Stop bagging Hillary Michael Costello February 01, 2008
I have watched with intense interest the rise and rise of Barack Obama over the past year. Who interested in US presidential politics (and the whole world should be, given the consequences for the globe) could not be fascinated by the young, fresh, eloquent figure who promised so much? When Obama won the Iowa caucus, the first vote in the nominating process for presidential candidates, I watched to see how he would behave. Would he follow Churchill's great dictum: "In defeat defiance, in victory magnanimity." No he did not. In victory he showed vanity and vindictiveness. Vanity in his clear belief that what the flatterers and fans were assuring him was the truth: he was a political messiah. And vindictiveness in his dismissive and arrogant treatment of Hillary Clinton in the last New Hampshire debate. He showed the same vindictiveness and lack of magnanimity after his victory in South Carolina. The first part of his victory speech was a deeply unpleasant attack on the Clintons. No graciousness there. And how did he handle defeat in New Hampshire and Nevada? With a combination of denial, petulance and the launching of a successful campaign to persuade the American media that the Clintons were engaged in a campaign of lies about him and, even worse, in a campaign of surreptitious racism. Let's look at what happened. Obama had successfully appealed in Iowa to an American yearning for change from the Bush years. Everyone - Democrat and Republican - jumped on the change bandwagon. Clinton pointed out, however, that it's not enough to hope and demand change; you had to be able to define what change you want and had to be able to deliver it. Obama riposted that this failed to take account of the sort of impetus for change created by great rhetoric of the kind used by John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. So far, so good. Normal political exchange. Note it was Obama who introduced King into the debate, on his side. Clinton then made the obvious, and surely entirely legitimate, factual point that King's rhetoric had certainly been the indispensable inspiration for change, but that president Lyndon Johnson's efforts had also been indispensable in actually getting civil rights legislation through the Congress against deep opposition from parts of his own party. The place went into meltdown. This was said to disrespect King. How could Clinton equate King to Johnson? She wasn't: she was simply pointing out that both were necessary, one to inspire and one to deliver. Soon her words were being construed not just as disrespect but as hidden racism. Make no mistake: Obama's people joined in briefing the media and others extensively to create this impression. The Clintons' record on race in general, and King in particular, has over decades of their public life proved unimpeachable. They have both been champions of the black cause. Yet from that moment on, the Clintons have been assailed (with obvious glee and encouragement from Republican commentators) for allegedly mounting a subliminal race campaign. It's a tragedy for Obama that this has happened. The consequence has been exactly what you would expect. In the Nevada caucus, blacks voted overwhelmingly for Obama and non-blacks voted overwhelmingly for Clinton. In South Carolina, the black vote was 53 per cent of the total. Obama secured 80 per cent of it. That's the reason for his overwhelming victory there. He won only 23 per cent of the non-black vote. Contrast this to Iowa, where he won a large proportion of the white vote. Yes, this is a tragedy, but it's entirely his own fault for allowing his manifest shock and petulance at his defeat in New Hampshire to stop him doing the obvious thing. He should have vigorously defended the Clintons from the first moment on the racism charge. By letting it run, by allowing his operatives to encourage it, by appearing aggrieved, the very thing he has worked so hard to avoid has happened: he became "the black candidate." This same petulance and obvious outrage at criticism is manifest in another key example, one for which Bill Clinton is taking the blame. One of Obama's most effective criticisms of Hillary Clinton is that she voted for the resolution authorising the Iraq war, while he not only opposed it from the start but (and this is crucially important) he had consistently opposed the war ever since. Bill Clinton expressed his frustration that this story of consistent opposition over years was a "fairytale" the media had bought into uncritically. In fact, said Clinton, Obama in 2004 said he did not know how he would have voted on the resolution authorising the war. Remarkably, Obama has managed to persuade the media that this was a lie by Clinton that he would correct. He hasn't corrected it, because he can't. The record shows that Bill Clinton was right. Obama did say that. He has not been consistent in the terms he set himself. Now get this. Obama's defence to saying this in 2004 is that he was supporting John Kerry for president at the time. Kerry had voted for the war and was continuing to justify his support for his vote. Obama said that he did not want to cause Kerry political embarrassment so he said that he, Obama, did not know how he would have voted. But hold on. Isn't this the candidate who's about change, whose whole candidacy is based on a "different kind of politics"? Isn't this the candidate who says the country can no longer tolerate political spin, that lying in the name of political advantage is what's destroying the country? Yet on the very issue he identifies as the biggest moral issue facing America (the Iraq war) the issue on which he most often attacks Hillary Clinton (the original vote on the Iraq war), Obama effectively states that he was lying for political advantage. Obama's main claim to fame is that he's a compelling speech-maker. Yet unlike the rhetoric of a Kennedy or King, Obama's rhetoric seems aimless. He calls for hope, for change. Fine, but hope to do what, to change to what? He hasn't said yet. He doesn't seem to know. Shorn of purpose, his rhetoric seems increasingly an exercise in technique and style, "sound and fury, signifying nothing". He says that one of the high qualities of leadership is the ability to inspire by words, and he is right. It's a rare ability. But inspire to what end? It's a pity. He promised so much. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25 197,23140008-7583,00.html http://tinyurl.com/29easc
