Doing Stuff

Ana Marie Cox:

In a general, Obama won't be running against Clinton, he'll be running against McCain, a politician that has actually taken political risks and endured the wrath of party hacks in order to make progress on real issues: "What has Obama done? Show me a single issue or piece of legislation where Obama has done something politically unpopular in order to move forward toward a greater goal." I pointed out that this argument hasn't made much of a difference so far. Ah, replied the adviser, "That's because Clinton can't show that she's done it, either." What's more, he said, the press will stop giving Obama a free ride in the general. McCain will be out there, holding court on his bus or his plane, providing unfettered access to both reporters and voters, and journalists will no longer be able to ignore Obama's lack of access and lack of interaction with real people. In fact, it'll be the only thing they talk about.

Both Ezra Klein and Ross Douthat seem to me to be unduly impressed by this argument. It's true that the press corps will jizz all over itself for John McCain, but that kind of thing will only take him so far. In terms of getting things done, what's John McCain ever accomplished? Beyond a minor, years-old procedural reform to the campaign finance system -- nothing. And he's had much more time in Washington in which to get something done. But in McCain's past 25 years in congress he's managed to author not a single piece of legislation that's been signed into law that helps any real people with any real problems. He's spent a lot of time posturing on the Sunday shows, and affiliated himself with a few pieces of modestly progressive legislation that didn't get passed, and then disavowed all those bills.

More broadly, though McCain is a formidable candidate in some respects, "experience" is the time-honored election argument of losers. If voters really valued experience, then veteran senators would be getting elected president all the time. Instead, it almost never happens because normal people don't think that long duration in congress -- an institution that's invariably incredibly unpopular -- is an appealing character trait.

Comments

This is a really bad typo. Even for you, Matt.

Posted by Clark | February 13, 2008 2:21 PM

PROOFREAD.

Posted by Christmas | February 13, 2008 2:27 PM

All right Matt, I'll bite: both Ezra and who?

Posted by David | February 13, 2008 2:30 PM

It's possible to view the page source to supply the missing text.

McCain also helped Charlie Keating a great deal. We shouldn't forget that.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | February 13, 2008 2:31 PM

Let me go into a trance and finish matt's post via spirit typing:
[begin theremin music]

Both Ezra Klein and Ross Douthat seem to me to be unduly impressed by this argument. It's true that the press corps will jizz all over itself for John McCain, but that kind of thing will only take him so far. In terms of getting things done, what's John McCain ever accomplished? Beyond a minor, years-old procedural reform to the campaign finance system -- nothing. And he's had much more time in Washington in which to get something done. But in McCain's past 25 years in congress he's managed to author not a single piece of legislation that's been signed into law that helps any real people with any real problems. He's spent a lot of time posturing on the Sunday shows, and affiliated himself with a few pieces of modestly progressive legislation that didn't get passed, and then disavowed all those bills.

More broadly, though McCain is a formidable candidate in some respects, "experience" is the time-honored election argument of losers. If voters really valued experience, then veteran senators would be getting elected president all the time. Instead, it almost never happens because normal people don't think that long duration in congress -- an institution that's invariably incredibly unpopular -- is an appealing character trait.
[end theremin music]

Posted by riffle | February 13, 2008 2:32 PM

Maybe this is an interactive exercise, and we're meant to finish his post for him.

Posted by Christmas | February 13, 2008 2:32 PM

This goes along with Obama's remarkable lack of a paper trail of things he's published in the 1980s and 1990s other than his mostly unread autobiography. (I presume Matt still hasn't read it.) My readers have found one publication from those decades on Lexis/Nexis: an NPR commentary taking the highly risky stance of denouncing The Bell Curve. Talk about Profiles in Courage!

It does suggest a strategy that might make McCain's campaign a little less hopeless against Obama. He could say:

"Obama is a state-of-the-art B.S. artist who tells everybody what they want to hear. Everybody loves him because they think he agrees with them, but that's because he has spent his whole adult life not telling anybody what he really thinks. In contrast, lots of people hate me because I'm always saying what I really think."

Of course, McCain's problem is that a lot of people hate him because what he thinks/says is often maniacally disastrous.

But, McCain does let us know what's on his mind. You have to give him that much credit.

