WEDNESDAY,  FEBRUARY 20,  2008

Where are we heading?  The questions are being asked.

It's hard to see how Hillary Clinton can regain her stride.  She was beaten by Obama in Wisconsin yesterday, and I have to be impressed by the breadth of the Obama victory.  At last report he'd defeated Clinton by 17 points, and won in groups that are normally hers.

Clinton would have to win Ohio and Texas on March 4th, and win convincingly, to reverse this Obama wave.  Then she would have to win Pennsylvania convincingly in April.  Some polls show she's already losing support in Texas.

I'll go along with the conventional wisdom:  The results from recent primaries are a rejection of Hillary Clinton as much as they are an endorsement of Obama, and his vague message.  Too many people just don't like her.  I'm no fan of Senator Clinton, but I will have to give her what is owed:  At least she's a serious person.  She has been a good senator, although I don't share a number of her views.  I think she is making some decent points, especially about the role of commander-in-chief.  Although I can't vote for her, she is far more adept in handling policy issues than Obama, who has the touch of the demagogue.  But show biz is winning.   

Barack Obama, during his chillingly brief career, has been blessed with weak opponents.  Hillary isn't weak, but she's proved far less formidable than we'd assumed.  Her speech last night, carried on the cable systems, was unfocused and disjointed.  You had the feeling she knew the truth - that Obama is on his way to the nomination.  If she can't rally, it will all be over, or about over, on March 4th.

I was also able to hear John McCain speak, as well as Obama himself.  I cannot deny Obama's rhetorical gifts.  He's a superb speaker.  He has presence and style.  He's likable.  But his speeches are empty, they lack an understanding of how things get done.  His lack of authority in foreign and defense matters is stunning.  Either he doesn't deal with the threats we face, which may tell us more about his real views than he'd like us to know, or he makes comments that seem crude and amateurish.  It must be very hurtful to our troops in Iraq to hear this man talk about how their effort is wasted.  He can criticize defense policy if he wishes.  That's what we do.  But he seems entirely insensitive to the feelings of soldiers and their families.

The crowds cheer Obama.  Too much so.  He is too assured, and the assurance comes from a lack of testing.

John McCain is my candidate.  His speech, which is here, had the stuff of wisdom and experience, some of that experience under the worst of conditions.  But I worry.  In an image-conscious age, with young voters indifferent to anything that happened earlier than yesterday, can McCain break through?  He spoke well, but looked tired and smallish.  We haven't always been kind to our war heroes.  Robert Dole found that out in 1996, when he was soundly defeated by Bill Clinton, who'd evaded the draft.

I hope John takes some time off, rests, restores his voice, and gets ready to do battle.  He's been there before.  Whether we agree with him on everything, we need him now.  Consider the alternative.  Consider it carefully.  John McCain last night:

The most important obligation of the next President is to protect Americans from the threat posed by violent extremists who despise us, our values and modernity itself. They are moral monsters, but they are also a disciplined, dedicated movement driven by an apocalyptic zeal, which celebrates murder, has access to science, technology and mass communications, and is determined to acquire and use against us weapons of mass destruction. The institutions and doctrines we relied on in the Cold War are no longer adequate to protect us in a struggle where suicide bombers might obtain the world’s most terrifying weapons.

If we are to succeed, we must rethink and rebuild the structure and mission of our military; the capabilities of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies; the purposes of our alliances; the reach and scope of our diplomacy; the capacity of all branches of government to defend us. We need to marshal all elements of American power: our military, economy, investment, trade and technology and our moral credibility to win the war against Islamic extremists and help the majority of Muslims, who believe in progress and peace, win the struggle for the soul of Islam.

Wonderful, wonderful.  That's the kind of change we can really believe in.

Obama, a view from the fatherland

We've been told that Obama is very popular in parts of Europe.  Of course, he would be.  The Europeans like to remind us of our racial past, while shoving their own awful bigotries under a Persian rug, which they got at a discount while selling high-tech equipment in Teheran. 

But now some dissent is being heard.  Writing from Washington for Spiegel Online, Gabor Steingart casts real doubt on the Obama crusade:

The rise of democratic frontrunner Barack Obama signifies an alarming victory of style over substance. Not unlike the dot-com hype, his campaign promises more than he can deliver. The one thing his voters can count on is that they will ultimately be disappointed.

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama reminds many people of former President John F. Kennedy or civil rights leader Martin Luther King. But when I hear him speak, I have to think of the crazy days of the New Economy.

And...

The future Obama is promising seems foggy and indistinct. He wants to change the rules of engagement in politics, but he neglects to explain how and in what direction. He wants to write a new page in the history books, but what handwriting does he plan to use to make his entry? He wants to drive out lobbyists, but if he does, who will champion the interests of union members, war veterans and chemical corporations? He wants to negotiate with the world's dictators, but to what end, exactly?

