Obama's Character: Ethikai Aretai for America

Both Clinton and Obama are smart enough to be president. Both are temperamentally competent to be president. When it comes to past behavior, I have every reason to believe both will support and enable progressive legislation. So for me, the question comes down to moral and international leadership, and the sense of possibility.

I want a president who is an extraordinary foreign leader, Commander-in-Chief, and voice for what is best in America in the world. This is not a question of likability, but it is a question of character, or the moral spirit that Aristotle called ethikai aretai. Character is different than personality, but a persistent, deeply embedded structurally defining trait, embodied in words like wisdom (instead of intelligence), courage (instead of brashness), an intuitive relationship to justice and fairness. The metaphor of character is not the strength of impenetrable walls, but the strength in resilience, the capacity to maintain judgment and moral reasoning over the battering humiliations of time.

I support Obama -- proudly -- because he has that difficult to describe, but not difficult to discern, quality of character. He showed it when he persistently pushed through legislation requiring videotaped confessions in Illinois -- his graceful, non-triumphalist response to legislative success has then allowed Illinois cops to be evangelists for the process elsewhere. He showed it when, as the guest of the Kenyan government two years ago, he publicly urged his hosts to grapple with corruption and ethnic division.

Flowing from this strength, his demands on us, as citizens, are genuine demands, not genuflections. When Clinton says that its "all about you," she means that she will work tirelessly to take care of us (which I believe she would, or pursue what she believed was the best path). When Obama says its "all about you," he means that unless we find that 5% of citizen leadership in our own communities, unless we organize to oppose kleptocratic and ogopolistic and environmentally ruinous behavior, we cannot transform this country, and, moreover, we cannot hold our heads high as true, self-governing, citizens.

Hillary has personality -- a lot of it, and by all accounts she is tough, funny, and smart. I think she comes by most of her positions honestly; she honestly believes that her choices will lead to the best world for Americans, she honestly believes she can solve the puzzles, work through the stack of paper. But her moral language is either missing ("were you better off" is not civic language) or strikes a false note.

I want a President who speaks -- honestly -- to what is best in us as citizens. We can be a stupid bunch, but we are not fools. Dishonest, sophist language -- moral language used cynically--will lead us to use moral language cynically. Moral language used honestly, if it reaches just 5% of the population, will instill demands within us to organize, empathize, and consider the public good, not just our own good.

The image I can't get out of my head, the image that drives my drives to South Carolina, my contributions, and my phone calls, is the image of Obama as our leader in the world. President Obama will not just speak to Iran, but to Kenya, to Pakistan, to Russia, to Hamas, and to the WTO. He can take on the way the UN is organized, the way we engage in diplomacy, and the scope of possibilities for international cooperation in an increasingly globalized and unequal world.

I know, from everything he has done in Illinois and before, that he is deeply comfortable with that most uncomfortable job of the president -- maintaining and projecting moral commitments (not strategic commitments) while engaging with those who are completely opposed to you. With Obama at our head, we can finish the quartet of the American dream -- Jefferson for freedom, Lincoln for unity, FDR for international freedom, Obama for international unity.

Comments

[vbond]

You are exactly right about this.

Thank you.

[FlowerGirl]

Can you trust a woman who has consistently voted contrary to what she now says she supports? I can't.

Clinton's character has too many obvious flaws.

[gba]

This is unbelievable. Obama may have many strenghts but besides Iraq foreign policy has not played any role in his campaign (as well as Hillary Clinton's campaign). He is chairing the Senate's committee on European Afaairs, but has never chaired a meeting. He has been traveling in a few countries in Africa, in the Middle East and in Eastern Europe, but has not build up broader international networks. Several foreign leaders - and in particular former leaders as the former German chancellor Henmuth Schmidt, who can "afford" to articulate their criticism - have been very critical to the lack of focus on international politics in general and in particular in Barack Obama's campaign

[JasonEverettMiller]

I think you hit the nail on the head, Zephyr. There is an essential truth to Obama that either you get or your don't. Based on the record turnout for his rallies, I find that many people are getting him in much the same way as you and I.

After the last debate, I felt that I could actually vote for Hillary if she got the nomination and Barack didn't emerge as a third-party candidate.

However, I still believe that Barack is the better choice for America and the country we want to be in the 21st century.

