"So it has been for every generation that faced down the greatest challenges and the most improbable odds to leave their children a world that's better, and kinder, and more just." -- Sen. Barack Obama, June 4, 2008.
DETROIT -- Sen. Barack Obama offered hope, not fear, in his speech the night he captured enough convention delegates to declare "I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States." His words gave his party and the nation a way of seeing ourselves and neighbors in the world in a more sensible, decent and compassionate way.
Obama's critics write off his rhetoric and soaring oratorical skills as superficial theatrics, political hot air, insufficient to lift him to the White House. Underestimating Obama and the appeal of his words and message is a big mistake.
Just ask Sen. Hillary Clinton. Throwing in the towel and embracing Obama's candidacy, certainly a difficult task for someone who worked so tirelessly and came so close, Clinton did it with grace, passion and eloquence. Clinton's vote on the Iraq war and dubious poll-driven decisions doomed her candidacy.
Mark Penn -- the Clintons' cherished pollster and campaign strategist, who resigned from the campaign in April -- collected millions of dollars in fees for writing off Obama as a serious contender and seeing the Illinois senator as no threat to Hillary's well-financed, steamroller campaign.
Penn, CEO of public relations firm Burson-Marsteller Worldwide, had Bill Clinton's ear -- much like Dick Morris, another political parasite, did before him -- and stroked the Clintons into spending fortunes for sterile statistics used to stroke impotent politics.
Penn, according to a report in the Boston Globe, hosted a party at his home last spring and told a fellow Democrat the ambitious, articulate Obama was a "flash in the pan." Penn -- who no doubt will try to squeeze millions more from the Clinton campaign for fees yet unbilled or unpaid -- was responsible for what were arguably the biggest mistakes in the campaign.
An analysis of the Clinton campaign in The Wall Street Journal points to many insiders pressing her to promote herself as a candidate for change and counter her high negatives "by revealing the witty, engaging woman they knew."
Penn, who used his esoteric poll numbers like inscrutable tea leaves, nixed a softer and more authentic image and wanted Clinton seen as "tough and seasoned enough to be the first female commander in chief." Penn believed Clinton would look weak if she apologized for her 2002 vote giving President George W. Bush the OK to invade Iraq, even though many other members of Congress who made the same mistake had offered contrition.
Voting against the war in the first place or admitting her error in judgment could have saved Clinton's candidacy. Last week, the long-awaited Senate Intelligence Committee report on the Bush administration's use -- or better, misuse -- of intelligence to sell the Iraq war was released.
The report -- four years in the making, meeting resistance and stonewalling from Republicans at every stage -- provides a comprehensive look at the wholesale distortion, misrepresentation and mischaracterization of prewar intelligence. It was not "intelligence failures" -- the Busheviks' excuse justifying the unnecessary invasion of Iraq. It was the systematic twisting of intelligence to peddle the war Bush wanted to wage in spite of what the facts did or did not indicate.
"Before taking the country to war," Sen. Jay Rockefeller said, "this administration owed it to the American people to give them a 100 percent accurate picture of the threat we faced. Sadly, the Bush administration led the nation into war under false pretenses."
Former White House counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke told MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" about the crooks who sold the lies, "We should not allow these people back into polite society and give them jobs on university boards and corporate boards and just pretend that nothing happened when there are over 4,000 Americans dead and over 25,000 Americans grievously wounded. They'll carry those wounds and suffer all the rest of their lives. Someone should have to pay in some way."
The diligent and curious could see through the distortions. Former senator Bob Graham, who chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee during the runup to war, took the time to read the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. Incredibly, only seven senators -- Clinton not among them -- bothered to read the NIE.
Based on his knowledge and insights, Graham urged his Senate colleagues to heed his advice. Clinton chose to trust Bush. Given her propensity for poll-driven policy, undoubtedly Clinton listened to Penn or some other numbers guru who told her voting to support the war was popular.
The war in Iraq and her link to it overshadowed her otherwise outstanding record, sound positions and clear leadership skills, and gave Clinton's less-experienced challenger an opening and claim to be the candidate for change.
The war was especially unpopular in Iowa, and Obama's campaign was organized and motivated. He went on to the win the caucuses there, catapulting his campaign into the national spotlight.
Millions of Americans began listening to his eloquent speeches and call to "unite in common effort to chart a new course for America." Obama's words lifted and energized people, especially young voters, dousing indifference and offering hope that we can be a better nation . His words instill the belief that working for justice and peace is ingrained our national heritage and we are called to "that fundamental goodness to make this country great again."
Obama takes me back 40 years ago to Sen. Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign and the important moral tones he brought in addressing the plight of the poor. James Ridgeway, senior Washington correspondent for Mother Jones magazine reminds us that his old pal Jack Newfield, the late Village Voice reporter, used to say Robert Kennedy was more "priest than politician."
Kennedy preached about the needs of the poor, and offered job and health care programs. He talked about protecting the environment long before it became fashionable. Kennedy fought for racial and social justice and wanted to end the fighting in Vietnam.
He said in a speech, a few days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., "We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's advancement cannot be built on the misfortune of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge."
Marking the 40th anniversary of Robert Kennedy's assassination last week, his son Joseph P. Kennedy II wrote about his father in The New York Times:
"He lived by a moral compass that others, less certain of their direction, looked to for guidance. Even if what he asked was hard to hear and heed, he gave others the strength to believe not just in his guidance but in themselves."
Ridgeway says it's a mistake to dismiss Obama as "only" inspirational. He sees a politician who, like Robert Kennedy, points us toward needed transformation.
"Hope, like greatness, is a thing some men have thrust upon them." Ridgeway wrote. "They emerge as repositories for the finer yearnings of a confused and bitter nation, a mirror in which we see ourselves reflected not as the people we are, but as the people we would like to be -- and may, because of them, inch slightly closer to becoming. Whether or not they are worthy of such faith is, in the end, less important than the fact that they inspire us to be more worthy of ourselves."
Obama's words ring with hope and faith:
"I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs for the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment -- this was the time -- when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals."
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | June 10 2008 |