Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Who's the Real Obama?
U.S. News & World Report ^ | 5/6/07 | Mortimer B. Zuckerman

Posted on 05/07/2007 6:28:22 PM PDT by neverdem

Why not Obama? Millions of people are inspired by him; witness the polls, the stunning breadth of his financial support, the rapture over his way of speaking. He is the first black candidate to have a serious chance of winning his party's nomination and the presidency. That is a remarkable statement of how far America has come on race-but it also reflects Barack Obama's ability to present himself as a politician for all Americans, just somebody who happens to be black. America seems to yearn for a post-partisan consensus builder who is undeniably brilliant, rather than an ideological rabble-rouser, despite a voting record that places him on the ultraliberal wing of the Democratic Party.

Pause comes when we look beyond biography. The world has rarely been in a more dangerous state. Time bombs tick in the Middle East. Radical Muslims plan more terrorism. From London, there is evidence of how eager they are to betray a host nation, yet Europe is enfeebled. China and Russia are unhelpful. There is worldwide disaffection with America. And unparalleled means of destruction are more available than ever before. Is charisma enough to avert catastrophe?

Foreign affairs are no longer "foreign." In the globalized world, they are in our living room. Obama is virtually a freshman here. His political rivals have decades of experience with personalities and interests abroad. Obama's retort: It was foreign policy experts and longtime members of Congress who authorized the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq. So maybe that type of experience is overrated. That's a good debating point, but what Obama really has going for him is that party-centered politics and politics based on experience have given way to candidate-centered politics where celebrity and personal appeal on television seem to win the day. He may also benefit from the growing anti-Washington feeling.

But Obama will not be able to maintain that "above politics" stance. If his broad themes are to remain credible, he will have to be more than a smooth and sweet-talking optimist. He will have to detail just what he would do on health, global warming, Iran. Is he tough-minded enough not just to take a punch but to give one? People who know him well doubt this. If they're right, he will become another one of those failed candidates like Adlai Stevenson, who bemoaned the dirty business of politics and tried to run campaigns that rose above it.

His supporters expect Iraq to be his trump card. He can assert that his objections to the war in 2002 were prescient. Saddam Hussein, he said, "poses no imminent or direct threat to the United States or to his neighbors." He gave warning, too, that "even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, and undetermined consequences."

War questions. But Obama is playing a bit of politics here. He was not always so critical. At the 2004 Democratic convention, he said he did not blame Democrats who had voted to authorize the war, recognizing that, unlike him, they were privy to intelligence that might have led them to support the war. He now seems not to have thought this thing through. He claims that a U.S. withdrawal will pressure the Sunnis and Shiites to come to the table. But why should it? If they cannot resolve their differences when we are there with 150,000 troops keeping them apart, what does he expect if we withdraw? Surely that will lead to an escalation of the conflict. There is the real prospect, as the Brookings Institution suggests, of "a humanitarian nightmare in which hundreds of thousands (conceivably even millions)" of people will die, to the everlasting shame and diminution of respect for the United States.

On this crucial issue of the use of American power, Obama is inconsistent. He has a different tune when he turns to Darfur. He urges deployment of a "U.N. or NATO-led force" and recently accused the administration of conducting "foreign policy as if the children in Darfur are somehow less than the children here, and so we tolerate violence there." What a strange equivalence.

On the Rwandan genocide, he suggests that "an international show of force ... might have stopped the slaughter." As the historian Niall Ferguson points out, Obama is trying to have it all ways in the different civil wars. "In one, Obama recommends intervention (Darfur), while in the other he recommends a military withdrawal (Iraq)." In fact, far more than in Sudan, the United States bears a moral responsibility to prevent an even more horrendous Iraqi bloodbath. We cannot be absolved from dealing with the mess there that we have created.

For now, the senator is the most impressive insurgent candidate. But if he is to maintain momentum, he must grow. Along with his uplifting eloquence, he must show a capacity for leading the West-and above all for realism and resolution in the deployment of American power for the common good.

This story appears in the May 14, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Politics/Elections; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: articulate; emptysuit; mrclean; obama

1 posted on 05/07/2007 6:28:23 PM PDT by neverdem
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: neverdem
For now, the senator is the most impressive insurgent candidate. But if he is to maintain momentum, he must grow. Along with his uplifting eloquence, he must show a capacity for leading the West-and above all for realism and resolution in the deployment of American power for the common good.

There's always a catch, isn't there.

2 posted on 05/07/2007 6:31:45 PM PDT by hole_n_one
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

He’s an inexperienced lightweight. He already has a history of ambition and corruption. He is extremely pro-abortion, having voted against the infants born alive protection act three times. He has been a Muslim. He is a Christian in name only, in a highly liberal, race-baiting church. He has surfed through life in a state of privilege, yet claims to speak for the downtrodden.

In other words, he is a lightweight, unpredictable fake, with no qualifications for the job.


3 posted on 05/07/2007 6:37:52 PM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Obama is nothing but makeup, not even skin deep.


