During a May 29 campaign appearance, Sen. John McCain falsely stated of the Iraq war: "I can look you in the eye and tell you it's succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels." As the AP pointed out on May 30, U.S. troop levels are not at "pre-surge levels." The AP reported: "There were 15 combat brigades in Iraq before the increase began. Five were added, and the United States has been reducing numbers since December. As of Friday, there are 17 brigades in Iraq, another brigade will depart in June and the plan is to pull out another in July, returning the level to 15." In 2003, then-Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean was criticized in the media for his response to a question about the number of active-duty members of the U.S. military.
On the June 22, 2003, edition of NBC's Meet the Press, host Tim Russert asked Dean: "[H]ow many men and women do we now have on active duty?" After Dean responded, "I can't tell you the answer to that," Russert said, "But as commander-in-chief, you should know that." Dean responded: "As someone who's running in the Democratic Party primary, I know that it's somewhere in the neighborhood of one to two million people, but I don't know the exact number, and I don't think I need to know that to run in the Democratic Party primary." Dean later said, "For me to have to know right now, participating in the Democratic Party, how many troops are actively on duty in the United States military when that is actually a number that's composed both of people on duty today and people who are National Guard people who are on duty today, it's silly. That's like asking me who the ambassador to Rwanda is." Russert replied: "Oh, no, no, no. Not at all. Not if you want to be commander-in-chief," later adding: "If somebody wants to be president of the United States, have a sense of the military." Dean replied: "I do have a sense of the military," adding, "I know there are roughly between a million and two million people active duty." A June 23, 2003, New York Times article about the exchange reported, "According to the Pentagon's Web site, there were 1.4 million as of March."
In the wake of his Meet the Press appearance, several media figures, in addition to Russert, suggested that Dean's response raised doubts about his candidacy or his fitness to be president. Their response to Dean raises the question of whether, in light of McCain's troop-surge falsehood and numerous other national security gaffes and falsehoods, they will similarly challenge McCain's fitness to be commander in chief. In addition to Russert's assertions, instances of media criticizing Dean include:
She had just given a mercifully short 10 minute speech and would soon wade into the rope line, all smiles, signing T-shirts, taking pictures and otherwise mugging with a crowd that had waited more than four hours to see her.
“Campaigning in Puerto Rico is like one long Puerto Rican Day parade,” she said cheerfully on Saturday, invoking the annual New York City event that is a staple for politicians.
Clinton and her aides publicly say she remains determined to win the Democratic nomination. But with rival Barack Obama on the verge of becoming the party's nominee, they are clearly prepared for finality next week. Senior aides say they enter these last days believing, in the words of one campaign official, that they have “left it all on the field.”
Puerto Rico votes Sunday; Montana and South Dakota hold their primaries Tuesday. Clinton kept a busy schedule Saturday, holding a health care session in the morning and touring San Juan's outer suburbs for the remainder of the day in flatbed truck caravans. She planned to return to South Dakota on Monday.
“Go out and vote on Sunday. Bring your friends and your family with you, make sure your voices are heard,” Clinton told a San Juan crowd that had been awaiting her arrival for hours late Friday.
She embarked on her caravan Saturday while a panel of the Democratic National Committee convened in Washington to determine the fate of the disputed Florida and Michigan primaries. Clinton won the most popular votes in those two states earlier this year, but the DNC did not award the state delegates as punishment for holding elections earlier than party rules allowed.
Meanwhile, Clinton pressed her case with a dwindling number of party leaders and elected officials who can vote for a party nominee as so-called superdelegates. The essence of her case is that she has amassed more votes than Obama and that she is better positioned to beat the presumed Republican nominee, John McCain, in the fall.
Both arguments have flaws, however, and have not proven to be persuasive with superdelegates. In the past 11 days, as she has pressed her claims, four superdelegates have endorsed her and 19 have endorsed Obama. Obama is a mere 42 delegates short of the 2,026 needed to clinch the nomination, in the Associated Press tally.
Clinton claims to have won the most popular votes since the primaries and caucuses began in January, but that includes results from Michigan and Florida. Obama leads Clinton by nearly 450,000 votes in primaries and caucuses where delegates were at stake, according to an Associated Press analysis.
When the Michigan and Florida results are included, along with the nonbinding results in primaries in Washington, Nebraska and Idaho, Clinton has a 126,553 vote lead out of more than 35 million votes cast.
Clinton also points to polls showing her beating McCain in some battleground states. But political analysts say those early readings are hardly predictive because voters have not been exposed to a general election campaign.
If she were the general election candidate, she would face much harsher treatment from McCain's Republican allies than she did from Democrats. Hillary and Bill Clinton's 1990s tenure at the White House was hardly an issue in the primaries; attacking his presidency seemed simply out of bounds.
The Clinton campaign hopes to build her popular vote in Puerto Rico, where polls show her with a lead that reflects her overall support among Latino voters. But officials here have predicted a turnout between 20 and 30 percent, which would not generate the vote totals Clinton aspires to get.
Still, the Clinton family has campaigned hard in the commonwealth. Hillary, Bill and Chelsea Clinton have spent 14 days on the island and by tomorrow will have visited 48 of the territory's 78 municipalities.
