Awaiting Clarification

It’s become a commonplace and something of a cottage industry explaining Senator Obama to the rest of us. No doubt the down side of being intellectually superior, the Senator doesn’t realize we can’t always fill in the blanks or understand his unexplicated shorthand.

As for the “gaffe’s”, they don’t quite rise to the level of fictionalized flashbacks (vivid recollections of non-events) but they do suggest a slipshod approach to the truth.

A lesser candidate (lacking academic pedigree and moral stature) might be deemed less than credible. However, it’s simply implausible to argue in the Senator’s case, that he lacks a thoughtful and thoroughly informed position on serious issues. As for the profusion of perceived inconsistencies and reflexive contradictions they’re merely the ongoing refinements of an ever evolving and endlessly nuanced policy portfolio.

Is it not curious that a man whose position and prospects rest solely on his consummate powers of persuasion, seems to require daily clarification.

Options and Omissions

It’s been noted that Senator Obama failed to suggest military service when encouraging Wesleyan graduates to make this a better world for others by giving something of themselves.

He did mention other forms of service; rebuilding New Orleans, volunteering at a soup kitchen and the ever-popular helping to end the “situation” (i.e., rape, slaughter, and displacement) in Darfur.

I suspect this was an oversight on the Senator’s part but not the most glaring of the day. That distinction is reserved for the following remark, “At a time of war we need you to work for peace”.

Logic would argue for victory, then a just and lasting peace (in that order). Perhaps the notion of winning a war, that was deemed necessary, didn’t occur to Senator Obama. This could be something of a liability in a Commander in Chief.

Unsolicited Advice

On the continuum between insipid platitudes and clinical idiocy there’s a mid-range consisting of drivel, twaddle and commencement speeches. Senator Obama’s contribution to the genre in a nutshell:

Resist cynicism (no, you’re not naïve for wanting to change a world you don’t understand). Individual salvation can only be achieved through collective salvation (it takes a village to save a soul). Reject the seductions of materialism (big house, nice clothes) until everyone can be equally seduced (and have a big house and nice clothes like me). Rebuild New Orleans (location, location, location). Volunteer at a soup kitchen (because it will help relieve your guilt about being a picky eater) and end the “situation” in Darfur (by wearing “end the situation in Darfur tee shirts and contribute to UNICEF).

Most important “at a time of war we need you to work for peace” (best achieved through direct negotiations, without pre-conditions, at a time and place of my choosing, with preliminary low level talks to establish an understanding that won’t be perceived as appeasement).

“At a time of inequality we need you to work for opportunity” (by becoming social workers, activist lawyers and of course voting Democratic). “At a time of cynicism and doubt we need you to make us believe again” (by rejecting most of your parents’ values and marginalizing their sacrifices and achievements). That’s your task, Class of 2008.

A Wake-Up Call

Dream ticket momentum may sweep aside long term considerations. The notion of a reunited party is a comforting fiction but resentments will linger and may fester by virtue of proximity and the division of labor and limelight.

The Clinton cohort won’t be satisfied with second place or second string. The overwrought Obaminables will resent their candidates first significant decision being co-opted by the Party.

Perhaps this nation’s first biracial, feminist co-presidency with a welfare state agenda will resonate with a plurality of the electorate. In which case the change Obama promises has already occurred.

Slippery Slopes

Republicans will try to portray Senator Obama as a left of center candidate by repeating his policy statements and reminding us of his voting record. It’s been suggested, I think by Senator Obama, that this is somehow unfair, divisive, and good old fashioned fear mongering. It could be construed as racist, should he lose the election.

Therefore the following should be read as partisan bias. Recent remarks made by Senator Obama to gun nuts (excuse me, gun owners) in South Dakota were meant to reassure (as distinct from promise) that they “have nothing to fear” from him. Not if they use their guns in a lawful manner. However, he does support “common sense” gun laws and who but the NRA would resist “common sense” gun laws. The NRA, he tells us, has an unwarranted fear that any restriction of ownership, however logical and necessary, is the camel’s nose in the tent. That the smallest concession could lead to total confiscation.

Surely he can understand their apprehension, having been endorsed this week by NARAL. They too have a gratuitous fear of any encroachment on what they consider to be an unalienable and uninfringable right. I believe Senator Obama shares their view and has resisted (“morally” and legislatively) any “common sense” restriction on abortion.

There are camels everywhere.

An Open Letter

Senator Obama:

Dear Sir,

Please regard this letter as formal notification that, as of this date and time, I’m rescinding the benefit of the doubt, of which you’ve been beneficiary since the inception of your campaign.

The gentle force of your personality and the redemptive power of your life story are wearing thin, your certainty (often bordering on intolerance) could easily be confused with a pompous conceit, those frequently amended and nuanced utterances are now utterly unconvincing, and your inexperience, of which you’ve made little, suggest you’ve learned even less.