4 posted on 05/07/2007 6:39:37 PM PDT by jwh_Denver (Make conservatives, mug liberals.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Biden got it just right re this cat.....

and if you take that out of the equation he’s just another victim pimp.


5 posted on 05/07/2007 6:48:23 PM PDT by Vn_survivor_67-68
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

He is a totally invented candidate. There is no way in Hell he will be elected.


6 posted on 05/07/2007 6:52:50 PM PDT by rbg81 (1)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
If his broad themes are to remain credible, he will have to be more than a smooth and sweet-talking optimist.

Mort, what have you been smoking?

The MSM loves this guy to a degree not seen by anyone, they love him more than they love the Clintons, for God's sake.

No one is allowed to question Obama on anything, lest they be accused of bigotry or racism. The press won't, and no Republican will dare go against the media elite.

7 posted on 05/07/2007 6:54:25 PM PDT by GoBucks2002
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

8 posted on 05/07/2007 7:03:20 PM PDT by LFOD777 (In 2006, Washington spent $2.7 Trillion and ran a $248 billion budget deficit.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

9 posted on 05/07/2007 7:20:09 PM PDT by Vaquero (" an armed society is a polite society" Heinlein "MOLON LABE!" Leonidas of Sparta)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Cicero
His election was also arranged by having his media friends dig up dirt on a far more qualified opponent just a few months before the election.

I'm reasonably certain George Soros owns him lock, stock and barrel.

10 posted on 05/07/2007 7:24:20 PM PDT by Vigilanteman (Are there any men left in Washington? Or are there only cowards? Ahmad Shah Massoud)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
His middle name is Hussein ... that's enough for me.

A girl named Jezebel may be the sweetest, kindest and most wonderful woman ... but I wouldn't go near her.

11 posted on 05/07/2007 7:27:52 PM PDT by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof ... but they're true.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
On the Rwandan genocide, he suggests that "an international show of force ... might have stopped the slaughter." As the historian Niall Ferguson points out, Obama is trying to have it all ways in the different civil wars. "In one, Obama recommends intervention (Darfur), while in the other he recommends a military withdrawal (Iraq)."

Great point. Democrats are so conflicted about fighting for freedom that they actually make things worse.

60 years ago, when Truman was president and South Korea was newly freed, Democrats assured us that it was "safe" to pull almost all of our troops out of South Korea. Their hideous mistake in judgment brought death to thousands

1. The Democrats, under President Truman, abandoned the newly freed South Koreans in 1949. They removed most of our troops against the advice of members of the military and Republicans.

2. The army of North Korean dictator Kim conquered most of South Korea in 1950, at which point Truman decided to send troops back to Korea to RE-Win Korean freedom.

3.In the remaining 30 months of Truman's presidency 30,000 Americans died in Korea.

12 posted on 05/07/2007 7:29:00 PM PDT by syriacus (Dems removed our troops too soon from S. Korea. 30,000 US troops died in 30 mos to RE-WIN SK freedom)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

This dork doesn’t even know who our allies are .. and he wants to be president ..?? I don’t care if he’s black, blue or purple .. if you don’t even know what countries support America .. you haven’t been paying attention. Even I can answer that question better than Obama.

The media had a cow when Bush didn’t know the name of ONE FOREIGN LEADER (a person most of us had never heard of - and who was NOT AN ALLY), but Barrak can’t even name one of our allies and he gets a total pass.

I tell you, America is in very deep trouble. I think a lot more people must stand up and be counted before we can take our country back from the ranting, raving socialsts and communists.


13 posted on 05/07/2007 7:31:18 PM PDT by CyberAnt ("... first time in history the U.S. House has attempted to surrender via C-SPAN TV ...")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Obama-—he crept out of nowhere and he will slink back to nowhere once the international pimp Soros is done with him.


14 posted on 05/07/2007 8:57:40 PM PDT by eleni121 (+ En Touto Nika! By this sign conquer! + Constantine the Great)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

The premise of this story—that Obama will appeal to all—is no longer tenable. Perhaps it was written prior to the Senator’s recent appearances before black audiences in LA and New Orleans. In those meetings he behaved with a demagoguery worthy of a Sharpton or a Jackson, inflaming racial hatred and divisiveness and virtually justifying the savage Rodney King riots. It’s primary time and Obama needs to solidify that black base. But choosing to do it by appealing to the psychology of Permanent Victimhood will come back to haunt him if he’s in the general election.
15 posted on 05/07/2007 9:30:06 PM PDT by Godwin1 (.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Obama is asn empty suit trying to live up to his hype.


16 posted on 05/07/2007 11:27:28 PM PDT by etcetera (Being a geek is not a job - it's a lifestyle.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Godwin1
Perhaps it was written prior to the Senator’s recent appearances before black audiences in LA and New Orleans.

Do you have links about those appearances?

17 posted on 05/07/2007 11:38:59 PM PDT by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: etcetera

18 posted on 05/07/2007 11:39:51 PM PDT by dancusa (For liberals there is no end to their rights and no beginning to their responsibilities.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson