History is Happening Now

 

     I try not to be a conspiracy-theorist.

     But no matter how hard I try, there are times when I feel as though a small community of elite, powerful people have a secret, shared understanding of what’s going on in the world, and the rest of us are being treated like mushrooms, as the saying goes: we’re being kept in the dark and fed crap.  

     I had this feeling in a big way today when I read a recent editorial in The Washington Post entitled “The Iron Timetable.” The editorial criticized Obama for promising yet again to keep his long-held campaign promise to withdraw the vast majority of U.S. troops from Iraq within 16 months (give or take). 

     This editorial does an excellent job showing how consistent Obama has been in calling for a speedy withdrawal, even as circumstances in Iraq have changed since Obama launched his presidential campaign in early 2007.  The editorial also does an excellent job of conveying a simple idea: that withdrawing from Iraq now would be irresponsible. 

     It does a extremely poor job of explaining why.  And the editorial writers at the Post aren’t the only ones these days who are arguing passionately that we should stay in Iraq but can’t explain why – at least, not clearly or publicly. I don’t know what these editorial writers are thinking but I know this about their failure to explain themselves: It’s not because they’re bad at explaining things.

     The most frustrating part of this editorial is the ending:

“What’s missing in our debate,” Mr. Obama said yesterday, “is a discussion of the strategic consequences of Iraq.” Indeed: The message that the Democrat sends is that he is ultimately indifferent to the war’s outcome — that Iraq “distracts us from every threat we face” and thus must be speedily evacuated regardless of the consequences. That’s an irrational and ahistorical way to view a country at the strategic center of the Middle East, with some of the world’s largest oil reserves. Whether or not the war was a mistake, Iraq’s future is a vital U.S. security interest. If he is elected president, Mr. Obama sooner or later will have to tailor his Iraq strategy to that reality.

First of all, I don’t buy the Washington Post’s claim that Obama doesn’t care about what happens to Iraq after we leave. Consider, for example, another excerpt from this same editorial:

At the time he first proposed his timetable, Mr. Obama argued — wrongly, as it turned out — that U.S. troops could not stop a sectarian civil war. He conceded that a withdrawal might be accompanied by a “spike” in violence. Now, he describes as “an achievable goal” that “we leave Iraq to a government that is taking responsibility for its future — a government that prevents sectarian conflict and ensures that the al-Qaeda threat which has been beaten back by our troops does not reemerge.” How will that “true success” be achieved? By the same pullout that Mr. Obama proposed when chaos in Iraq appeared to him inevitable.

     So according to the Post’s very own editorial, Obama is very clear in saying that he’d like to leave a stable government in Iraq. It’s true: Obama, like most Democrats, was once willing to withdraw troops from Iraq even if it meant a spike in violence there and possibly a civil war. But now that things have changed — now that it seems within the realm of possibility that the U.S. can withdraw without the violence, without the civil war – Obama wants to plan carefully, withdrawing in a way that will make stability in Iraq more likely.

     In other words, Obama wants both: he wants to withdraw troops from Iraq, and he wants Iraq to do well after we’re gone. But there’s no doubt that if Obama is forced to choose between those two, he considers withdrawing U.S. troops more important than protecting the Iraqi government from collapse. So Obama does care about what happens in Iraq, but he cares even more about withdrawing U.S. troops.

      On it’s face, Obama’s position is perfectly reasonable, but for some reason the Post’s editorial tries to characterize it so it sounds incoherent or inconsistent. Stability in Iraq isn’t Obama’s overriding number one top priority, and so the Washington Post accuses Obama of being “indifferent” to the war’s outcome. (One could just as easily accuse McCain of being “indifferent” about whether our troops live or die, since McCain is willing to continue sending them off to die in Iraq.) This spinning is intended to obscure the editorial’s basic point, which is that Obama should care more about what ultimately happens in Iraq. 

     Then the Post attacks Obama for this supposed “indifference,” calling it “an irrational and ahistorical way to view a country at the strategic center of the Middle East, with some of the world’s largest oil reserves.”

    Irrational? Ahistorical? Hmmm. This is where the conspiracy theorist in me starts yapping away. Is there some history we should know about? Is there some rational argument we’re missing? What is the Washington Post talking about? We can only speculate, since the Post is clearly unwilling to be forthcoming with the American public.

    So let’s speculate. It’s clear that Iraq — and the Middle East more broadly — has the oil. And it’s clear that we need the oil to fuel our economy. So I guess the Post is saying we should make sure Iraq keeps pumping oil for us to use. I guess the Post is worried that if we pull out of Iraq and a new Iraqi regime emerges and this new regime — possibly an “evil” dictatoriship – stops pumping oil, it will screw up our economy. Is that it? Is that what makes Obama’s “indifference” so “irrational and ahistorical”? Our need to keep the Iraqi oil flowing? Is that why Obama’s number one top priority should be to keep American troops in Iraq past 2010, extending the war into its ninth year? If that’s what the Post’s editorial writers believe, then they should come right out and say so. Instead they use words like “ahistorical,” “irrational,” and — my favorite — “vital U.S. security interest.”