Obama has not been in Puerto Rico since last week, spending only 23 hours campaigning. But his presence is evident. As her bus caravan motored down a highway in the outskirts of San Juan, it passed a soundtruck blaring an Obama Spanish language ad: “Yo soy Barack Obama y apruebo este mensaje.”
The campaign here has a decided Latin flavor. Bumper stickers call Clinton “la presidenta.” Salsa music overwhelms her events. As she toured the municipality of Catano on a flatbed truck Saturday, a merengue song in her honor boomed from the caravan's soundtruck.
And from the streets, shouts of: “Hee-lah-reee!”
Clinton, dressed casually in slacks and lavender blouse and sensible sandals, laughed and waved.
Michael Kinsley, writing in his column for Time magazine, reflects on a controversy that’s sure to revive this summer after Barack Obama secures the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party — Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, two former members of the Weather Underground.
Kinsley says it’s O.K. to think that it’s “absurd” to make an issue of Obama’s relationship with Ayers and Dohrn, while also thinking that “Ayers and Dohrn are despicable.”
“In America we believe in redemption and even self-reinvention. And we don’t usually require stagy Stalinesque recantations,” Kinsley writes. “But Dohrn and Ayers test the limits of that generosity.” The two of them “did real harm” to America, but not because they “posed any real threat to U.S. national security.”
“Their victims were liberals: the millions of people who were part of the mainstream antiwar movement and who later voted against Ronald Reagan,” Kinsley explains. He continues:
These people opposed the Vietnam War but didn’t hate their country. They were horrified by violence and sincerely wanted the war to end. They believed in democracy, even when dismayed by the result. The slogan of the Underground, by contrast, was “Bring the war home.” For strategic and psychological reasons, the Underground wanted the Vietnam War to go on. They wanted the killing and dying to continue and spread, along with anarchy, dope and free sex. The notion of doctrinal divisions among opponents of the Vietnam War must seem ridiculously arcane to most people today. But perhaps you can imagine how infuriating it was to the organizers of the big marches on Washington — struggling to keep them peaceful — that there were people of the left effectively in cahoots with the Nixon Administration, determined to undermine all those efforts.
These people opposed the Vietnam War but didn’t hate their country. They were horrified by violence and sincerely wanted the war to end. They believed in democracy, even when dismayed by the result. The slogan of the Underground, by contrast, was “Bring the war home.” For strategic and psychological reasons, the Underground wanted the Vietnam War to go on. They wanted the killing and dying to continue and spread, along with anarchy, dope and free sex.
The notion of doctrinal divisions among opponents of the Vietnam War must seem ridiculously arcane to most people today. But perhaps you can imagine how infuriating it was to the organizers of the big marches on Washington — struggling to keep them peaceful — that there were people of the left effectively in cahoots with the Nixon Administration, determined to undermine all those efforts.
Scott McClellan, making the media rounds to promote his book and push back against the ferocious counter-attack by Bush loyalists, declined to come out tonight for John McCain and said he liked what he had heard from Barack Obama. "I haven't made a decision," McClellan told Katie Couric on CBS's "Evening News," when asked if he was backing the Arizona senator. McClellan paid homage to McCain, saying that the Republican nominee had "governed from the center, and that's where I am." But without prompting, he said he was "intrigued by Sen. Obama's message." "It's a message that is very similar to the one that Gov. Bush ran on in 2000," McClellan said. He offered similar comments about Obama on ABC's "World News Tonight." In his book, the former Bush spokesman describes his upbringing in a house where his mother was the moderate Democrat mayor of Austin (Carole Keeton Strayhorn later became a Republican before running as an independent for governor in 2006). McClellan recounts how, when he first came to work for Bush in 1999, he admired the governor's willingness to work across party lines in the Texas capitol.
McClellan is the third high-profile member of Bush's original Texas circle to express interest, if not support, for Obama. Matthew Dowd and Mark McKinnon, both top-level advisers in Bush's 2000 and 2004 runs and former Democrats, have also praised the likely Democratic nominee.
Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan, speaking out for the first time since publication of his searing memoir, told NBC's "Today" show on Thursday that he erroneously believed what President Bush was saying about the war but now is answering to a higher loyalty: “a loyalty to the truth.” “The White House would prefer that I not talk openly about my experiences,” he said in a lengthy, at times combative interview with anchor Meredith Vieira. “These words didn’t come to me easy. … I’m disappointed that things didn’t turn out the way we all hoped they would.” He added: “I have a higher loyalty than my loyalty necessary to my past work. That's a loyalty to the truth."
A White House official replied: "No one at the White House ever told McClellan not to talk about his experiences."
McClellan said he "believed" what Bush was saying about the war — and the president did, too. “I trusted the president's foreign policy team and I believed the president when he talked about the grave and gathering danger from Iraq,” McClellan said. “I believe he believed it was a grave danger, too. He convinced himself of that. When the administration was talking about Iraq, it was talked about as a problem that needed to be addressed. After Sept. 11, it was talked about as a grave danger. You get caught up in the White House bubble, you get caught up in the affection for the man you're serving and defer.”
