Obama: Even the Conservatives' Right Choice

To follow along with James Carville's Biblical imagery, Barack Obama has parted the Presidential Red Sea to lead even principled Republican conservatives to the Obama Land of unifying and transforming America. In the March 24th issue of The American Conservative, Andrew J. Bacevich writes a clear and persuasive argument for his readership's voting for the Illinois senator called "The Right Choice? The conservative case for Barack Obama."

This is a must read. Among other satisfying points, he slams George W. and his policies and repudiates John McCain as the next president. Here are some clips of the piece:

...For conservatives to hope the election of yet another Republican will set things right is surely in vain. To believe that President John McCain will reduce the scope and intrusiveness of federal authority, cut the imperial presidency down to size, and put the government on a pay-as-you-go basis is to succumb to a great delusion. The Republican establishment may maintain the pretense of opposing Big Government, but pretense it is.

Above all, conservatives who think that a McCain presidency would restore a sense of realism and prudence to U.S. foreign policy are setting themselves up for disappointment. On this score, we should take the senator at his word: his commitment to continuing the most disastrous of President Bush's misadventures is irrevocable. McCain is determined to remain in Iraq as long as it takes. He is the candidate of the War Party. ...

So why consider Obama? For one reason only: because this liberal Democrat has promised to end the U.S. combat role in Iraq. Contained within that promise, if fulfilled, lies some modest prospect of a conservative revival.

To appreciate that possibility requires seeing the Iraq War in perspective. As an episode in modern military history, Iraq qualifies at best as a very small war. Yet the ripples from this small war will extend far into the future, with remembrance of the event likely to have greater significance than the event itself. How Americans choose to incorporate Iraq into the nation's historical narrative will either affirm our post-Cold War trajectory toward empire or create opportunities to set a saner course....

Give the neo-cons this much: they appreciate the stakes. This explains the intensity with which they proclaim that, even with the fighting in Iraq entering its sixth year, we are now "winning" -- as if war were an athletic contest in which nothing matters except the final score. The neoconservatives brazenly ignore or minimize all that we have flung away in lives, dollars, political influence, moral standing, and lost opportunities. They have to: once acknowledged, those costs make the folly of the entire neoconservative project apparent. All those confident manifestos calling for the United States to liberate the world's oppressed, exercise benign global hegemony, and extend forever the "unipolar moment" end up getting filed under dumb ideas.

Yet history's judgment of the Iraq War will affect matters well beyond the realm of foreign policy. As was true over 40 years ago when the issue was Vietnam, how we remember Iraq will have large political and even cultural implications.

As part of the larger global war on terrorism, Iraq has provided a pretext for expanding further the already bloated prerogatives of the presidency. To see the Iraq War as anything but misguided, unnecessary, and an abject failure is to play into the hands of the fear-mongers who insist that when it comes to national security all Americans (members of Congress included) should defer to the judgment of the executive branch. Only the president, we are told, can "keep us safe." Seeing the war as the debacle it has become refutes that notion and provides a first step toward restoring a semblance of balance among the three branches of government.

Above all, there is this: the Iraq War represents the ultimate manifestation of the American expectation that the exercise of power abroad offers a corrective to whatever ailments afflict us at home. Rather than setting our own house in order, we insist on the world accommodating itself to our requirements. The problem is not that we are profligate or self-absorbed; it is that others are obstinate and bigoted. Therefore, they must change so that our own habits will remain beyond scrutiny....

Yet if Obama does become the nation's 44th president, his election will constitute something approaching a definitive judgment of the Iraq War. As such, his ascent to the presidency will implicitly call into question the habits and expectations that propelled the United States into that war in the first place. Matters hitherto consigned to the political margin will become subject to close examination. Here, rather than in Obama's age or race, lies the possibility of his being a truly transformative presidency.

Whether conservatives will be able to seize the opportunities created by his ascent remains to be seen. Theirs will not be the only ideas on offer. A repudiation of the Iraq War and all that it signifies will rejuvenate the far Left as well. In the ensuing clash of visions, there is no guaranteeing that the conservative critique will prevail.

But this much we can say for certain: electing John McCain guarantees the perpetuation of war. The nation's heedless march toward empire will continue. So, too, inevitably, will its embrace of Leviathan. Whether snoozing in front of their TVs or cheering on the troops, the American people will remain oblivious to the fate that awaits them.

For conservatives, Obama represents a sliver of hope. McCain represents none at all. The
choice turns out to be an easy one.

This shows the magnetism of Obama and his movement. If he can pull in some of these Republicans, he can create flow in our culture and politics -- cross-generational and cross-party support. It won't be everybody, but -- hey, won't be bad.

*****

A quick aside: David Brooks' piece, "The Long Defeat" in the New York Times, today was dead on. He said the door was closing on Hillary, and he asks why she's going on like this when it's hurting the Democratic race to the White House. When will Hillary give up? "She possesses the audacity of hopelessness." Not only that, she's inflicting it on all of us.

One more thing. You can't forget there are two giant egos involved -- Bill and Hillary's. Bill also has to accept that he's been beaten. Besides getting impeached in office (that was terrible though he stayed in the White House), he hasn't been beaten in a political race since 1980. Bill is definitely charismatic and persuasive -- used to getting his way -- and hates giving up his crown of Boy Wonder.