He could be president in five or nine years’ time””why the rush?
But he knows, and privately acknowledges, that the fundamental point of his candidacy is that it is happening now. In politics, timing matters. And the most persuasive case for Obama has less to do with him than with the moment he is meeting. The moment has been a long time coming, and it is the result of a confluence of events, from one traumatizing war in Southeast Asia to another in the most fractious country in the Middle East. The legacy is a cultural climate that stultifies our politics and corrupts our discourse.
Obama’s candidacy in this sense is a potentially transformational one. Unlike any of the other candidates, he could take America””finally””past the debilitating, self-perpetuating family quarrel of the Baby Boom generation that has long engulfed all of us. So much has happened in America in the past seven years, let alone the past 40, that we can be forgiven for focusing on the present and the immediate future. But it is only when you take several large steps back into the long past that the full logic of an Obama presidency stares directly””and uncomfortably””at you.
At its best, the Obama candidacy is about ending a war””not so much the war in Iraq, which now has a moÂmentum that will propel the occupation into the next decade””but the war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and that shows dangerous signs of intensifying, a nonviolent civil war that has crippled America at the very time the world needs it most. It is a war about war””and about culture and about religion and about race. And in that war, Obama””and Obama alone””offers the possibility of a truce.
This makes no sense whatsoever. There is, simply put, nothing about Barack Obama that will unite America under some common culture/religion/race. When not spouting gaseous platitudes, Obama’s prescriptions for our nation are straight-up left-liberal nostrums that will turn us into a nation further crippled by federal meddling in areas it has no business.
Agreed, #1. I’d advise reading this sympathetic Rolling Stone article on Obama from early this year. It’s clear his background is radical left. He would inflame the culture wars, not bring about a truce.
Sullivan is smoking something.
Other than for perhaps showing that HIV related dementia is a bona fide phenomenon, I’ll never understand the frequent linking on this blog to Andrew Sullivan. His homosexualist agenda aside, he’s an average reporter (pundit, editorialist, you pick it) at best.
Kendall, or elves was there more? This article seems to end in the middle and I wondered whether you left out a hyperlink.
What is “radical left” about his background? That he organized black communities in the midst of Chicago’s plantation style racism? Look, for lots of conservatives, anyone who fought for civil rights was a communist. Anyone who worked for the New Deal was a stalinist. Lots of young people have idealistic views, besides.
Jeffersonian might disagree, but the polls indicate that the only Democrat Republicans would vote for is Obama. He pulls 21 percent of the electorate that is Republican. That is huge.
As far as uniting, he’d do a lot better than George Bush would. Given the number of Iraqis and Americans who would like to leave, Obama seems to be much more of a uniter than a divider.
John, your argument is ridiculous. I, of course, wasn’t referring to his organizing black communities. I mainly was thinking of the church he’s chosen to join, which is led by a leftist yahoo nutcase. But even Rolling Stone refers to his “radical roots.” Read the article.
Up to now, John, Obama has been allowed to peddle his substance-free “politics of hope.” If he manages to upset Hillary in the promaries, the specifics of his stands will be put to greater scrutiny and the 21% that are today wooed by the gauzy images will depart forthwith. More will follow once the polices are put into motion.
Barack Obama seems to think that if elected he will be the international Sun King who reconcile Israelis and Palestinians and inspire the Paks to elect liberal democrats and arrest UBL. ALso that he will raise taxes by enormous percentages on people who don’t need the money any and probably got it from tobacco stocks.
Did I mention I’m not for him?
I don’t agree with John Wilkins on a lot of things, but I do here. I’ve voted Republican in every presidential election since 1988 (although lived to regret one or two of those votes). Of all the candidates in both parties right now, Obama is the most likely to get my vote.
Heh – Newbie, I’ve visited the church he’s at a few times. It’s a pretty inspiring place.
Jeremiah Wright is a leftist. Yes.
Yahoo nutcase? Less so than Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell. You’ve never heard him blaming 9/11 on the sins of the United States.
You’ve got to get away from big media, my man. Remember that its conflict and extremes that sells papers. But his church was, at one point, the fastest growing congregational church in the country. Besides, its not Jeremiah Wright who is running for president.