Quibbles and Bits 6/30
By LisaB on July 1, 2008 at 8:00 AM in ABC News, Barack Obama, Current Affairs, John McCain
If anyone has seen the movie Becket, Peter O’Toole, as Henry II, screams at a ragged group of mean looking men, “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” The king was making a political request. “Do in the bishop without me actually having to ask for it, OK?” Someone does; the king pays a rather nominal political price for seeking the bishop’s death and life goes on.
Except for the bishop, of course.
This tradition of doing in a “troublesome” friend, enemy or frienemy continues with particular transparency in the Obama campaign’s “creative” use of surrogates and those-who-cannot-be-named-surrogates.
1) On June 30th, ABC News blogs that an Obama “informal advisor” (I suppose the better to disassociate from after a nasty bit of work is done) Rand Beers said that Senator McCain doesn’t really have the chops to be a war-time leader because during Vietnam, he was A POW AND DIDN’T REALLY KNOW WHAT WAS GOING ON.
“Sadly, Sen. McCain was not available during those times, and I say that with all due respect to him, said informal Obama adviser Rand Beers. “I think that the notion that the members of the Senate who were in the ground forces or who were ashore in Vietnam have a very different view of Vietnam and the cost that you described than John McCain does because he was in isolation essentially for many of those years and did not experience the turmoil here or the challenges that were involved for those of us who served in Vietnam during the Vietnam war.
“So I think, he continued, “to some extent his national security experience in that regard is sadly limited and I think it is reflected in some of the ways that he thinks about how U.S. forces might be committed to conflicts around the world.”
Nice. An “informal advisor” (read: throw away bomb thrower) says something nasty and Obama doesn’t disagree, but suggests he would NEVER go so far:
Obama spokesman Bill Burton reacted to the comments by Beers by saying: “It is Senator Obama’s feeling that Senator McCain’s service was heroic and should not be diminished.”
Asked if the comments by Beers diminished McCain’s service, Burton had no immediate response.
Look for more “informal advisors” to come, blow up, and go.
2) The Christian Science Monitor has a story on planned trips abroad by both presidential candidates.
For Republican John McCain, multiple trips to Iraq, a recent visit to Canada, and a swing through Latin America that begins Tuesday showcase an already strong international profile from his Navy years, followed by more than two decades on the Senate Armed Services Committee. A meeting (and photo op) in Washington last Saturday with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani shows that Senator McCain doesn’t even need to leave the country to burnish his foreign-policy credentials.
For Democrat Barack Obama, a multinational tour of Europe and the Middle East scheduled for mid-July aims to add some heft to the Illinois senator’s light foreign-policy résumé – and, in Europe at least, tap into the Obamamania that’s already in full flower.
While McCain, it can be argued, is working to shore up support in the hispanic community by courting those voters, Obama’s purposes here are less clear. What voters, exactly, does he think to influence by a trip to Britain, Germany and France?
3) At The Hill, Klaus Marre has a brief piece about the MoveOn.org kerfluffle. Which one you ask? Why the one about General David Petraeus being renamed “General Betray Us” of course. In a “MAJOR SPEECH” Monday, Obama rebuked moveon.org for that advertisement last year.
Of course, Marre notes:
Obama did not vote last year when the Senate approved a measure condemning the controversial Petraeus ad
Naturally. A non-vote at the time of “crisis” is rhetorically morphed into a principled stand months later. He did come rather late to this “rebuking” party, didn’t he?
4) At timesonline.co.uk, Tom Baldwin also covers the pending Obama seven-nation “world tour” [sic]. The article notes that Obama is moving to the center after the primary season:
This [position switch on Iran and Israel] is one of several areas where he is watering down pledges made during the campaign as he pivots back towards the political centre. He now concedes that his condemnation of free trade deals like the Nafta agreement when he was trying to win rust-belt Democratic primary voters was “overheated”.
He has even begun unpicking his promise to withdraw all US combat forces from Iraq within 16 months of taking office, saying that he wants a gradual and responsible exit that will take account of conditions on the ground.
With regard to Obama’s popularity in Europe (and loving crowds as the presumed reason for the trip in the first place), the Times had this to say:
The Democratic candidate will be received enthusiastically in Europe, where he is more popular even than in America.
But the next part is interesting:
But there may be a more guarded welcome in the Middle East. Israel, in particular, remains suspicious over his past support for Palestinian causes, as well as his attitude towards Iran, with which he has promised to hold unconditional talks during his first year in the White House.
This has found an echo in Europe. When David Miliband met Mr Obama’s policy team recently, the Foreign Secretary is understood to have raised questions about the implications of undermining the West’s united front on Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Despite Obama’s popularity in Europe, European leaders are unsure of Obama’s positions on policies important to them. So, what positions will Obama take?
Quite frankly, there’s no telling. Obama says things that his campaign handlers later refute (see NAFTA). He says things that he, himself, backpedals on later (see NAFTA, Israel, FISA, etc). Will Europe be talking to the serious academic, Barack Obama or his evil twin Baricky? Hard to say.
5) In a related piece, Jennifer Rubin at commentarymagazine.com has something to say about how Barack and his “evil” twin Baricky are confusing people. She adds Paul Krugman to David Brooks as the latest smarty pants to be puzzled by the democratic candidate.
After quoting some of Krugman’s NYT article comparing Obama to (I kid you not) Reagan and B. Clinton, Rubin has this to say:
It is remarkable that now two savvy guys like Krugman and Brooks can’t figure out what Obama is. And neither seems to be playing coy to make a rhetorical point — they really don’t know.
But maybe that’s no accident. Obama has told us there is no there, there. In his book he wrote: “I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.” So perhaps searching for Obama’s “core” is a fool’s errand. He is glib and clever and seized upon a clever formulation (Agent of Change) to attract young and idealistic people longing for meaning. But perhaps that is all there is.
We don’t know how he will act under pressure and in real circumstances demanding definitive action because he has never developed, stuck with and acted upon a fixed set of principles. So voters will have to figure out for themselves which polar opposite vision of Obama is the real one. The fact that both could be in contention is startling and sobering.
Figuring out which Obama is the “real” one, in all likelihood, won’t help much. My guess is both and neither are real. And when you don’t have much of a resume to run on, you’d at least think you would want people to be very clear on who you are and what you offer.
Wouldn’t you? Well, maybe not if you’ve got an evil twin.
, the basis for the Best Motion Picture Nominee (Golden Globes) starring Brad Pitt.
, the novel by John Le Carre, a new motion picture starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.
by 
* (Included in the 
* 
.by David Fredosso who wrote 2008's 
- You'll have access to 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, and books, as well as ultra-fast Web browsing with Amazon Silk -- faster than iPad. Full e-mail and document access and a keyboard. Fire can transmit what is on your screen onto a connected TV or monitor without an accessory. It runs Flash (iPad doesn't). 