Posted by Steve Sailer | February 13, 2008 2:33 PM

Pretty weak criticism. Barack will adapt to the new environment by giving more interviews. He can be very open and gracious when he needs to be. Just watch his interviews on TV. Besides, I think not giving as many interviews as McCain is not going to be as big a problem as you think. Reporters aren't so petty that they would bias their reporting just because they dislike a candidate or his/her treatment of them.

Posted by TLM | February 13, 2008 2:33 PM

And McCain will increasingly look like he did last night, a cranky old man unmasked by the Scoobies, grumbling, "And I would have got away with it too, if it hadn't been for you meddling kids!"

Posted by kidkostar | February 13, 2008 2:34 PM

The perils of blogging from the back of a taxi?

Posted by Preston | February 13, 2008 2:34 PM

Reporters aren't so petty that they would bias their reporting just because they dislike a candidate or his/her treatment of them.

And it keeps getting funnier and funnier ...

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | February 13, 2008 2:35 PM

It seems Matt has once again succumbed to his mid-afternoon Vodka and tramadol in the middle of a post.

Posted by Freddie | February 13, 2008 2:37 PM

It wasn't that bad of a typo, MY was undone by lack a quotation mark in his HTML. Here's what it should say:

Both Ezra Klein and Ross Douthat seem to me to be unduly impressed by this argument. It's true that the press corps will jizz all over itself for John McCain, but that kind of thing will only take him so far. In terms of getting things done, what's John McCain ever accomplished? Beyond a minor, years-old procedural reform to the campaign finance system -- nothing. And he's had much more time in Washington in which to get something done. But in McCain's past 25 years in congress he's managed to author not a single piece of legislation that's been signed into law that helps any real people with any real problems. He's spent a lot of time posturing on the Sunday shows, and affiliated himself with a few pieces of modestly progressive legislation that didn't get passed, and then disavowed all those bills.

Posted by Chris O. | February 13, 2008 2:37 PM

Your Criswell act astounds and amazes, Riffle.

Posted by Christmas | February 13, 2008 2:38 PM

Reporters aren't so petty that they would bias their reporting just because they dislike a candidate or his/her treatment of them.

That's some good deadpan humor.

Posted by dry_fish | February 13, 2008 2:39 PM

Double quotes, Matt. Double quotes. Press 'shift'.

Reporters aren't so petty that they would bias their reporting just because they dislike a candidate or his/her treatment of them.

Congratulations on coming out of that nine-year coma, TLM.

Jon Meacham has already given props to the McCain campaign's ability to keep travelling hacks well-fed and docile.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | February 13, 2008 2:39 PM

I hope Matt's ok.

Posted by Jim W | February 13, 2008 2:39 PM

It's been proven time and again that the Straight Talk Express is not so straight. Obama can point to a number of times in the Illinois Senate or in the US Senate where he took a stand on the losing end of a bill. Or, in one instance, going out and forming a coalition to push through legislation that forced police officers to videotape confessions. Try again, John. And further, what I love is that people who have reservations about Obama (valid as they are) are usually proven wrong. Too much fluff, no substance? The guy was a former constitutional law professor at UofChicago - he could probably talk you into the ground for two hours on any number of technicalities in the constitution. Anyway, Obama's not perfect, but he must be pretty great if this all they can come up with. Rezko? Won't stick. Muslim rumors? Not true. Doesn't have a backbone? Nope. At some point, I'm sure they'll find something that Obama can't deflect or use to his advantage. Until then, I just don't see him getting harmed by this stuff.

Then again, I love kool-aid.

Posted by Craig | February 13, 2008 2:39 PM

Both Ezra Klein and Ross Douthat seem to me to be unduly impressed by this argument.

Ezra Klein, at least, is unduly impressed by a lot of things.

Posted by Christmas | February 13, 2008 2:41 PM

Exactly, kidkostar-

McCain looked extremely Dole-like last night. My feelings about a Democratic rout jumped after watching him.

Posted by Preston | February 13, 2008 2:42 PM

But McCain was really involved in the baseball steroids shit. Does that count for anything?

Posted by Lev | February 13, 2008 2:42 PM

The mystery about Obama has always been: what's going to win -- his head or his heart -- when he gets supreme power and can finally begin to drop the mask he's worn during his rapid, self-disciplined ascent to power when he's done so much to avoid leaving a paper trail of how he feels on the major issues of the day.

1. His head is in the center: a yuppie advocate of minor technocratic reforms, very bright, hard-working, and cautious.

2. His heart is way out in left field with his spiritual adviser Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.

So, it's not surprising that he limits interviews and sticks to orations and discussions where he can utilize his great gift for getting other people to think he agrees with them. I'd like to see him interviewed by the man who understands best where he's coming from, literary critic Shelby Steele, who also has a black father and a white mother.

Posted by Steve Sailer | February 13, 2008 2:44 PM

Someone, it might even have been MY, mentioned that McCain tended to suppoprt popular things he didn't support only in the context of onmibus budgets bills that had no chance of passing. I think this is a tack McCain should not get away with, Dem rhetoric should play this up.

Posted by Martin | February 13, 2008 2:44 PM

Ethics reform as a freshman senator was probably pretty unpopular by lots in DC, but he got it passed.

Posted by Mark from NY | February 13, 2008 2:45 PM

Let's not forget that there is one candidate for whom the press likes to "jizz itself" more than McCain... that's Obama.

So why do so many people think they will inevitably turn against Obama, but not against McCain?

Posted by Tractarian | February 13, 2008 2:49 PM

This post would also seem to reveal something interesting -- Matt, do you really hard-code all the HTML yourself? It's a wonder this sort of thing doesn't happen more often.

Posted by Chris O. | February 13, 2008 2:49 PM

Obama did a town hall on MTV with young voters. I remember him doing very well. But that could be the endowment effect.

Maybe this will have an effect in the general, but I'm skeptical that the "Why won't Obama start doing the the things I'm good at?" tack will work work for Clinton in the primary. It would be an easier argument to make if there hadn't already been two dozen debates.

Posted by ixnaythemetier | February 13, 2008 2:49 PM

In McCain's speech last night you can see he is trying to characterize Obama as a B.S. artist who spouts platitudes (similar to what Steve Sailer is saying above). McCain also hinted that Obama is an egomaniac. McCain was portraying himself, on the other hand, as a humble man, due apparently to his imprisonment in Vietnam.

I don't think this will work. I mean, pretty much everyone who runs for president in these days is an egomaniac.

Posted by Jim W | February 13, 2008 2:51 PM

At least Matt has graduated from bashing a little old lady by means of his continuous stream of snarky posts to showing his youthful wild-eyed admiration for Obama. "Sans a matching double quote alas'.

Posted by gregor | February 13, 2008 2:52 PM

Sailer raises some interesting points. Anyone care to engage, or do you not care what Obama believes?

Posted by Juan | February 13, 2008 2:54 PM

I keep wondering about this Obama Free Pass meme. Drugs? Covered, didn't stick. Chicago land deals with seedy contributors? Covered, didn't stick. Purported inconsistency on Iraq? Covered, didn't stick. Didn't stick because there wasn't much there, and didn't stick because voters with their eye on the ball weren't horrified by what *was there. Because Obama's a relative neophyte, and because he's actually consistent and forthright, there's simply not much dirt. Which leaves two arguments: 1)he's relatively inexperienced 2)he's black, with Muslim relatives. The first hasn't worked, so they're damned sure counting on the second. McCain's the real blowhard. A maverick when it doesn't count and a war-mongering Bush clone when it does.

Posted by John | February 13, 2008 2:54 PM

Wait, what has McCain actually accomplished other than campaign finance reform (which doesn't seem to have really changed anything)?

Posted by blah | February 13, 2008 2:57 PM

Sailer raises some interesting points. Anyone care to engage

Feel free. Me, I'm away from showering facilities right now, and the stink of 'engaging' with Popeye lingers.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | February 13, 2008 2:59 PM

It's true that the press corps will jizz all over itself for John McCain ...

See, this is the kind of thing David Shuster is competing with in his efforts to reach "the kids." We shouldn't be too hard on him.

Posted by alkali | February 13, 2008 3:05 PM

Juan, would you care to highlight the "interesting points" that Sailer raised? I must have missed them. I mean, are we really supposed to be troubled that a man who was neither a journalist nor a public official in the 1980s or early 1990s did not leave a Lexis/Nexis "paper trail" expressing his opinions on issues?

How many articles did you publish in the 1980s and 1990s, Juan?

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | February 13, 2008 3:07 PM

2. His heart is way out in left field with his spiritual adviser Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.

Evidence, please?

Posted by Freddie | February 13, 2008 3:10 PM

Jonathan Chait on the Plank(New Republic) says-
Who is not specific?
'I see John McCain is attacking Barack Obama for lacking specifics, the same theme Hillary Clinton has been pounding. Well, it's certainly true that Obama can't match Hillary Clinton's grasp of policy detail. Clinton is a true policy wonk. I also happen to think this doesn't matter -- as president, you need to be intelligent and know a lot about policy, but there's a point above which the principle of diminishing returns applies. Obama has a perfectly well detailed platform. He knows enough about policy to have intelligent debates with his advisors. Clinton knows enough about policy to be a policy advisor, but I don't think that level of detailed knowledge is necessary.

But to hear this attack coming from John McCain is just galling. McCain takes a strong interest in foreign policy, to be sure, but his main public appeal has been to endless remind voters of his history as a POW. On economics, he's repeatedly admitted that he knows very little. And on social issues, he doesn't even know what his own positions are. (See this hilarious report from last year.)

McCain is like Obama in that he's appealed to voters largely on the basis of broad themes and his personal charisma and history. The difference is that Obama is a former law professor who's actually done his homework on the policy, and McCain is still winging it.'

Posted by soms | February 13, 2008 3:11 PM

What Matt said (eventually), but also, it's my feeling that, so far this year, 'what the media thinks' is playing about as well as 'what the polls say'...

Posted by SimplerDave | February 13, 2008 3:20 PM

I don't find Matt's counterargument persuasive. While not the most prolific senator, McCain has had enough legislative successes to fend off accusations that he hasn't accomplished anything. In addition to McCain-Feingold, he can talk up his role in normalizing relations with Vietnam, Indian Affairs reforms, passing the line item veto, the tobacco settlement legislation, and the "Patients Bill of Rights" thing.

Legislative experience and efficacy isn't a strong argument in the big picture, but there's no doubt that McCain has an edge on it compared to either Clinton or Obama, and it will probably be a somewhat fruitful line of attack for him. Experience doesn't matter much in general, but it matters most when a candidate has a low absolute level of it; 6 terms in the Senate vs 2 terms makes less of a difference than a difference than 2 terms vs less than one term would, so I'd expect it to matter more in McCain vs Obama than usual.

Posted by MattXIV | February 13, 2008 3:21 PM

Yglesias, Douthat, Cox and Klein are all out to lunch on this one. And Sailer is, well, he's Sailer.

Obama's got a reasonably lengthy record in the Illinois Senate and U.S. Senate that includes some risky stands and real accomplishments. (A bill requiring videotaping police interrogations, for example.)

To the extent that the same can be said of McCain, that's a political disadvantage for him, and it will continue to be. Lotsa conservatives are very unhappy about campaign finance reform, and that's going to hurt McCain more than help him. Likewise, I bet if the videotaping thing comes up, it's going to be because McCain brings it up, not because Obama brags about it.

There's a reason gutty stands are gutty - because they cost something.

Posted by politicalfootball | February 13, 2008 3:21 PM

Yglesias, Douthat, Cox and Klein are all out to lunch on this one. And Sailer is, well, he's Sailer.

Obama's got a reasonably lengthy record in the Illinois Senate and U.S. Senate that includes some risky stands and real accomplishments. (A bill requiring videotaping police interrogations, for example.)

To the extent that the same can be said of McCain, that's a political disadvantage for him, and it will continue to be. Lotsa conservatives are very unhappy about campaign finance reform, and that's going to hurt McCain more than help him. Likewise, I bet if the videotaping thing comes up, it's going to be because McCain brings it up, not because Obama brags about it.

There's a reason gutty stands are gutty - because they cost something.

Posted by politicalfootball | February 13, 2008 3:22 PM

All Obama has to say is Keating five... McCain is a big flip flopper too. I remember him on Hardball saying he was for gay marriage and a few minutes later after a aide told McCain it was wrong he changed his mind..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeBw28tX5Nw

Posted by Ann | February 13, 2008 3:22 PM

"So why do so many people think they will inevitably turn against Obama, but not against McCain?"

Bacause, a) McCain is going to be the GOP candidate, and is therefore possessed of all the manly virtues the MSM just knows American's really crave in their leaders. Attacking him would be rude, especially when that's what the Democratic candidate is for. See: Gore, Al; Kerry, John.

b) The MSM appear to have decided that if they can just fellate the Grizzled Warrior-Chief into the White House it'll purge them of all guilt for enabling 8 years of El Residente, and thus re-write history so that everything they've done since 2000 never really happened. I call it the 'Mephisto Effect', but then I'm something of a comics-geek.

Either way, the MSM are not going to support Obama over McCain in a two-horse race.

Posted by Tony J | February 13, 2008 3:26 PM

This is McCain in 2004
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/14/mccain.marriage/
It is amazing how things change after four years of kissing up to the religious right..

Posted by Ann | February 13, 2008 3:27 PM

I mean, are we really supposed to be troubled that a man who was neither a journalist nor a public official in the 1980s or early 1990s did not leave a Lexis/Nexis "paper trail" expressing his opinions on issues?

In 1980, Barack Obama was 19. He got his B.A. in 1983, with a major in political science. Five years later, in 1988, he enrolled in law school, and graduated in 1991.

So, to answer your question, no, we shouldn't be troubled. Sailer is ignorant at best if he thinks a shortage of publications before the mid-1990s is at all meaningful.

Posted by Cyrus | February 13, 2008 3:34 PM

The press also jizzed all over Rudy Giuliani, and it wasn't that good for his complexion.

Posted by Thomas Allen | February 13, 2008 3:47 PM

I'll second kidko, and Preston: my strong hunch is that McCain is going to be a weak, Dole-esque candidate once he's removed from his beltway fan club. (Cf. Camille Paglia today: "John McCain's courage under torture during the Vietnam War deserves everyone's gratitude and respect. But as a national candidate, the stumpy, uptight McCain is a lemon. Oy, that weaselly voice and those dated locutions and stilted intonations. Who needs a weird old coot with a short fuse in the White House? This isn't a smart game plan for the war on terror.")

And I just heard a pollster on News and Notes talking about one reason Huck made it so close in VA: Obama swiped a bunch of McCain's expected independant votes, and even a few of his Republicans. I would take that as a good sign for Nov.

Posted by JB2 | February 13, 2008 3:52 PM

Wow. Little did I think, in 2004, that the Kerry campaign was so successful that the GOP would copy it, but here they are with McCain, giving us such worthy talking points as - he was a hero in Vietnam! and he's been in the Senate so long he had to have done something.

This is sweet. Personally, I'm looking forward to McCain coming out at the convention, saluting, and going: Captain McCain reporting for duty. Also, hope they have a speech from his daughter, with her telling us breathlessly that her daddy is her hero. It worked so well for Kerry, don't you know.

GOP-ers - talk to Jeb, he is your only chance.

Posted by roger | February 13, 2008 3:53 PM

"If voters really valued experience, then veteran senators would be getting elected president all the time."

Thank you for writing this. Please keep pointing this out in the general election.

Everyone always assumes that experience is a decisive factor in who gets to be president. It isn't. Look at Dodd, Richardson, etc., etc.

Posted by John Althouse Cohen | February 13, 2008 4:02 PM

But in McCain's past 25 years in congress he's managed to author not a single piece of legislation that's been signed into law that helps any real people with any real problems.

This could be paraphrased as "John McCain has not used force to micromanage strangers' lives," which is a big plus in my book, but an odd thing to say about McCain.

Posted by Shinyk | February 13, 2008 4:11 PM

"So why do so many people think they will inevitably turn against Obama, but not against McCain?"

Depends on what the right-wing hate machine does. If it gets behind McCain, then you'll see the media turn on Obama. Stuff will seep up out of the Drudge report, then the likes of Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity will hype it and . . . well, you know the drill.

Posted by Jose Padilla | February 13, 2008 4:14 PM

Sailor, you really bought that pseudo-intellectual nonsense that Shelby Steele is pushing about Obama(and conveniently, only about Obama, and right during an important election, hello)? As if every politician out there isn't wearing some sort of 'mask'. Look at McCain...he's got to wear the mask of 'reformed' liberal. Who knows where he'll end up when he's in office- will he go with his head and bow down to the Republican conservatives, or will he listen to his true 'heart' and let businesses get their cheap labor from Mexico? Why do you think the conservatives are going so crazy right now? Steele's argument is really just one more version of a very cleverly worded 'he's not black enough'.
Frankly, I find Steele's racially-tinged analysis of Obama's popularity insulting to both blacks and whites. He basically boils it down to white people voting for Obama out of subconscious desire for redemptiom from the black man(ie. Obama wins hearts by giving whites a 'pass' on past sins against blacks, by assuming that they aren't racist; and then white people are so grateful for his forgiveness that they go apeshit over him). As if a black candidate isn't good enough on his/her own merits to win an election.