      The conspiracy theorist inside me believes the term “vital interest” was created by a small community of elite, powerful people so they can tell us something is very important without having to explain why. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of that kind of talk.

     I can just imagine an editorial writer for the Washington Post reading this blog entry and chuckling at my lack of sophistication, my lack of elite, insider knowledge. “You clearly don’t understand international relations,” this imaginary writer is thinking as he chuckles. “You clearly don’t understand the global oil economy. You don’t understand our vital interests in the Middle East.”

     That’s right. I don’t understand. That’s why I rely on the Washington Post to explain it to me.  But you smarty-pants Post writers haven’t explained why it’s so crucial that things go our way in Iraq. You just use the word “oil” and “vital interests” and expect us to just nod and agree. All you’ve done is make us afraid of what will happen if we withdraw troops, which is all the Bush administration has been doing since this stupid war became a fiasco.

     Maybe the Post’s writers have some grand theory about the global oil market that explains why we should keep sending our brave volunteer soldiers to die in the Middle East. Maybe this theory is well-known to a group of policy-makers in Washington, but for some reason it never makes it onto the front pages of the Post. Maybe the Post and the policy-makers are conspiring to keep us ignorant of this grand theory so when the elites need to fight another war for oil they can once again call it “the central front in the war on terror,” and we’ll have no choice except to go along, terrified that nuclear missiles will destroy our cities, our freedoms.

     The American people are sick of being kept in the dark and fed crap. If you editorial writers at the Washington Post have a specific concern about what might happen in Iraq, you should share it. If you don’t have the courage to write your minds, then you should keep your pens capped. But don’t try to scare us with your vague words and ominous analysis. If you people had any real insight into this situation, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.

     -Ian

A considerable number of man-hours have been spent–wasted, I think–debating whether or not to condemn the New Yorker’s recent cover, which represents Barack Obama as a Muslim terrorist “fist-jabbing” Michelle Obama (who is herself represented as a stereotypical militantly left-wing “Black Power” type with a huge afro).  The American flag burns in the fireplace of the Oval Office and a portrait of Osama bin Laden hangs on the back wall.  The New Yorker says of this cover:  it is meant as a satire of right-wing myths about Obama, exposing these stereotypes in all their stupidity by aping the position of someone stupid enough to take them.  Critics say:  whatever the New Yorker’s stated intent, this image reinforces Republican talking points by repeating them.  Others say:  Obama has only made matters worse by seeming not to “have a sense of humor” about the image.

I say:  that the cover itself is trivial but also that the New Yorker should be strongly condemned for running it.  Why?  Not, as is often claimed because the cover reinforces Republican frames and right-wing radio talking points.  I see zero chance that this cover will reinforce anyone’s mistaken impressions about Obama.  That small percentage of Americans who mistakenly think that Obama is a crypto-Muslim (as if there was something wrong with being a Muslim) or that he hates America or that he secretly worships Osama bin Laden will stay roughly constant.  No, what the New Yorker should be condemned for is the total stupidity and banality of this cover as political satire.

As a would-be writer of political satire, I take great offence.  I poo-poo you, New Yorker!  Is this what America needs by way of satire?  This is a time when torture is regularly used by the state, when the rule of law lies in tatters (for those in power; those at the bottom of the ladder still have to follow the law), when oil companies basically write our energy policy (and multinational corporations are given free reign to “regulate” themselves), when we are in the fifth year of a seemingly endless military occupation of a foreign country (the result of a war that should never have been fought), when habeas corpus applies to everyone except those who are deemed enemy combatants by our Great Leader.  And what does the New Yorker do?  It takes a courageous stance–draws a bold, deep line in the sand–against false rumors that afflict the hideously-well-funded deeply-centrist mainstream American-as-apple-pie Democratic frontrunner presidential candidate (Barack Obama) by mocking that loony right-wing fringe that believes absolutely ridiculous things about said frontrunner.

How very brave and groundbreaking of the New Yorker to take the following courageous/controversial political stances:  (a) No, America, Obama is not a Muslim!  (b) No, America, Obama does not want to burn the American flag!  (c) No, America, Michelle Obama is not ’60s-style political left-wing radical who carries a machine gun!  How witty!  How urbane!  Congratulations, New Yorker, you’ve taught the dirty grimy proles to recognize their own foolishness.  And with a magazine cover!  Who would have thought it possible?  Next, you should take a courageous political stance critiquing Barack Obama on his sudden love of flag-pins.  That’s a flip-flop worth lambasting him about, a serious political issue worthy of your attention.

Noting the “call by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for a timetable for the removal of American troops from Iraq,” Barack Obama writes in op-ed in the NYT today that a continued U.S. presence in Iraq “runs contrary to the will of the Iraqi people, the American people and the security interests of the United States. That is why, on my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war.”  This is an encouragingly unambiguous reaffirmation of one of Obama’s core campaign platforms:  withdrawal from Iraq within 16 months and an unambiguous affirmation that “we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea, and would redeploy our troops out of Iraq and focus on the broader security challenges that we face.”  I take this to mean that there will be not a single U.S. military base inside Iraq and that the bases that are currently under construction will be dismantled if Obama is elected.  I am not sure what this means about the status of the Green Zone and the mammoth U.S. embassy (which is practically a base and as big as Vatican City) that is being built in central Baghdad.  In my view, the Green Zone must revert to full Iraqi control, and our embassy needs to be just an embassy, not a crypto-military base.

