoral politics today, it's among Democratic partisans!

So I find it shrewdly hypocritcal for Obama supporters to attack Clinton and others as playing dirty "Republican Party racial politics." Race is the bailiwick of the left. They're obssessed with it, and see racism behind every political motivation and controversy.

Here's TBogg playing more of the race-baiting smears against the GOP:

The Republicans are counting on this. This is their base.

I can guarantee readers that bigoted comments from a satirical 1970s-era motion picture (and the comments from the Post piece off which they play) are not representative of the GOP - the party of Abraham Lincoln, and the partisan descendents of true equal protection under the law.

The hard-left blogosphere's diligently at work to smear conservatives with their "short version" anti-analysis of Republican Party racism. It's cheap and pathetic, and should be rebutted for the rank left-wing, gutter-based identity mongering that it is.

University of Colorado Seeks Appointment of Conservative Scholar

You've got to love this!

The University of Colorado, in the name of "academic diversity," is looking to appoint a right wing professor for an endowed chair of "Conservative Thought and Policy."

It turns out that Robert Kagan's in the running (see the graphic here), although I can't imagine his appointment would go over well at the university, formerly home to Ward Churchill:

How liberal is the University of Colorado at Boulder?

The campus hot-dog stand sells tofu wieners. A recent pro-marijuana rally drew a crowd of 10,000, roughly a third the size of the student body. And according to one professor's analysis of voter registration, the 800-strong faculty includes just 32 Republicans.

Chancellor G.P. "Bud" Peterson surveys this landscape with unease. A college that champions diversity, he believes, must think beyond courses in gay literature, Chicano studies and feminist theory. "We should also talk about intellectual diversity," he says. So over the next year, Mr. Peterson plans to raise $9 million to create an endowed chair for what is thought to be the nation's first Professor of Conservative Thought and Policy.

Mr. Peterson's quest has been greeted with protests from some faculty and students, who say the move is too -- well, radical. "Why set aside money specifically for a conservative?" asks Curtis Bell, a teaching assistant in political science. "I'd rather see a quality academic than someone paid to have a particular perspective."

Even some conservatives who have long pushed for balance in academia voice qualms. Among them is David Horowitz, a conservative agitator whose book "The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America" includes two Boulder faculty members: an associate professor of ethnic studies who writes about the intersection of Chicano and lesbian issues, and a philosophy professor focused on feminist politics and "global gender justice."

How about that political science undergrad, looking for a "quality academic"?

No doubt that would be someone like Boyce Watkins!

But hey, why would someone even take the job as the "token conserservative" on campus, becoming an oddity, in David Horowitz's words, like "an animal in the zoo"?

Despite left-wing protestations to the contrary, academe is populated primarily by professors on the left, even the far-left, of the spectrum.

Here's more from the article on that:

Boulder is far from the only campus to recognize a leftward tilt to the ivory tower. National surveys have repeatedly shown that liberals dominate faculties at most four-year colleges. And conservative activists have grown more aggressive in demanding balance. A group called the Leadership Institute now sends field workers to scores of campuses each fall to train right-wing students to speak up. College administrators are beginning to respond.

Note that top prospects for the position include, besides Kagan, William Kristol, Condoleeza Rice, and George Will.

Hopefully the endowment comes with personal security services for the new appointee!

The appointment of one of the biggest "war-loving" neocon Iraq cheerleaders or the former national security advisor from the evil Bush/Cheney regime isn't going to be welcomed too quickly around the CU college green!

Obama Canvassers Seeing the Real "Racial" America

I've blogged on the racial elements in the recent controversies surrounding Barack Obama's campaign, even noting that white opposition to Obama is rooted much more in values than skin color.

But race still is significant in American politics, and what polling surveys can't capture, anecdotal stories remind us that there's some rank stupidity or ugliness in the electorate.

The Washington Post recounts the stories of young Obama field operatives, and how they're confronting racial prejudices:

For all the hope and excitement Obama's candidacy is generating, some of his field workers, phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates are encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely unnoticed -- and unreported -- this election season. Doors have been slammed in their faces. They've been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers). And they've endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can't fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the first African American president.

The contrast between the large, adoring crowds Obama draws at public events and the gritty street-level work to win votes is stark. The candidate is largely insulated from the mean-spiritedness that some of his foot soldiers deal with away from the media spotlight.

Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: "It wasn't pretty." She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn't possibly vote for Obama and concluded: "Hang that darky from a tree!"

Documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy, the daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy, said she, too, came across "a lot of racism" when campaigning for Obama in Pennsylvania. One Pittsburgh union organizer told her he would not vote for Obama because he is black, and a white voter, she said, offered this frank reason for not backing Obama: "White people look out for white people, and black people look out for black people."

Obama campaign officials say such incidents are isolated, that the experience of most volunteers and staffers has been overwhelmingly positive.

The campaign released this statement in response to questions about encounters with racism: "After campaigning for 15 months in nearly all 50 states, Barack Obama and our entire campaign have been nothing but impressed and encouraged by the core decency, kindness, and generosity of Americans from all walks of life. The last year has only reinforced Senator Obama's view that this country is not as divided as our politics suggest."

Campaign field work can be an exercise in confronting the fears, anxieties and prejudices of voters. Veterans of the civil rights movement know what this feels like, as do those who have been involved in battles over busing, immigration or abortion. But through the Obama campaign, some young people are having their first experience joining a cause and meeting cruel reaction.

On Election Day in Kokomo, a group of black high school students were holding up Obama signs along U.S. 31, a major thoroughfare. As drivers cruised by, a number of them rolled down their windows and yelled out a common racial slur for African Americans, according to Obama campaign staffers.

Frederick Murrell, a black Kokomo High School senior, was not there but heard what happened. He was more disappointed than surprised. During his own canvassing for Obama, Murrell said, he had "a lot of doors slammed" in his face. But taunting teenagers on a busy commercial strip in broad daylight? "I was very shocked at first," Murrell said. "Then again, I wasn't, because we have a lot of racism here."

But see also, John Judis, "The Big Race: Obama and the Psychology of the Color Barrier."

Obama's domestic and foreign policies would likely take the United States in a radical direction, which is why I oppose his campaign.

I can say, though, that having an African American in the race is a good thing for the country. We're having a national conversation at a level that the Clinton administration was never able to develop.

I'd just hope that we'll get someone onther than a slick Chicago machine pol to be the first black occupant of the Oval Office.

Can We Generalize From the MARTA Soulja Girl Case?

When I see something like this video of the "Soulja Girl" incident on Atlanta's MARTA rail system, I'm not surprised, sorry to say:

We always have to be careful with generalizations, but as a professor with considerable experience teaching black underclass youth, I deal with less dramatic episodes with black students more often than I'd like, incidents involving utter disregard for social norms - indeed willful disrespect for the customs of a polite society - but it's never okay to say this is "a black thing," right?

Atlanta's local WSB-TV news has the story:

A video of a young woman's profanity-laced tirade on a MARTA train is now the subject of a police investigation.

Captured by another rider, the video of the woman's rant, directed at an elderly MARTA rider, has become an Internet sensation, getting heavy viewing on YouTube.com and other Web video sites.

During the confrontation the young woman refers to herself as "Soulja Girl," repeatedly uses the N-word and threatens the elderly woman.

At first other passengers don't interfere, but after several minutes one man can be heard telling "Soulja Girl" to "chill." Instead of taking that advice she turns on the other passengers, accusing one of rape.

Eventually a male passenger confronts her and appears to knock her wig askew.

After repeatedly screaming "I'm pressing charges, I'm pressing charges," the woman exits the train.

After learning of the video MARTA police launched what they called "an immediate and aggressive investigation into the incident."

After canvassing the East Lake Station where the suspect reportedly exited the train, MARTA police received an anonymous tip that the incident occurred on March 31, between 2 and 4 p.m. The tipster also indicated the suspect has been known to ride Bus 22.

After identifying the suspect, MARTA police have obtained an arrest warrant.

It turns out "Soulja Girl" turned herself in.

For more on this, with lots of speculation, and links to comment board discussions, see Rachel Sullivan's post, "Analysis of a Local Public Disturbance."

But let me cover myself here:

No, we can't generalize from a single case like this, to make blanket statements extrapolating the social depravity of a particular inner-city black subway thug. Soulja Girl apparently has psychological problems, and is getting treatment.

I can say, however, that Bill Cosby wouldn't let this incident slide as just another isolated case of unhinged, extremely abnormal behavior justfied by a hypothesized normal everyday system American racial oppression.