Posted by kristi | February 13, 2008 4:16 PM

I also like Cockburn and St.Clair's take from a couple weeks ago:

McCain's victory in Florida on Tuesday is a measure of the terrible shape the Republican Party now finds itself in. They now have a front-runner that no faction in the party really likes. He's old, short, bald, with a history of serious skin cancer and a record of psychological instability. He is in favor of a war deeply disliked by about 70 per cent of all Americans and has publicly proclaimed that the U.S. may well be in Iraq for a hundred years. With the country poised on the lip of recession he calls for budget cuts. In Michigan he told distraught auto workers, --many of them "Reagan Democrats", that their jobs were never coming back. In Florida he said he didn't know much about economics but that Social Security would have to be fixed --i.e. privatized. Over half the people voting in Florida's Republican primary were over 60 and the Arizona senator's blithe endorsement of privatization would have scarcely been encouraging as they read the slumping bottom lines on their private 401K retirement accounts.

Posted by JB2 | February 13, 2008 4:18 PM

Obama swiped a bunch of McCain's expected independant votes

I would expect Obama to beat McCain emphatically in a general election, but you're reading too much into this. Now that the Republican contest is decided, I would happily switch parties to get a chance cast a vote against Hillary (were I not already past the deadline), even though I won't be voting for Obama in November.

Posted by Shinyk | February 13, 2008 4:22 PM

I third the Keating Five comments. "Bomb, bomb Iran" "I don't understand the economy" -- and those are just the recent dumb things he's said. What makes senators such lousy presidential candidates is that they HAVE records to abuse. Same thing that made Kerry a poor candidate.

Posted by mcd | February 13, 2008 4:24 PM

Obama's got a reasonably lengthy record in the Illinois Senate and U.S. Senate that includes some risky stands and real accomplishments. (A bill requiring videotaping police interrogations, for example.)

I would believe you even more that he's got a reasonably lengthy record in the Illinois senate (and I'm from Illinois) if you could write something more than this statement over and over and over again (learn something from Rove?). Great. Fine. He did one thing (by your own inability to produce more substantive illustrations of his wonderful, lengthy record and risky stands). I'm not sure if you are aware but Illinois is one of the most corrupt governments in this union and that's all he could muster? videotaping police interrogations? What a brave stance - everyone but the police were for that.

Posted by Julene | February 13, 2008 4:36 PM

press corps will jizz all over itself for John McCain

This has to be the first time the phrase "jizz all over itself" has ever appeared in the pages of The Atlantic.

Posted by jim | February 13, 2008 5:12 PM

Hey, Julene--

There's this totally awesome new thing on the Internets called Wikipedia. The coolest thing about this Wikipedia thingy is that it actually has information that people can use to answer their questions and reduce their ignorance! It's amazing.

So, for instance, if you like go to this Wikipedia place and type in "Obama" and then click on the link to "State Legislature" (I love the way they make it blue and everything so it's so easy to use!!!) you can read that:

As a state legislator, Obama gained bipartisan support for legislation reforming ethics and health care laws.[34] He sponsored a law enhancing tax credits for low-income workers, negotiated welfare reform, and promoted increased subsidies for childcare.[35] Obama also led the passage of legislation mandating videotaping of homicide interrogations, and a law to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they stopped.[35]

See how easy it is, Julene? Do you think you could do it yourself, next time, instead of wasting the grownups time?

Posted by vorkosigan1 | February 13, 2008 5:46 PM

Sailer: "2. His heart is way out in left field with his spiritual adviser Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr."

Freddie: "Evidence, please?"

See pp. 274-295 of "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance," which are largely devoted to Rev. Dr. Wright. That man of the cloth is the closest thing Obama has ever found to fill the father-shaped hole left in his heart by his Barack Sr.'s abandonment of him at age 2. Wright is the most important male influence on Obama's adult life.

In fact, see pp. 1-442 of same book.

Posted by Steve Sailer | February 13, 2008 6:05 PM

A whole paragraph of what Obama accomplished in the Illinois Senate. Wow, that makes every other senator in Illinois more qualified. Thanks for clearing that up.