In the same op-ed, however, Obama calls for “at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan.”  Translation:  Obama wants to deploy at least 7,000 extra combat soldiers to Afghanistan.  Are these troops necessary?  Do combat brigades help us better catch terrorists?  Is Obama in favor of building permanent bases in Afghanistan?  I don’t know the answer to these questions, but I wonder if he has justified this increase in other speeches and writings.  Anyone know?  We should also of course note that Obama sees further continued uses for American troops inside Iraq:  “going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces.”  All these points ought to be clarified, lest they dilute the core message:  out, now.  I mean, are we talking about incursions from Kuwaiti bases?  Will there be US soldiers guarding the embassy who might be targets and who might be regarded as de facto occupiers?  Does Obama reserve the right to re-invade Iraq or would doing so require re-authorization by Congress?  Etc. etc.  You can’t have “withdrawal from Iraq except when we feel like going back in.”  Out means out.  Once we’re out we no long have the right to go back in without express Congressional and Iraqi approval.  Democracy, all that.

Still, despite all the detailed follow-up questions that must be asked, this is a winning platform for Obama.  This op-ed suggests that he will stick to it.  This is what the majority of the American and Iraqi people want.  Full withdrawal, ASAP, is the best strategy for keeping the US safe, not to mention the most moral path.  It’s within our grasp, and we need to ensure that this is what happens, though I think we are also obligated to pay massive reparations to the Iraqis for what we’ve done to them, Marshall-Plan-level investment in the country.  When I vote for Obama, I will be voting for a pro-withdrawal Obama, along the parameters outlined here.  There are some areas where Obama is not fully clear, which I have noted, but if he wants his views to reflect the democratic consensus of the American and Iraqi people, he will stand behind all of the following with no ambiguity:  full US withdrawal from Iraq, no military bases, Iraqi control of the Green Zone, de-militarizing our embassy, and full Iraqi sovereignty (i.e. no authority to re-invade on a whim).  We should strive for nothing less.

The New York Times reports today that alarm has been spreading among “left-wing bloggers or purists holding Mr. Obama’s feet to the fire on one issue or another,” among them FISA, free trade, public financing of his campaign, and on and on.  Lawrence Lessig, writing about Obama’s FISA repositioning, tells “fellow liberals, or leftists, or progressives, get off your high horse(s).”  But some leftists aren’t getting the message.  Glenn Greenwald, in typical Far Leftist fashion complains today about torture and FISA, going so are as to link both issues to a more fundamental problem: the “subversion” of the so-called “rule of law”:

This is what a country becomes when it decides that it will not live under the rule of law, when it communicates to its political leaders that they are free to do whatever they want — including breaking our laws — and there will be no consequences. There are two choices and only two choices for every country — live under the rule of law or live under the rule of men. We’ve collectively decided that our most powerful political leaders are not bound by our laws — that when they break the law, there will be no consequences. We’ve thus become a country which lives under the proverbial “rule of men” — that is literally true, with no hyperbole needed — and Mayer’s revelations [of widespread torture] are nothing more than the inevitable by-product of that choice.

Rule of laws, rule of men, whatever.  The sissy ninny latte-sipping liberal communist-anarchists on the rabid hysterical moonbat Radical Far Left whine and whine, while sipping lattes and poofing their expensive haircuts, about such trivial “rule of law” issues as:  Bush’s legalization of warrantless wiretapping; the suspension of habeas corpus for enemy combatants; the use of torture as an instrument of state power; the use of executive signing statements and executive orders to define, circumvent, and nullify laws passed by Congress; the wholesale nullification of the Rule of Law in pursuit of the Global War on Terror; and on and on.  They claim that there’s some kind of “problem” if Democrats–the ostensive opposition party–authorize or facilitate these powers.  They act as if there was some ideology that links together these disparate abuses all together, something like the Unitary Executive Theory of presidential power.  Unitary, smunitary, I say.

As a sissy ninny Latte-Sipping Liberal Far Leftist myself, I tell my comrades on this side of the aisle (really the dark rat-infested corner in the basement of the Capitol building): chin up.  You’re looking at all of this the wrong way.  We act sometimes as if the fact that our chief executive has absolute power and immunity to the law is a bad thing, but imagine the possibilities if we take the reins of power.  If we can do that, and hold these very same Unitary Executive powers in our well-meaning and infallible hands, then we get to define who is the terrorist and who is the patriot.  If we seize power, we decide where the Pentagon bombs and where U.S. aid money flows (hint:  we will bomb the Midwest and use tax dollars to finance Al-Qaeda).  So the best thing we can do to see our ideals and beliefs realized isn’t to cry over spilt milk–i.e. the Constitution, the Magna Carta, and the very concept of the rule of law–but rather to wholly embrace the total and complete death of the rule of law in favor of the rule of men.  Men we like.  Men like us.

