He was wrong

Over at The Corner last night, Rick Brookhiser wrote a post about Obama and McCain and their respective stances on the War in Iraq:

As a state legislator, then a freshman senator, Barack Obama opposed the war, and resisted fighting it to win. His policies would have left Saddam in power, then let his followers murder their way back to it.

McCain owed his position to military experience; his grasp of such issues over a long career; and his character. Obama’s position shows a lack of the first two qualities. It is no bad reflection on his character—he had to buck the political climate to take his initial anti-war stand—but it shows that he was bold in a bad cause.

Obama’s failure is more conspicuous because it is the only significant public act of his life. His candidacy is not a disgrace, like those of the amateurs who have infested the process for twenty years—Jesse Jackson, Pat Robertson, Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan. Obama knows the political game from the inside, and he has held positions of responsibility. He has moved through them, however, without a trace—except for his early opposition to the Iraq war. He did one thing in his career, and he did the wrong thing.

Maybe Barack Obama will change over time. It’s possible—he is shrewd, ambitious and relatively young. Let’s let him change before we reward him with the football. Tuesday I vote for the man who knows where we are.

That's exactly right. We're supposed to elect this guy on the basis of his vaunted "judgment," the cornerstone of which has always been his opposition to the Iraq war. And he's been wrong about that for quite some time.

Actually, I shouldn't say that it's exactly right, since Obama didn't really have to "buck the political climate to take his initial anti-war stand," considering the fact that he came from a liberal district of Chicago, so it wasn't like he was really making a stand that would make him unpopular there.  And while he's not an amateur, his campaign has been a disgrace, with its Truth Squads, astroturfing, "Obama Action Wire" thugs, ready to shout down anybody who dares to disagree with The One, and state officials who are willing to violate the law to dig into Joe the Plumber's records when he dares to ask The One a question that he managed to inadvertently answer truthfully.

But Brookhiser is one hundred percent right about one thing.  Obama may change after this election.  I hope he does change.  But from what I've seen of him, that's not a Change We Can Believe In.  Not by a fucking longshot.

Posted by: Sean M. at 04:05 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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