Son of the Issue of the Day

Point 3. Obama's speech was very good and unfortunately necessary, but not flawless.

Let's get some liberal responses to Obama's speech. First of all here's Joan Walsh, who was generally positive, but feels that Obama didn't effectively respond to accusations surrounding Jeremiah Wright.

In his speech Obama tried to distance himself from Wright's more outrageous remarks, while honoring and preserving the personal -- and frankly political -- strength he's derived from his affiliation with the church and his spiritual mentor. It was a perilous move for Obama, and it's not clear he succeeded. Describing Wright as "family," Obama compared his incendiary views to the occasional racial insensitivity of his elderly white grandmother: "As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me ... I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother -- a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe." It was an intriguing leap, but I didn't buy it. I don't think Obama's elderly grandmother, who still lives in Hawaii and is reportedly too frail to travel, who was a product of her time and place and yet did her best to raise her half-black grandson, deserved to be compared to Wright, a public figure who's built his career around a particularly divisive analysis of American racial politics. It is easily the most tin-eared thing I've ever heard Obama say.

But most of the speech was deeply inspiring.

She's not wrong. On either point.

Glenn Greenwald has a more negative opinion of the speech. Well not of the speech itself but of what effect it will have on the campaign, particularly if Obama gets the nomination.

But in Obama's faith in the average American voter lies one of the greatest weaknesses of his campaign. His faith in the ability and willingness of Americans to rise above manipulative political tactics seems drastically to understate both the efficacy of such tactics and the deafening amplification they receive from our establishment press. Even Americans who authentically believe that they want a "new, better politics" may be swayed by the same old Drudgian sewerage because it is powerful and ubiquitous.

Petty, personality-based demonization works, and the belief that it won't work any longer in the absence of a major war against it may be more a by-product of faith and desire than reality.

I hope Obama can work up an adequate defense against this situation, but I can't claim that I'm sure that he will.

Still it was a great speech, one for the ages.

Are McCain's criticisms of Romney Fair?

I'm not a fan of Romney, but the line that McCain is attacking Romney over isn't that bad. Romney just said that presumably President Bush and the Iraqi Government have ideas about how they would like to pull out of Iraq. Romney wasn't talking about a public and open withdrawal, which in republican thought would lead to our enemies being emboldened. He's talking about private discussions with the Iraqi Government about how the United States really isn't going to stay in Iraq forever.

Apparently that's surrender, according to McCain. In this I agree with Joan Walsh, editor of Salon.

Is McCain suggesting that anyone, no matter how hawkish, who suggests a day will come when American troops will leave Iraq is on the wrong side? I think he's just written off the vast majority of the electorate. Plus, the way he's bullied Romney in several debates -- just before the New Hampshire primary was the worst -- has been simply cruel and small. I know a lot of people quail at the prospect of war hero McCain squaring off against either a woman, Hillary Clinton, or a younger black man who opposed the war from the start, Barack Obama. Personally, I think either one of them will do just fine, because the country is on their side on the war, and they're both more appealing and harder to rattle than the mighty McCain.

I think Ms. Walsh is right; I'm particularly eager to see Obama and McCain square off in a debate.

Good point

Joan Walsh over at Salon has a blog and it's turning out to be a pretty good one (although still a bit behind Glenn Greenwald and The War Room). She recently wrote about those who complain that the Democrats are too investigatory.

I'm sure most Democrats, and even some Republicans, would like the new governing majority to pass meaningful legislation. I know I would. But let's be honest: Democrats have only narrow majorities in the House and, especially, in the Senate. That means getting serious legislation passed will be a big challenge; getting it signed by the president (or passed by veto-proof majoritiesjavascript:void(0)
Publish) will be near-impossible on any controversial issue. Their investigative authority is one of the only reliable powers the majority gives Democrats right now.

And there's plenty to investigate: obstruction of justice and perjury in the U.S. attorneys firing; the abandonment of wounded vets at Walter Reed and elsewhere (and the deployment of wounded vets back to Iraq or to training camps, as Mark Benjamin most recently revealed); NSA spying; secret prisons; torture; the outing of an undercover CIA agent; Hurricane Katrina; bad or falsified intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in the run up to war in Iraq; war profiteering; I'm surely forgetting something important.

Right on! She's totally correct.

I'd also like to point out that many of those wringing their hands over our investigations are Republicans who might just have an ulterior motive for doing so.

Debate in a Time of War

Interesting article from Joan Walsh at Salon today, about the balance between wishing for an early victory and wishing that the "Cakewalk Conservatives" get their comeuppance. Of course any comeuppance would actually cost the lives of American Soldiers, so you can't wish for that. But the democrats could start fulfilling their role as the opposition party again.

"Yes, Rep. Dennis Kucinich has called for an end to the bombing, and hundreds of thousands of Americans have demonstrated against the war. But most leading Democrats have muzzled themselves. When Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle noted, accurately, on the eve of the war that the conflict was a result of President Bush having "failed so miserably at diplomacy," Republicans savaged him. Attack dog Tom DeLay told him to shut up in French (labeling war critics "French" is the slur du jour), and Daschle basically did. The day after the first attacks on Baghdad, House Democratic leader and war critic Nancy Pelosi shocked her San Francisco district by voting in favor of a resolution that expressed "unequivocal support and appreciation" for the way Bush handled the war and its buildup."

There is a spirit of triumphalism in conservatism that isn't going to go away by ignoring it. After the war and even now, Conservatives are trying to ensure that America remembers Democratic opposition to the war (largely rhetorical, in fact), and forgets that when it comes to voting, Democrats supported this war. Hence you see David Horowitz writing an article entitled, "The War Has Refuted The Opposition." Mainstream Liberals aren't gaining much by being quiet. Instead they are allowing fringe elements (such as Nicholas De Genova) to define liberalism. I don't expect that they will; it seems pretty clear that they've settled on a tactic of not responding to the war. Which is unfortunate.