In that spirit, I propose the following plan of action to America’s first Moonbat Leftist President, whoever he or she may be:

* Use your warrantless wiretapping powers to listen in to the phone conversations of the editorial offices of the Wall Street Journal, The National Review, The Weekly Standard, Commentary, and so on.

* Arrest every right-wing talk radio host you know, and fly them all to Guantanamo Bay.  Do not charge them with any crime, but simply insinuate they’re terrorists.

* Torture–via water boarding and any other means you like–any who refuse to confess to the nature of their Secret Plot to Destroy America or any who refuse to divulge the location of the deep-underground cave where Norm Podhoretz will be in hiding.

* Institute by signing statement and executive order any or all of the following: national health care, progressive taxation, income redistribution, protectionism, welfare, housing subsidies, and a free lollipop for every American.

* Declare right-wing militias (anyone who owns guns), militant anti-abortion activists (anyone who thinks abortion is wrong), slightly-too-religious Americans (anyone who attends a church) terrorists.  They are, after all, all of them:  so it’s best to call them what they are, declare a war on them, then also stipulate they’re not covered under the Geneva Convention, since they’re not uniformed soldiers.

* Appoint supreme court justices who will not be activist judges who claim to want to “protect and defend” the Constitution.  Anything that restricts executive power is, as we’ve learned, by definition unconstitutional.

I think when you consider all the possibilities inherent in Unitary Executive Power, you will come to understand how mistaken you were to complain about this FISA and torture nonsense.  Think instead of all the myriad opportunities that come with Total Power!

Note: I hope it’s entirely obvious that the above post is a satire, and that I do not advocate any of the above bullet-pointed items, for the obvious reasons:  the “rule of men” is wrong when our political opponents advocate it, but it’s equally wrong when those we agree with do the same, even if it’s just a formal possibility in their hands, and remains unused.

In this week’s New Yorker, George Packer writes that “Obama’s rhetoric on the topic [of Iraq] now seems outdated and out of touch, and the nominee-apparent may have a political problem concerning the very issue that did so much to bring him this far.” Packer says that Obama’s articulating a sixteen month withdrawal timetable for Iraq was a political “mistake” and that given the recent “success” of the surge Obama might have to buck the “idealistic yearnings of his admirers” by “recalibrat[ing] his stance on Iraq.” Furthermore, Packer argues that a “‘conditional engagement’ policy is a much better fit for the present situation in Iraq,” though Obama might have trouble adapting his previously too-specific plan because “acknowledging changed ideas in response to changed facts is considered a failing by the political class,” even though the public, in its wisdom, will turn on Obama if he “seems heedless of progress in Iraq” and “centrist voters who have doubts about Obama” will consider inflexibility on Iraq a liability. So the “political class” wants Obama to be consistent, and stick to his original withdrawal deadline, while the centrist general population wants Obama to change according to progress on the ground.  Got that?  Packer’s conclusion is worth quoting at length:

Obama has shown, with his speech on race, that he has a talent for candor. One can imagine him speaking more honestly on Iraq. If pressed on his timetable for withdrawal, he could say, “That was always a goal, not a blueprint. When circumstances change, I don’t close my eyes—I adapt.” He could detail in his speeches the functions that American troops and diplomats can continue to perform even as our primary combat role recedes: training and advising, counterterrorism, brokering deals among Iraqi factions, checking their expansionist impulses, opening talks with our enemies in the region. He could promise to negotiate all this with Iraqi leaders, emphasizing the difference between a relationship that respects the wishes of the public in both countries and one in which Iraqis are coerced into cooperation. If Obama truly wants to be seen as a figure of change, he needs to talk less about the past and more about the future: not the war that should never have been fought but the war that he, alone of the two candidates, can find an honorable way to end.

Respecting the wishes of the public in both countries sounds like an excellent idea to me. That is probably part of what it means to live in a democratic society—that at some level our leaders do what we want, rather than us doing what our leaders want. So what does the Iraqi population want? We got a hint of that today, when Ali al-Dabbagh, an Iraqi government spokesman, said that “we need to agree on the principle of setting a deadline” for withdrawal from Iraq. al-Dabbagh suggests that US troops should be out of Iraq by 2011, but the Iraqi people themselves are less forgiving. According to a 2006 WorldPublicOpinion.org poll, 94% of Sunnis want Americans to withdraw within two years; 71% of Shia want Americans to withdraw within two years; and 40% of Kurds want the US to withdraw within two years. Overall, that’s 70% of Iraqis who want the US military presence gone, at least as of 2006.  2007 saw a spike in anti-occupation attitudes, correlated to the massive increase in violence. A March 2008 ABC/BBC post-surge poll shows that 41% of Iraqis “strongly oppose” coalition forces; 31% “somewhat oppose” them; 19% “somewhat support” them; and 7% “strongly support” them.  In this same poll, 38% of Iraqis want American troops to “leave now,” 35% want us to remain “until security is restored,” 14% “until the Iraqi government is stronger,” and so on.  These numbers are somewhat more favorable toward the coalition forces, since the horrific bloodbath of 2007 abated, but more or less track the 2006 figures.  The views of the Iraqi people are overwhelmingly negative toward the US presence in the country, in a much more pronounced fashion in those parts of the country where violence is rampant.