Posted by Julene | February 13, 2008 6:22 PM

The distinguished left-of-center English essayist Jonathan Raban wrote in the Guardian recently about Obama's relationship with Rev. Dr. Wright:

"Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., apostle of black liberation theology, delivers magnificently cranky sermons on how the "African diaspora" struggles under the yoke of the ‘white supremacists’ who run the ‘American empire’…Under a universal tyranny of ‘corporate greed and rampant racism’, AIDS flourishes (‘it runs through our community like castor oil’), so do gang-bangs, murders, injustices of every kind. Slavery is here and now, and Fifth Columnists, traitors to their own kind, are all about us—like the black Republican Alan Keyes and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. On the issue of affirmative action, recently visited by the court, ‘Uncle Remus—I mean Justice Thomas—nodded his Babylonian head in agreement before pulling off his Babylonian robe and going back home to climb into bed beside his Babylonian wife.’ (Thomas's wife is white.)"

So, what was the "scrupulously agnostic" Obama (to use Raban's characterization of his true religious orientation) doing in Wright's church Sunday morning at 11 am for the last 20 years?

Raban says he Obama was studying Wright's oratorical style, which he has appropriated on the stump with spectacular success.

Now, that raises the crucial question of what exactly Obama wants to do with this amazing skill he has picked up from Wright over the decades? Implement yuppie technocratic reforms of 401k regulations? Or something more like Rev. Dr. Wright wants?

I just don't know. And I don't think it's too much to ask that a Presidential candidate be asked serious, probing questions about who he really is. And these have to be questions about race, which obsessed Obama at least through his 1995 "Story of Race and Inheritance." I don't think any white reporter has the guts to ask him about what's in his autobiography, so Shelby Steele, whose racial background (black father, white mother) is identical and who has read Obama's autobiography very closely, would be the ideal choice.

Posted by Steve Sailer | February 13, 2008 6:27 PM

The distinguished left-of-center English essayist Jonathan Raban wrote in the Guardian recently about Obama's relationship with Rev. Dr. Wright:

"Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., apostle of black liberation theology, delivers magnificently cranky sermons on how the "African diaspora" struggles under the yoke of the ‘white supremacists’ who run the ‘American empire’…Under a universal tyranny of ‘corporate greed and rampant racism’, AIDS flourishes (‘it runs through our community like castor oil’), so do gang-bangs, murders, injustices of every kind. Slavery is here and now, and Fifth Columnists, traitors to their own kind, are all about us—like the black Republican Alan Keyes and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. On the issue of affirmative action, recently visited by the court, ‘Uncle Remus—I mean Justice Thomas—nodded his Babylonian head in agreement before pulling off his Babylonian robe and going back home to climb into bed beside his Babylonian wife.’ (Thomas's wife is white.)"

So, what was the "scrupulously agnostic" Obama (to use Raban's characterization of his true religious orientation) doing in Wright's church Sunday morning at 11 am for the last 20 years?

Raban says he Obama was studying Wright's oratorical style, which he has appropriated on the stump with spectacular success.

Now, that raises the crucial question of what exactly Obama wants to do with this amazing skill he has picked up from Wright over the decades? Implement yuppie technocratic reforms of 401k regulations? Or something more like Rev. Dr. Wright wants?

I just don't know. And I don't think it's too much to ask that a Presidential candidate be asked serious, probing questions about who he really is. And these have to be questions about race, which obsessed Obama at least through his 1995 "Story of Race and Inheritance." I don't think any white reporter has the guts to ask him about what's in his autobiography, so Shelby Steele, whose racial background (black father, white mother) is identical and who has read Obama's autobiography very closely, would be the ideal choice.

Posted by Steve Sailer | February 13, 2008 6:33 PM

The distinguished left-of-center English essayist Jonathan Raban wrote in the Guardian recently about Obama's relationship with Rev. Dr. Wright:

"Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., apostle of black liberation theology, delivers magnificently cranky sermons on how the "African diaspora" struggles under the yoke of the ‘white supremacists’ who run the ‘American empire’…Under a universal tyranny of ‘corporate greed and rampant racism’, AIDS flourishes (‘it runs through our community like castor oil’), so do gang-bangs, murders, injustices of every kind. Slavery is here and now, and Fifth Columnists, traitors to their own kind, are all about us—like the black Republican Alan Keyes and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. On the issue of affirmative action, recently visited by the court, ‘Uncle Remus—I mean Justice Thomas—nodded his Babylonian head in agreement before pulling off his Babylonian robe and going back home to climb into bed beside his Babylonian wife.’ (Thomas's wife is white.)"

