Barack Obama Overseas: Damned if He Does, Damned If He Doesn't

by Fred Fleron, 29 July 2008

In recent weeks we have heard a number of folks say that they wonder if Barack Obama would actually do the good things he says he will do if he is elected President.  Fair enough, but what=s the alternative?  The danger that if John McCain is elected President he will do the things he says he will do.  Of course, McCain might not do the things he says he will do.  So where does that leave us?  What should we, the voters, do in the face of this quandary?  The first thing we should do is not judge candidates by whether they might deliver the goods promised during an election campaign.  Why not?  Because we can never know for sure.  Despite fine rhetoric and charismatic appeal during their election campaigns, we did not know beforehand whether or not FDR or JFK would, or could, actually deliver the goods.  Only with historical hindsight do we now know that they did deliver.  And so it will be with every other candidate, both present and future.

Since we cannot role the tape of life [to quote the late Harvard biologist Stephen J. Gould] either backwards or forward, we should take a very different approach.  We could judge candidates by the glimpses into character that are revealed by several factors during a campaign.  Listen to the things they say and how they say them.  Do they inspire confidence by their rhetoric and their presentation of it?  Do they send positive or negative messages, both in terms of their substantive statements and how they treat their opponents?  What is the quality of the issues they engage?

In terms of these criteria the 2008 presidential campaigns of John McCain and Barack Obama tell us much about the candidates.  As of this writing (27 July 2008), Senator Obama has just returned from an overseas trip to Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Germany, France, and Britain.  For months Senator McCain and his camp have been sharply criticizing Obama for not visiting Iraq.  It is not too much to say that McCain goaded Obama into taking his recent trip.  Yet now McCain is criticizing Obama for how he took the trip.  For example, he says that Obama should have visited wounded U.S. troops while he was in Germany.  OK.  But if Obama had visited our wounded troops, there is every reason to believe that McCain would have found something else to criticize about Obama's trip.  And now it is being suggested that Obama=s overseas tour may have Aoff point@ with so many Americans concerned about the economyBmortgage foreclosures, the price of gasoline, pink slips, etc.  Now you might say: well, that=s just the nature of political campaigning.  Perhaps so.  But I say that it also speaks to the quality of campaign issues.

On the question of rhetoric, can anyone truthfully say they are inspired either by the content of McCain=s rhetoric or his style of presentation?  He strikes me as a tired old man who should be respected, indeed honored, for his military service to our country and the horrors inflicted on him as a POW for more than five years.  But this is not a person who can inspire confidence as the leader of our country, either in the content of his message or in his public presentations of it.  Where is his enthusiasm?  Where is his energy?  Where is his creativity when it comes to major policy issues?

 
Another thing we could do is to evaluate the knowledge of candidates.  How conversant are they with the facts of life, both at home and abroad.  On his return from his first overseas trip, Senator Obama hit the ground running by giving a number of impressive answers to questions posed by CNN correspondents at the Unity Journalism Conference in Chicago.  This was aired on CNN following an interview of Senator McCain by Wolf Blitzer.  The differences between the two presidential candidates were stunning.  You had to see it to believe it.

Senator Obama's appearance in Chicago has raised another issue in the press.  A few weeks ago we were told that Obama lacked a sense of humor and had not committed the kind of faux pas that the press and political opponents love to seize upon.  It was suggested that he might pick a less skillful and more humorous vice presidential running mate who would provide the proper grist for the media mill.  Now when he jokes with the press during a public interview, as in Chicago the other day, it is suggested that he might be arrogant.   You just can=t win, can you?

And, yes, 200,000 people showed up to hear and see Barack Obama in Berlin, and the news media in this country made a bigger deal of that than they did the content of what he had to say on that occasion.  Count me among those who say they haven=t heard such an inspiring speech from an American public figure since the days of JFK and MLK.  No public utterance by John McCain has come even close to inspiring the degree of confidence in both the intelligence and grasp of international issues that Obama=s Berlin speech did for me, and as a student of politics for the past half century I am not easily impressed by campaign rhetoric.

So, if you have not done so already, read the text Senator Obama's Berlin speech and judge for yourself. Click here.