Obama '08! Yes, we can!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY

[Plowboy]

There are some obvious differences between Hillary Clinton and Obaama. She has given several excuses for her pro-war votes, but none work. If she was too trusting, she shouldn't have been: that infamous PNAC document was public and expressed the true intentions of its authors (as well as their contempt for truth and the American public.) So were many proofs of the falsity of the WMD evidence poured out. If a clod like me cfould have evaluated the evidence annd known what was up, anyone worthy of our vtrust in the Oval Office must have. Ther truth is simpler. AIPAC is aa force behind and on Hillary Clinton -- and their desires are more importanty than truth or justice or what is good for America.
Obama was right from the start. Because he is more bound to moral rectitude than some others who seek power.
Both are bright persons, but Hillaary, for some reason needed multiple tries before she could pass the bar exam. Obama had no such need. (Nor, I might add did my lawyer son.)
One is more brilliant that the other. Which? I think thar obvious.
Finally, electing Obama will tell the world many things about America and our future goals. That is not the most important consideration, but it is worth thinking about.
My first choice was Richardson because I consider him the most qualified of all the candidates; but Obama has the same qualities, and some in stronger measure. I think that he will be a great president. I worry about any of the other remaaining candidates of either party. I cannot see them moving us out of our current mess.

[KaneandAbel]

What a way to state a fact. Masterly, accurate and check-mate!

Bravo!

[midtown]

Zephyr,

I got to this line "With Obama at our head, we can finish the quartet of the American dream--Jefferson for freedom, Lincoln for unity, FDR for international freedom, Obama for international unity," and I got chills.

What a brilliant observation from an eagle's view.

[ljsfolly]

It does come down to moral authority and the ability to instill the belief and hope that we are too the masters of the destiney of this country as well as ourselves. I am also a supporter of Barack for the reason you state but much more the underlying rage that comes out the the clintons assuming they can dictate to us that Hillary is the president already with not votes they decided this and shoved it down my throat to my ankles. I like the rest of the citizens want my vote my say. I also dwell in the fear that comes from others deciding to vote for her for the various top coated reasons like she is a woman I am a woman therfore I vote for her. She is white he is not so I will vote for her. With her we already know what we are getting so I vote for her. I want the multidemesional person who tells the truth and doesn't have to try to explain and misrepresent what she did and her reasons. The war vote which she failed to read the NIE report for then she has dispmissed those who ask about it with evasive answers. Blood on hands isn't that easy to wash off.

[OtayPanky]

Yes, yes and yes.

I have been saying for months that the first bar - and in these troubled times the most important - is the bar of CHARACTER.

Anyone who fails that test is not right for America, or the world.

Only after that, should we look to the issue of COMPETENCE (which Hillary has re-shaped into the word EXPERIENCE).

It seems as plain as the nose on my face that Hillary fails that crucial test. Her management of her campaign, and her surrogates, is proof positive of that.

It seems to me just as obvious that Obama passes that initial test. He has consistently taken the high road - and the American people have rewarded that choice by bringing him to break even on the brink of Super Tuesday from a 20 point deficit not long ago.

The competence issue IS a roll of the dice (as Bill Clinton famously or infamously said). But, as bloggers and MSM journalists have pointed out, it's a roll of the dice for ANY of the candidates, none of whom has held a major executive position, either in the public sector or in business.

The repubs are almost certainly going to nominate McCain. Whether like his policy ideas or not, he is indisputably considered a great American hero, and a maverick who was willing to lose the chance to be POTUS rather than abandon his principled position on Iraq.

We cannot afford to have someone who is widely perceived (and rightly so) to be a person of expedience rather than principle opposing him.

Character, character and character. That's really the meta-issue upon which this race turns.

[kkvh4026]

I hate the way the US Press always ties to make this artificial distintion between Hillary & Obama in trying to suggest Hillary won't work with the people. Hillary has been saying throughout the election that she believes in shared responsibilty, in which she belives in a partnership between individuals, government, & businesses to improve each other's lives as a community, like on achieving universal healthcare 4 example. She's been a long time advocate of this approach.

As 1st lady, her role was to play a leading role in working to encourage the advancement of women's economic, social & political position around the world as a part of US foreign policy, in which I will provide an extract of one of the earliest speeches she made as 1st lady in India in 1995:

"As we work together on behalf of our grandmothers, mothers, sisters, daughters, and ourselves-let us avoid the false debate that says, on the one hand, only powerful institutions like government or business, or on the other, only individuals, are responsible for solving their own problems that we confront. In fact, we all know we need partnerships to achieve social changes. Governments, businesses, NGOs, families, and women themselves can either support or undermine people as they face the moral, social and economic challenges of our time. Individuals can either take initiative and responsibility or fall into hopelessness and despair. Simply put, no government, no businesses, no NGO, no person can remain idle given the magnitude of the challenges we face and the uncertainties of the world we live.

If all of us could take our responsibilities seriously. If we use our voices to seek ways to achieve the goals that really underlie the political and economic aspirations that are now being sought around the world and women and men will create a better world-for boys and girls-and that ultimately is what the point of political and economic activity should be here, in America, and around the world."

Hillary will be a wonderful leader who has demonstrated her ability to work with the national & international community.