Polling in Iraq is notoriously hard, given the levels of violence in the country, but what the American people think is pretty clear and unambiguous. An ABC News/Washington Post poll, June 12-15, 2008 shows that 55% of the population wants to withdraw US forces “even if that means civil order is not restored there.” A May 30, 2008 CBS News poll reveals that 42% of Americans want our troops out in less than a year, while another 21% say within one or two years; only 20% say we should stay “as long as it takes.” A May 8-12, 2008 Quinnipiac University poll shows that 22% want withdrawal ASAP and 48% want us to set a timetable. And on and on. Poll after poll reveals that the majority of the US population wants us out of Iraq as soon as possible.

Under these circumstances, it seems apparent that Packer is wrong:  Obama’s February 2007 position and his specific 16 month withdrawal deadline are the opposite of “outdated” and “out of touch.” He is not making a “mistake” by listening to the “idealistic yearnings of his admirers”—i.e., the majority or overwhelming majority of the American people, depending on which poll you take as most accurate. Obama does not need to speak “more honestly” on Iraq or talk about “the functions that American troops and diplomats can continue to perform” as a way of restoring his credibility, because his original views are hugely popular, in both Iraq and the US. But Packer does get one thing right: if “Obama truly wants to be seen as a figure of change” he should “talk… more about the future” in a way that respects “the wishes of the public in both countries.” What those publics want for the future could not be more clear.  Only the “political class” (and mostly on the American right, as Ian’s previous post persuasively demonstrates, though Packer [who might as well be channeling Bill Kristol in this article] calls himself a liberal) considers “conditional engagement” to be a good idea, if these polls are to be believed.

     Let’s play a game called bursting the bubble.

     First, the bubble: The bubble is that Barack Obama has been “backing away” from his previous campaign promise to pull the vast majority of U.S. military forces out of Iraq within 16 months.

    It’s a popular bubble, especially among John McCain’s surrogates.

     Here’s Tony Blankley on NBC’s Race to the White House on July 3.

     “There’s always a little fudge in anything that politicians say. But it was clear what (Obama) was saying in the past, and it’s clear that he’s moving away from it now. And to quote a famous man, he’s going to be as careful getting out of his policy as he was reckless getting into it.”

     Here’s McCain buddy Senator Lindsay Graham on CBS’ Face the Nation on July 3:

     “I guess what disturbs most of us here is that during the primary season, (Obama) was as hard-over as you could be about leaving Iraq, ending the war now. We’ve been hard-over about winning the war. John McCain has come up with a strategy called the surge, Bob, that worked. Senator Obama said not only it wouldn’t work, it would make things worse. He’s had a position on Iraq that has been a strong political calculation. That is that I’m going to align myself with MoveOn.org, I’m going to let everybody on the left know I’m going to end this war. Two weeks ago, he meets with a foreign minister in Iraq, the minister begs him not to implement this irresponsible plan, and announces to the world that after talking to Senator Obama he thinks Senator Obama and McCain are on the same sheet of music. He holds a second news conference, after everybody jumps on him about changing his position about listening to commanders. … So I don’t know what he’s going to do. He’s in a box. He ran hard to the left during the primary. The surge he said would fail has worked. He’s now going to Iraq after two-and-a-half years, and he’s in a box. If he comes back from Iraq and says this thing hasn’t worked, you need to pull all the troops out, he will look irresponsible, and he doesn’t know how to handle that.”

     Here’s Bill Kristol on Fox News Sunday on July 6:

     “Yeah, I think (Obama’s) move to the center on Iraq shows how radical the Democratic Party’s position on Iraq has been for the last year and a half. Really, unprecedented, almost, in American history, for a party to vote in Congress consistently to pull the plug on a war effort in the middle of that effort. I mean, the Democrats turned against Vietnam, but that was late, and they never could actually vote to actually cut off, you know, support for U.S. troops fighting in the field. The Democrats were- Once the surge started to work, once the way to end the war became to win the war, the Democratic Party’s position was untenable. Obama sees that it is untenable, and he is not going to stick to it, I think. And I hope. I mean, I just can’t believe he’ll come into the office as President of the United States, and seriously say, ‘I don’t care about the facts on the ground,’ ‘I don’t care whether leaving 50,000 troops there with minimal casualties could help trans-, could help, uh, complete a devestating victory against Al Qaida, could help complete a repudiation of Iranian influence in the region, could help advance U.S. interests throughout the Middle East — all of our allies want us to stay there, but I don’t care! I’m pulling out.’ I don’t believe Obama would do that as President, in all honesty. And I think he’s signalling that now, and I think he’s smart to, because it’s his biggest vulnerability. Is he ready to be commander in chief? That’s what Hillary Clinton gained ground against him on in the primaries, that was the issue she used against him. And he’s trying hard to not let McCain have that advantage against him in the general election.

     So here are three enemies of Obama working as hard as they can to blow up this beautiful bubble, this sparkling set of deliberate lies, that is now out there for the American people to contemplate. This bubble has several components.