In fact, Obama's most dangerous land mines are hidden in foreign policy. A quick withdrawal from Iraq? Sounds great. But the mistake of having started this war in the first place cannot be corrected by ending it in a mad rush to get out of Iraq. A rapid withdrawal of the US military would most likely be followed by a bloody civil war. Al-Qaida would manage to sink its teeth into Iraq once and for all. Iran would rejoice. And Osama bin Laden and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would be the real winners of the 2008 American presidential election.

Concluding...

If democracy functions only half as well as the market economy, the Obama bubble will burst. The burning question is: When? Will it happen before the Democratic nomination this August -- or not until afterwards?

And that is the pressing question.

Michelle - please realize that silence is golden.

Michelle Obama's mouth continues to make news.  Mark Halperin, the veteran political analyst, gives a thoroughly professional analysis of what will probably be called the Michelle problem, if Obama gets the nomination.  Michelle Obama has a blunt mouth, and when she said a few days ago that this is the only time in her adult life that she's been proud of her country, she set off a well-lit firestorm.

Halperin says:

The Clinton campaign has often argued that Barack Obama is not prepared to face a general election onslaught from the rough Republican attack machine, but that contention has not yet been extended to Michelle Obama. This may change, given the pressures surrounding the current cluster of primaries. And those who think that the remarks of candidate spouses don’t count should hearken back to 2004. Teresa Heinz Kerry’s words were mocked, parsed, and censured by the Bush campaign and the Republican opposition, to great effect. In one incident, Mrs. Kerry was forced to apologize for suggesting Laura Bush had never held “a real job,” and her occasionally brash statements and behavior contributed to the negative image of Senator Kerry as patrician and remote. 

Michelle's "people" tried to explain away and interpret her remark, but there's nothing to explain away.  It's what she meant.  It was a simple comment.  There was nothing to "interpret."  It was a statement familiar on the hard left, and overflowed with contempt for this country.  The picture of Michelle Obama is a self-portrait, being painted before our eyes.  It is not necessarily attractive.

From a reader

One of the great things about blogging is the help you get from readers.  Reader Ken Braithwaite wrote this, about the Obama thing, that I thought I'd pass on to you.  It's provocative:

I have some thoughts on why truly educated people do fall for Obama.

Do you know the phrase "phatic speech"? This is a term from sociology; it means speech whose use is unconnected to its literal meaning and which is meant to establish the speaker as a member of a group. A canonical example is saying 'bless you' after a sneeze. I say it, and I don't believe in sprits or gods who can bless. Phatic speech is especially prevalent in self-aware elites. I believe most political speech is phatic speech.

This shows up in many ways, small and large. Here is a small one I find telling: look at the titles lefty columnists give their columns: "To the Contrary" or "In Dissent" or some riff on the beleaguered voice in the wilderness. This while recycling the conventional nostrums of their class. In dissent really means me too.

Even for many educated persons this is enough. Perhaps especially for educated persons, whose incomes and security insulate them, and who have the leisure to ascend beyond Maslow's pyramid, from self-actualization to self-congratulation.

Hmm.  The group mentality.  Yes, I've noticed it's as powerful among the educated as among any other group.  They want to belong.  They want to be accepted into the club.  The Obama club.  Aren't we special?  Aren't we tolerant?  Aren't we intellectual?

No.

Mark Steyn - alarmist.  BEWARE!

The great Mark Steyn is having trouble with one of those human rights courts in Canada.  You know, people who scored poorly on standardized logic tests sit in judgment of their betters, on guard against anything that might offend.  Steyn, it is alleged, is a despicable alarmist.  He strikes back, and his column is a gem:

I'm something of a phobiaphobe. I don't subscribe to the concepts of "homophobia" and "Islamophobia." They're a lame rhetorical sleight to end the argument by denying it's an argument at all: you don't have a political disagreement with me over gay marriage or sharia, you have a mental illness. But don't worry, we can give you counselling and medication and your "phobia" will eventually go away. Yet "Naziphobia" is the real thing — an irrational fear of non-existent Nazis. And so Canada's leading "human rights" hero is Richard Warman, a man whose Naziphobia is so advanced he hauled the "Canadian Nazi Party" before the "Human Rights" Tribunal even though, as the tribunal was eventually forced to rule, no such party exists.

Our heroes pursue phantoms as the world transforms. Is sharia, polygamy, routine first-cousin marriage in the interests of Canada or Britain or Europe? Oh, dear, even to raise the subject is to tiptoe into all kinds of uncomfortable terrain for the multicultural mindset. It's easier just to look the other way, or go Nazi-hunting in the men's room. Nobody wants to be unpleasant, or judgmental, do they? What was it they said in the Cold War? Better dead than red. We're not like that anymore. Better screwed than rude.

Read the whole thing.  You won't regret it.

And I'll be back later.  No offense meant.

Posted on February 20, 2008.