The American Spectator

Campaign Crawlers

Paradoxically, Andrew Sullivan's profile of Barack Obama in the December issue of The Atlantic manages to be simultaneously hagiographic and not all that flattering. Sure, on one hand, according to Sullivan, the self-appointed Mayor of Purple America, currently moonlighting as a senator and presidential candidate, is the lone man on the horizon prepared to save us from a "nonviolent civil war that has crippled America at the very time the world needs it most." On the other, not only is the "logic behind the candidacy of Barack Obama...not, in the end, about Barack Obama," but, further, "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."

p>It's a strange mix. In the end, Sullivan's case for "Why Obama Matters" -- not likely a question a presidential candidate is happy to still hear bandied about seven weeks before the Iowa caucuses -- seems to revolve around his age, his race and his inability to generate any excitement for his policy proposals. Hence, the following passage: br> /p>

Earlier this fall, I attended an Obama speech in Washington on Tax policy that underwhelmed on delivery; his address was wooden, stilted, even tedious. It was only after I left the hotel that it occurred to me that I'd just been bored on tax policy by a national black leader. That I should have been struck by this was born in my own racial stereotypes, of course. But it won me over.

br> Some have yet to be won over. Many of this number, unfortunately for Obama, are Democratic primary voters. Others of us who have not taken Sullivan's "several large steps back into the long past" are uncomfortable, anyway. Uncomfortable with a man who feels he can lecture us on the "politics" and "audacity" of hope, as if he'd trademarked the term. Uncomfortable that a left-wing hyper-partisan can simply say he is above it all and the establishment media repeats the claim as if it were gospel, a trick it would have been fun to watch, say, Pat Buchanan try in 1992. Primarily, though, I am uncomfortable because so many serious people buy into this shtick.

"He is among the first Democrats in a generation not to be afraid or ashamed of what they actually believe," Sullivan writes, the esteemed journalist's skepticism bound and gagged in the corner. Unsurprisingly, Obama agrees with this assessment. During a recent New York Times interview, Obama, after taking several veiled and not-so-veiled whacks at Hillary for being less than forthright with voters, said, "I don't want to get in the habit of stretching the truth during a political campaign because then, I think, you get in the habit of stretching the truth when you're running the country."

Nevertheless, the truth has been stretched and Obama is coasting along on a reputation as a post-partisan truth-teller without much tangible proof, basking in the positive media glow even as he violates the standards he must hold Hillary accountable to for the sake of own political career.

LET'S LEAVE ASIDE ANY CRITICISM of Senator Obama's plan, as laid out during an appearance this past Sunday on Meet the Press, for reaching out to the evangelical community ("We've got to be able to get beyond our comfort zones and just talk to people we don't like"), the charm of, I'm reaching out to you, despite the fact that I don't like you. Can I get an, 'Amen!'? remaining unclear. To be especially magnanimous, let's even allow Obama's haughty retort when Russert pointed out the discrepancy between his anti-lobbyist rhetoric and the big dollars he's accepted from lobbyists ("Well, Tim, look, I have said repeatedly that money is the original sin in politics and I am not sinless") to slide.

Instead, let's turn to the issue Obama has staked his claim to president-worthy judgment on: His opposition to the Iraq War. Russert pointed out that in July 2004 Obama had said of the vote to authorize the Iraq war, "What would I have done? I don't know," and, further, "There's not much of a difference between my position on Iraq and George Bush's position at this stage."

"Now, Tim, that first quote was made in an interview with a guy named Tim Russert on Meet the Press during the convention when we had a nominee for the presidency and a vice president, both of whom had voted for the war," Obama bristled. "And so it, it probably was the wrong time for me to be making a strong case against our party's nominees' decisions when it came to Iraq."

To openly admit on national television to not simply hiding but out-and-out sacrificing one's convictions on behalf of John Kerry and John Edwards is no small thing. Perhaps Obama believed the end of electing John Kerry would justify the means of adopting the mantle of George W. Bush's Iraq War policy for a few days in July 2004. (This seemed to be his tack on gay rights issues during a Howard University debate back in August as well.) Among Democrats such as excuse might be plausible, perhaps even defensible, if they could even be bothered to ask the question. Alas, the senator's oscillation did not end with the defeat of John Kerry.

p>As Marc Ambinder reports in, "Teacher and Apprentice," a feature detailing the rift between Hillary and Obama in the same issue of The Atlantic as Sullivan's cover story, Obama's reticence to embrace his own "no dumb wars" policy from 2003 continued on, literally, for years.

topics:
Trade, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Television, Iraq, NATO