WASHINGTON — Last week the dean of conservative columnists,
Charles Krauthammer, took a swat at “the wet-fingered
conservatives leaping to Barack Obama before they’re left out in
the cold without a single state dinner for the next four years.”
He fell on the “neoconservative” Ken Adelman, the “moderate”
Colin Powell, the “genetic/ironic” Christopher Buckley, and the
“socialist/atheist” Christopher Hitchens. Insouciant to the
charms of Obama, the excellent Krauthammer endorsed Senator John
McCain. I can understand Krauthammer’s reasoning, but then I have
almost never disagreed with him on any important issue.
Our country is at war with terrorists. It faces a grave financial
crisis. On both issues McCain is infinitely more experienced than
his opponent, Senator Barack Obama. Perhaps it is because McCain
is a retired naval officer and a gentleman, but he remains
disappointingly reticent about his personal achievements. Sure,
he modestly declares that throughout his adult life he has never
flinched from answering his country’s call, but there is much
more to his life’s accomplishment than that. I wish he had
allowed his campaign to air more of the videos showing him in
that cruel North Vietnamese prison. And there is also footage of
his leaping out of a burning fighter on the deck of an aircraft
carrier, the back of his flight suit aflame. People who have seen
these videos have understood that McCain’s commitment to duty is
more substantial than the inflated claims of the average
campaigning pol.
McCain might have made more of the fact that he rebuilt his
broken body after being tortured in prison, defied the
pessimistic medical prognostications, and flew combat aircraft
again. Then he took command of the Navy’s largest air squadron,
which he revived to flight readiness. That is an act of executive
prowess no one in this presidential race can claim. Next, he
became naval liaison to the Senate and helped rebuild the
American military by working with senators on both sides of the
aisle. As a congressman and a senator, he has continued this sort
of bipartisan reform. Some of the reforms I have opposed, but no
other candidate in this race has his record of constructive
legislation and leadership.
In the area of national security he has demonstrated that he
knows things that Obama, a novice with but four years on the
national stage, can only imagine. McCain knew the surge in Iraq
would work, and he had the grit to support it when few would.
Once again he was putting his country before his own political
ambitions. Nonetheless, McCain is no soft touch for the military.
Over the years he has demanded efficiency and economy at the
Pentagon and throughout the federal budget. Now in a time of
financial crisis he has opted for a proven strategy for economic
recovery: low taxes, free trade, and budgetary prudence. Obama’s
alternatives are the proven recipe for protracted recession. On
health care, McCain’s policies promise expanded coverage with
costs under control. Obama’s alternative promises the
efficiencies of the Post Office, with the citizenry standing in
long lines and costs spiraling ever upwards.
McCain then is a true American hero, probably the most heroic to
come this close to the presidency. He is a seasoned political
leader. He is the model for good citizenship.
Alternatively, there is Obama’s record. People who have worked
with him tell me he is a decent man. Yet all he has ever done is
run for office though he has only held two: a seat in the
Illinois senate and the U.S. Senate seat he won in 2004. Though
he is new to politics, his policies are not as new as he boasts.
They are a rerun of the failed Great Society with some later-day
left-wing extravagances thrown in.
That he has not been honest about this is disturbing, and he has
established a pattern of deceit in this election that is still
more disturbing. His claim that he offers a tax cut for “95%” of
the citizenry is an obvious deceit. So far as I can ascertain it
means sending government checks to some 40% of the citizenry who
pay no taxes and raising taxes on the rest of us — yes, tax
increases in the midst of recession!
More disturbing is that Obama has not been honest about the
radical figures he has associated with. William Ayers is an
unrepentant left-wing radical who actually bombed government
facilities and caused the injury and death of fellow Americans.
That is a cold fact. Obama’s association with the Rev. Jeremiah
Wright and Father Michael Pfleger put him in company with angry
anti-American fringe figures, who, were they on the far right,
would have ended Obama’s political career long ago. Again, he has
not been honest about these associations, and McCain — officer
and gentleman that he is — has not held Obama to account.
Now we hear that there is at least audio of a 2003 dinner held
for Palestinian activist Rashid Khalidi (a spokesman for the
Palestinian Liberation Organization when it was recognized by
Washington as a terrorist organization) with Obama in attendance.
Reportedly the Illinois state senator was praising Khalidi.
Though the audio is being withheld by the Los Angeles Times,
Americans ought to hear it before the election. At this dinner
speakers allegedly denounced the United States and Israel. By
2003 Khalidi was a neighbor and friend of Obama at the University
of Chicago. Again Obama has been deceptive about this dinner and
his relationship with this former spokesman for Yasir Arafat.
I actually know a good bit about people such as Ayers, Pfleger,
Wright, and now Khalidi. They are the kind of anti-Americans who
thrive on the outer fringes of the left. Whether they really hate
America as they boast or are just attitudinizing I do not know.
But the consequence of their behavior has endangered this
country. By 2003 Obama, green as he is, should have known this.
More to the point, he should have been forthright when these
friendships were revealed.
At best an Obama presidency would be a return to the Carter
years. At worst it would place this country in a condition of
peril that we have never experienced in modern times. McCain will
protect the country and put it on the road to recovery. He has
protected America all his adult life and is ready for another
tour of service.