     – Pulling out of Iraq is highly irresponsible, and Barack Obama knows it.

     – Obama took the position that he wanted to withdraw only to win the support of irresponsible liberals in the Democratic primary.

     — Now that Obama is running against McCain, he can’t possibly maintain his position that’s he’s going to pull out immediately, as that would be irresponsible and would make Obama look like he’s willing to sacrifice our national interests just to win an election.

     Now, let’s burst the bubble by reminding ourselves of what most Americans know in their gut:

     — Staying in Iraq as McCain recommends would be dangerous and irresponsible. There will be no stability in Iraq, and no stability in the Middle East, as long as thousands of American troops are occupying Iraq, effectively taunting the Arab world with an unecessary occupation that most Arabs — and indeed, most human beings on the planet — believe is motivated almost entirely by our desire to steal Iraqi oil and launch a war against Iran. More occupation of Iraq fuels terrorist recruiting and increases the likelihood of another terrorist attack on American soil. And Obama knows it. This is a “dumb war,” as Obama said, long ago, before it was popular.

      — In the primary campaign, Obama took the position that we need to withdraw quickly from Iraq because he knew it was the right thing to do, and because he predicted — accurately, as it turned out — that the American people would rally around this position. Many Americans initially supported this war because they thought Bush might not be incompetant. They refused to accept that a man smart enough to be president could be stupid enough to fight an unnecessary, self-destructive war. Now we know different.

      – Obama’s enemies are trying to scare us into thinking pulling out would be irresponsible. Obama’s ability to win this election will depend, at least in some small measure, on how successfully he cuts through the fear campaign and communicates his belief that pulling out of Iraq — so we can focus on winning the War on Terror — is in our national interests and will make us safer.     

     So we have a bubble of lies blown up by Obama’s enemies, and we have the truth. And what evidence do these enemies of Obama use to support their claim that he’s (gasp!) flip-flopping on Iraq?

     Here it is, as reported in The New York Times by Michael Cooper and Jeff Zeleny (quoting Obama):

     “I’ve always said that the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability,” (Obama) said. “That assessment has not changed. And when I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I’m sure I’ll have more information and will continue to refine my policies.”

     Mr. Obama has long spoken of consulting with commanders in the field as part of his plan for a phased withdrawal, but his shift in emphasis in the way he spoke about the situation on Thursday — after weeks in which Republicans and even an outside Iraq policy adviser to his campaign argued against a withdrawal along the lines he had proposed — fueled speculation that he might not be wedded to his timetable.

     So the Obama campaign scheduled a second news conference to try to clarify his remarks. “We’re going to try this again,” Mr. Obama said. “Apparently, I wasn’t clear enough this morning on my position with respect to the war in Iraq.”

     Obama is a smart man, and he’s still committed to withdrawal from Iraq. He just believes in refining his policies after talking to experts. In other words, he’s the kind of guy who likes to learn and improve. It’s an approach to policy-making that some of Obama’s older supporters may remember from the Clinton years … the Bush Sr. years … hell, even the Reagan years… It’s just not something that Bush Jr. does, at least not until thousands of American soldiers have died and his polling numbers are down the tubes… And it’s not an approach McCain seems particularly interested in, either…

 

  

            I’ve never considered myself very cool. But lately, I’ve begun to think of myself as at least kind of a little bit coolish. After all, I support Obama, and he’s cool, right? He’s the coolest candidate since John F. Kennedy, or so they say.

 

            But then, recently, I was listening to an interview on The Rachel Maddow Show on Air America Radio (technically, a podcast of the show) and I realized I’ve been deluding myself: Supporting Obama isn’t cool. Maybe it was cool once, but it’s getting less and less cool all the time.

 

            What was it about this interview that yanked the cool carpet out from under me? It was the awesome, overwhelming coolness of a man who is so cool that most people know him by only one name. Move over, Cher. Here is Markos! (being interviewed by the somewhat less cool David Bender, who interviewed Markos about the upcoming Senate vote on a bill that would provide immunity to telecom companies that illegally wiretapped U.S. citizens for the U.S. government):

 

__________

 

                BENDER: … that vote is coming up now. It’s been delayed in the Senate ’til after the 4th of July recess. And two Senators, Russ Feingold and Chris Dodd, have talked about not only gumming it up but possibly amending this FISA bill to take out the telecom immunity. You have been writing recently at Daily Kos about the issue, both specifically, and writ large as it affects the presidential campaign, and there’s a lot of concern now that Barack Obama has walked back from his commitment to oppose a FISA bill that gives telecom immunity. He has said he will vote for it if that’s the compromise. We don’t know where he will stand on a filibuster. You have gone so far – and you posted this, and I caught it yesterday – that you’re holding back on making your personal contribution to the Obama campaign, based on the fact that (on) this and other issues, he has, he has walked back a bit. You know, we’re hearing all the rhetoric. “He’s moving to the center.” “He’s using the left.” “This is his sister Soulja (sp?) moment.” Whatever happened to her, by the way? Um, how do you feel about what’s happening here, and again, is the perfect the enemy of the good, and the good being the essential fact that Barack Obama needs to be sworn in next January.