So, what was the "scrupulously agnostic" Obama (to use Raban's characterization of his true religious orientation) doing in Wright's church Sunday morning at 11 am for the last 20 years?

Raban says he Obama was studying Wright's oratorical style, which he has appropriated on the stump with spectacular success.

Now, that raises the crucial question of what exactly Obama wants to do with this amazing skill he has picked up from Wright over the decades? Implement yuppie technocratic reforms of 401k regulations? Or something more like Rev. Dr. Wright wants?

I just don't know. And I don't think it's too much to ask that a Presidential candidate be asked serious, probing questions about who he really is. And these have to be questions about race, which obsessed Obama at least through his 1995 "Story of Race and Inheritance." I don't think any white reporter has the guts to ask him about what's in his autobiography, so Shelby Steele, whose racial background (black father, white mother) is identical and who has read Obama's autobiography very closely, would be the ideal choice.

Posted by Steve Sailer | February 13, 2008 6:35 PM

Sorry.

The underlying problem is that it takes such an incredibly long time for the Atlantic website to respond to comments being posted that my computer thinks it has lost connection.

Why does it take so long?

Posted by Steve Sailer | February 13, 2008 7:20 PM

"Wow, that makes every other senator in Illinois more qualified."

Yeah, but don't forget: Obama was also a non-tenured, part-time law professor at U. of Chicago. And also a community organizer/vote hustler on the South Side of Chicago.

Posted by Fred | February 13, 2008 8:39 PM

Matt: "the press corps will jizz all over itself for John McCain".

Wow, Matt is getting my kind of class in his rhetoric.

Steve: "But, McCain does let us know what's on his mind. You have to give him that much credit."

Why? I don't see anything on his mind except war, war, and more war. He's a one trick pony. He has nothing to say about anything else - the economy, the "War on Terror", health care, anything. It's just war. Period.

Obama may be full of bullshit rhetoric, but it's better rhetoric than tired old McCain can pull out of his ass.

Steve: If your computer thinks it has lost connection, I suggest getting rid of dial up and going for DSL or cable.

Meanwhile, your notion that Obama is going to somehow implement - or even try to implement - anything Reverend Wright has talked about seems more far-fetched than that Skynet will destroy us all in four years. Not to mention that you didn't specify exactly what specific implementation of Wright's beliefs you expect Obama to try to implement.

In fact, nothing you quoted from Wright is, at least from the black perspective, even incorrect. The hyperbole is typical of black preachers, so we can discount that. Basically, Wright is saying that blacks still get the shaft from whites in this country. Can't argue with that much.

I guess what you're afraid of is that Obama might actually try to address some of that in his policies.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 14, 2008 1:48 AM

Obama convinced the Illinois state senate to vote unanimously ro require police to videotape interrogations of suspects in capital cases. The bill became law. It was initially opposed by the police and the newly elected Democratic governor.

Goint against the police is the ultimate in high risk politics. As pure persuasion, no more impressive accomplishment is easy to imagine.

Obama also lead the successful effort to have an Illinois EITC to supplement the national EITC.

The conventional wisdom on Obama is inconsistent with the facts. This has been reported in the Washington Post. There is no excuse for pretending that a freshman senator's actions in the US Senate show what he can and can't do or what he does and doesn't dare to attempt.

I'm sure Cox knows the facts. They just mess up the narrative and so are banished. I don't see why this is any better than, say, the lies of Jason Blaire. I have nothing against Cox personally as her performance is par for the course. Also She was quoting a dishonest question not making the false claim in her own voice. Still she should have known the devastating answer and she should have shared it with the public.

Posted by Robert Waldmann | February 14, 2008 10:44 AM

The Obama-hasn't-done-squat meme is total BS. He did plenty in the Illinois legislature and has been productive in the Senate on ethics and nuclear proliferation. I'm confident he could be a productive president, one who will be able to garner popular support for his proposals from the ground up much more easily than Clinton could. The idea that she could get universal healthcare passed is laughable. It would wind up like her first plan: dead on arrival.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/03/AR2008010303303.html

Posted by John | February 14, 2008 1:00 PM