Though ambition, arrogance and attitude may be necessary, they are not sufficient qualification for the presidency of the United States.

Respectfully,

amajorityofone

That’s not what I said, sort of

Life is too short to pay attention. Unfortunately you miss a lot. Like the David Brooks OP-ED piece in Friday’s (5/16) Times. Mr. Brooks had an opportunity to ask Senator Obama to decipher (explicate, if you prefer) one of his statements on recent Hezbollah “activity” in Lebanon.

Mr Brooks: what did you mean (and mean to imply) when you said “it’s time to engage in diplomatic efforts to help build a new Lebanese consensus that focuses on electoral reform, and end to the current patronage system, and the development of the economy that provides for a fair distribution of services, opportunities and employment.”

Senator Obama: “to peel support away from Hezbollah” the US should “find a mechanism whereby the disaffected have an effective outlet for their grievances, which assures them that they’re getting social services”. US foreign policy needs “to look at the root causes of problems and dangers”. Hezbollah and Hamas need to understand “violence weakens their legitimate claims”

Senator Obama did acknowledge that Hezbollah is not “a legitimate political party” and he seems to realize that they are being encouraged and enabled by Syria and Lebanon. The difficulties of negotiation, he admits, are compounded when dealing with a theocratic/ideological regime, but “they are rarely purely ideological movements. We can encourage actors to think in practical terms”.

Perhaps Senator Obama thinks he is back in the editorial offices of the Harvard Law review, resolving the tiffs and teapot tempests of those equally out of touch with reality.

Question: what part of President Bush’s statement (within the context of a lengthy address to the Israeli Knesset) is incorrect, misleading or inappropriately applied to Senator Obama or his party. The quoted line “Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with terrorists, that some ingenious argument will convince them that they have been wrong all along”.

Senator Obama’s foreign policy realism is to realism what the People’s Republic of China is to representative government.

A symbol of his party’s future, Senator Obama is more a symptom of a head snapping shift to the left, with enough ideological baggage to herniated a brace of donkeys.

Pay attention, to his soaring and sermon like pronouncements, you’ll find they are a little more than marsh gas with a whiff of Marxism.

You DON’T Say

Senator Obama has something in common with Senator McCain, they both want to limit political speech.

Senator McCain’s (and Feingold’s) legislation was merely a monumentally misguided solution to a misunderstood (and mischaracterized) problem. Several unintended consequences later their “mistake” is manifest.

Senator Obama, however, won’t require legislation bearing his name, he will employ a kind of moral leverage. It won’t affect all political speech, just Republican political speech, specifically John McCain’s political speech regarding his rival.

The post-partisan candidate needs to limit the scope of that conversation, lest we be frightened, mislead, distracted and perhaps informed.

With the subtlety of a fat, overwrought drunk in a crowded elevator we’ve been told that McCain will resort to the same “old” divisive partisan diatribes, the same “old” names and labels in lieu of reasonable arguments, and the same “old” failed policies of the past.

Do any of Senator Obama’s remarks sound as if they could be misconstrued as divisive, partisan name calling?

Destiny’s Democrat will continue to regale us with his vaporous visions of America.

No, not the ones of his pastor and spiritual mentor, nor those of his left-wing friends and associates, not even those of the it’s never too late-term abortion crowd, though he might, if prevailed upon, share his nuanced insights into a sufficiently regulated Second Amendment.

Obama has accused McCain of running for Bush’s third term, perhaps it’s Obama who is running for Carter’s second.

Suer Service

Tort-reform is shorthand for controlling a parasitic and predatory profession whose rank cynicism and insatiable greed are corrupting our culture and burdening our economy.

I don’t want to sound alarmist but they are a mortal threat to life on the planet, and the probable cause of global warming.

The possibly great state of Mississippi has enacted, after a protracted struggle, legislation that “disincentivizes” the piratical practices of those who would use the law the way a mugger uses a gun.

Mississippi is recovering after a long siege, witness job creation, greater access to health care, reduction in costs, an accelerated economy and the drop in law school enrollments (a trend, one hopes). All this translates into quality of life improvements.

Yet those who would reform tort-reform and recreate a climate hospitable to legal extortion are gathering and gathering strength.

Natural Enemies

I regard my stewardship of the natural world as a sacred trust. Therefore I’m prepared to share the planet, though someone grudgingly, with all God’s creatures. The planet, not my bathroom.

I was alerted to an uninvited presence by a sound I associated with a Black and Decker product. My error. It proved to be the emanations of a remarkably robust specimen of horsefly, a Clydesdale of the species.

This winged behemoth was obviously imbibing HGH (horsefly growth hormone). I suspected its appetite was equally outsized and in need of appeasement. Confrontation was unavoidable. A brief but ferocious encounter resolved the matter in my favor. I won’t elaborate on the struggle, suffice it to say it’s fortunate I’m an NRA member.

Moral (admittedly implicit): an uncritical and doctrinaire environmentalism could make us the endangered species.