 

                MARKOS: Barack Obama is going to be sworn in next January. I, there’s, I have no doubt about that. Absolutely.

 

                BENDER: I’ve just knocked wood here.

 

                MARKOS: (Barring) a calamitous collapse of epic proportions, which is always within the realm of possibility, not very probable. The issue here isn’t that we don’t support Barack Obama anymore, or that I don’t support him anymore. Of course I support him. I look forward to Barack Obama. I want him to win and win big.

 

                BENDER: And you make that clear. You make that clear in your post.

 

                MARKOS: Right, right. So this is not an opposition. It’s not, “I hate Barack Obama,” or “Barack Obama no longer meets my, my, my, somehow, my standards of what a good Democrat should be.” None of that is the case. What is the case, is that Barack Obama, by going back on his word on FISA, and, sort of, using us as a foil to show how moderate he is – I don’t even know what he’s doing – basically what he’s saying is, “I don’t need, Markos, I don’t need your financial and ardent support anymore.” That’s what he’s saying. And he probably doesn’t. He has huge movement behind him. He’s got millions of people that are donating, working for him, whatnot. People like me who are really, really concerned about the FISA situation, we’re a minority, an admitted one. I mean, I’m not going to claim we’re this massive movement. Right? Just a fairly small number of people who are really obsessed with protecting the Constitution.

 

                BENDER: But, a large number, Markos, a large number of ardent people – and, when you say that he may feel he doesn’t need the money anymore, well just last month he only barely outraised John McCain, which is a first, and so maybe there is some argument that if the checkbooks are closing, that could have a real impact on the campaign he can run over the summer.

 

                MARKOS: Right. No, absolutely. And that’s sort of the calculation that they need to make when they’re deciding how to move on certain legislation. They have to understand that even among his supporters, it’s not 100 percent, all in, no matter what Obama does. There are repercussions to the choices he makes. By deciding, “you know what, FISA’s not important to me,” and I guess, I think most people are focused on tangible issues. I mean FISA’s sort of abstract, right? The Constitution. People are more focused on, “Am I going to lose my job,” or “When are we going to get out of Iraq,” or “How can I get health care? You know, I’m one illness away from catastrophic financial ruin.” Those are the things that people are really focused on right now, and FISA’s sort of an abstract issue. So, um. But, there are people like me that are really, really, you know, that really believe in the Constitution, and it should be defended. So, he, we’re sending the message, and it’s not a malicious message, but any time he makes a calculation of that sort, he’s going to lose somebody.

 

                BENDER: It’s a friendly push. It’s a friendly reminder.

 

                MARKOS: Absolutely. And if he decides, if it turns out that he does need that money after all, he does need my ardent support and that of people like me, then he can quickly decide, “You know what, I am going to help filibuster this FISA bill. I’m going to use my leadership as a leader of the Democratic Party to come up with a FISA compromise that is a true compromise, not a capitulation to George Bush, but a true compromise that protects the Constitution.”

 

_________________

 

Now, let’s review some of the truly cool things Markos said in the interview above:

 

First: “Barack Obama is going to be sworn in next January. I, there’s, I have no doubt about that. Absolutely.”

 

It’s cool that he has absolutely no doubt about something that will be the subject of intense speculation throughout the country for the next four months. If I were cool, I’d be a confident as he is. But I have to admit I’m plagued by doubts; and that’s why I feel motivated to give money to Obama’s campaign, to volunteer for him, and to try to convince my friends to support him. I’m not entirely certain that he’ll win, and that’s why I think my involvement might make a small difference. But if I were cool, like Markos, I wouldn’t feel the need to get involved because I’d already know the outcome months in advance. Confidence about stuff: that’s cool. Chicks dig it.

 

Second: “People like me who are really, really concerned about the FISA situation, we’re a minority, an admitted one. I mean, I’m not going to claim we’re this massive movement. Right? Just a fairly small number of people who are really obsessed with protecting the Constitution.”

 

He’s so right, and so cool. Uncool people like me tend to believe the Constitution is pretty popular with a sizeable majority of the American public. I mean, if you walk down the street and you ask random people whether they support the U.S. Constitution, you’re liable to get a fairly positive response. So uncool people like me figure if most Americans aren’t concerned about the FISA bill, it’s because they don’t really understand why it’s such a threat to the Constitution, perhaps because people like Markos haven’t succeeded in delivering their message. But my knee-jerk belief in the popularity of the U.S. Constitution is just so uncool compared to Markos’ belief that only a small minority – for whom he apparently speaks — really care about the Constitution. Markos is so cool he didn’t even think it necessary to explain in the interview why the FISA bill threatens the Constitution. (I had to get that info from my friend Lee, who isn’t very cool at all.) Instead, Markos implied that I’m not passionate about the FISA bill because I’m not really “obsessed” with protecting the Constitution. Obsession is cool. Talking in ways that make other people feel stupid is cool. Chicks dig it.

 

Third: “I think most people are focused on tangible issues. I mean FISA’s sort of abstract, right? The Constitution. People are more focused on, ‘Am I going to lose my job,’ or ‘When are we going to get out of Iraq,’ or ‘How can I get health care? You know, I’m one illness away from catastrophic financial ruin.’ Those are the things that people are really focused on right now, and FISA’s sort of an abstract issue.” 

 

It’s true: cool people like Markos aren’t like the rest of us. They don’t tend to worry as much about health care, jobs, or war. (That’s partly because cool people are independently wealthy and would never serve in the military. ugh!) But the real reason why cool people don’t worry as much about the “tangible” issues, is because cool people are smarter than the rest of us. Cool people live in a world of abstractions. You know, abstractions like the Constitution, which is far too abstract for ordinary health-care-wanting, job-wanting, peace-wanting Americans to understand. That’s why we need cool people, I suppose. Chicks dig it.

 

Fourth: “So, he, we’re sending the message, and it’s not a malicious message, but any time he makes a calculation of that sort, he’s going to lose somebody.”

 

Markos understands that it isn’t cool to be malicious. If Markos were “malicious” toward Obama, that would be very uncool. So, instead, Markos is offering up a friendly threat, a friendly message: “Vote the way I want, friend, or I may not give you any money for your campaign. And you may even “lose” some people, which presumably means they won’t vote for you.” The uncool might have a hard time reconciling Markos’ claim that he wants Obama to win big with his implication that Obama may need Markos’ support to win and Markos’ threat that he may not end up delivering that support. But that’s only because the uncool, the simple-minded, can’t see the deeper meaning, the subtle truth. The uncool might also have a hard time understanding why Markos thinks his actions will make any difference, given his claim that he believes Obama is absolutely going to win. Like Walt Whitman, Markos contradicts himself. Chicks dig it.

 

So here it is, folks. If you want to be cool and punish Obama for voting yes on this FISA bill, you should withhold your campaign donation, which Obama doesn’t need because he’s going to win anyway. Or, if you are uncool – if you care about providing health care for people who are suffering, providing jobs for people who want to work, providing releif for our heroic soldiers who are dying for no reason in Iraq, and you’re not in possession of a crystal ball – then I suggest you open your checkbook. Obama needs your help, especially now that the cool are jumping ship.

 

Obama recently changed his position on FISA. After promising to filibuster any bill that contained retroactive telecom immunity, he says now that he’ll support the “compromise” bill that was recently passed by the House. Many so-called “netroots” type bloggers have written extensively on the mistake Obama is making by reversing his position (there are also hints that Obama is changing his tune on his promised 16-month Iraq withdrawal deadline). I don’t find it at all surprising that Obama has taken this new stance; it was all perfectly predicable. Democratic candidates have repeatedly (and disastrously) taken a defensive posture toward the Right in the U.S., and have tried to position themselves as “centrists” by abandoning their own professed core values. Bill Clinton did this after he was elected, though he (notably and successfully) campaigned as an unapologetic progressive (for universal health care and against NAFTA, both hugely popular positions), only having been “persuaded” that NAFTA was right and good, that the free market and free trade was ever and always a wonderful thing, after he won.

Regardless of whether Clinton’s conversion was heartfelt (let’s assume for now, it was), and whether Obama’s rapidly changing stances toward FISA and the Iraq War reflect his newfound, sincere views (let’s grant that, too), neither candidate received support for these new/revelatory positions. Their advocates and supporters voted for them on the basis of their stated platform, their professed values, their implied and explicit political beliefs. People voted for an anti-NAFTA Clinton, an anti-telecom-immunity Obama. This is why the “netroots” backlash is so crucially important, because it’s testing the premise that networks of coordinated and motivated bloggers, with little or no corporate support, can twist the arm of flip-flopping candidates as they ineluctably fly toward the so-called “center.”

Obama has posted his response to his critics here (Glenn Greenwald replies point by point here). The fact that Obama felt compelled to respond is why I supported him over Hillary Clinton (though Edwards was my preferred candidate in the Democratic field). Obama’s reply is a huge admission of weakness, in my view. He can’t ignore his critics, because his strength depends very much on capturing and harnessing the genuine enthusiasms and energies of a large vast decentralized network of excited young people. It is entirely true, it seems to me, that he has energized previously apathetic young citizens, an admirable feat in itself. But he did so not in some content-free way or by just being generically inspiring. His positions matter to this network of support, especially his positions on the war. If Obama begins to alienate his network–if he begins to abandon what he previously claimed were his own core values–then he is vulnerable to a massive backlash. He might be able to count on the support of those critical semi-elite “netroots” bloggers (like Glenn Greenwald, Kos, etc.) despite their strong political disagreement (Obama’s clearly superior to McCain in a number of vital ways, they’ll point out, quite correctly), but he can’t count on the larger network (the younger people, independents, etc.) of (previously-apathetic) voters to turn out in large numbers if “Obama 2008″ becomes just another campaign.

Obama’s weakness, his dependency on large numbers of enthusiastic (mostly progressive, but somewhat cynical and alienated) voters, is our strength. Politicians should ideally fear their supporters. They should be terrified of betraying their supporters because doing so, theoretically, ought to destroy their credibility and careers in the long term. So here’s to the so-called “netroots.” Keep twisting the screws. Keep putting on the pressure. Make Obama sweat.