Asked if he’ll ever talk to the president again, McClellan said: “I don’t know. I certainly don’t expect it any time soon. I know this is a tough book for some people to accept.” McClellan’s book, “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception,” has provoked a furious counterattack from his former colleagues, who call it “sad,” “puzzling” and “pathetic.”
“Besides that, Hillary. Seriously, you don’t want your delusion to put John McCain in the White House. Or maybe you do. You have no shot. I’m 60 delegates away from nomination nirvana. You should stop stalking me. I come down to Florida for a victory lap and you follow me down here and call for a recount. Look what that did for Al Gore. If you show a shred of common sense and take a powder now, the party will put you on a pedestal.”
“Pedestals are for losers. You’re on a pedestal. I’ve never been a loser. I refuse to lose. I won the West Virginia and Kentucky derbies, and I’m not going to end up like Eight Belles.”
“Hillary, you’ve been a great candidate, better than your train-wreck campaign. You’re Churchillian in your indomitable tenacity. You’ve inspired women all over the country. In fact, you’ve inspired some of them to hate me. But now it’s time for you to try to muster a gracious exit.”
“Forget it, Bones. Once Harold Ickes works his dark magic on the delegate rules to count Michigan and Florida, I’ll have the popular vote. And then the superdelegates will grovel back. They know in their hearts that they don’t want to go on a blind date with a guy who’s going to be BFF with Cuba, Hamas, Iran and retired Weathermen. You can bet your white turban that I’m not raising the white flag.”
“Like hell you aren’t, sister.”
“Sexist!”
“Racist!”
“Speaking of whites, you can’t win without them. And if you think your Secretary of Hairdressing, John Edwards, is going to help, you’re more delusional than I am.”
“Hillary, when are you going to realize that these whites you consider your pawns are so sick of the Republicans that they’re going to vote for anybody who has the ‘D’ next to their name, and it’s going to be me. So cool it with the White Fright. Now what do you want? Debt relief?”
“Bill and I don’t need your Netroots arugula moolah. We don’t need your stinking $20 donors. We’ve got Burkle, the Saudis, the Kuwaitis and Kazakh uranium loot on tap.”
“Settle down, Hillary. What if I let you write the health care plank in the party platform?”
“Wow, you’re so-o-o generous. Can I also write the plank on switchgrass?”
“I switched from grass a long time ago.”
“Listen, rookie, we’re gonna have to share this thing.”
“Fine, you can have the 3 a.m. shift on the White House switchboard.”
“Oh, you’re so witty with all your stupid rallies with 75,000 people and spending $100 million on ads to promote one puny word: Change. I’ve made sacrifices in this campaign. While you’ve been fake-eating and losing weight, I’ve had to stuff myself with all that greasy working-class junk food and chase it with Boilermakers.”
“What about me? I’ve come from nowhere, with a single mother on food stamps and a funny name.”
“Oh, you’re so inspiring. For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country.”
“Don’t mock Michelle. I would be polite and ask you to be my vice president, but you’d accept, just the same way Lyndon Johnson sandbagged Bobby Kennedy, so I can’t. You and Bill are just too much drama for me. Bill is off-the-charts crazy.”
“Tell me about it. But he’d be way over on Massachusetts Avenue, a completely different ZIP code than the White House. And Cheney built that underground bunker there, so we’d always have someplace to stash him. If you don’t put me on the ticket, I’ll signal my faithful to vote for John McCain. He’s more fun than you, anyhow.”
“Hillary, I don’t trust you. And Michelle hates your guts. Look, the Senate is a wonderful place. I enjoyed my two months there. You’ve never made the most of the experience because you were so busy using it as a launching pad.”
“Back at ya, Skeletor.”
“Can you stop talking, Hillary? Is that even possible?”
“No, I won’t, Mr. Never-Convened-Your-European-Affairs-Subcommittee. I don’t want to go back. It’s boring. And why should I work with all those self-hating, so-called feminists who stabbed me in the back, like Claire McCaskill and Amy Klobuchar?”
“Look, Hillary, a few years back in the Senate helping me move my world-changing agenda will help you repair some of those relationships. In Barack Obama’s Washington, there will be no more game-playing, mud-slinging or back-stabbing.”
“Hey, Señor Appeaser, there’s another primary in 2012. Bill and I are already gearing up for it.”
“You’re not likeable enough, Hillary.”
Barack Obama has spent his life, and campaign, trying not to be the Angry Black Man.
Early on, he wrote in “Dreams From My Father,” he discerned the benefits of playing against the ’60s stereotype of black militancy.
“I learned to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds,” he said. “One of those tricks I had learned: People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied; they were relieved — such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn’t seem angry all the time.”
Obama and his aides often brag about his Zenlike serenity. “I’ve learned that I have what I believe is the right temperament for the presidency, which is I don’t get too high when I’m high and I don’t get too low when I’m low,” he told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”
The next morning, he was hurtled into the worst political crisis of his life. On Tuesday, the Sort Of Angry Black Man appeared, reluctantly spurred into action by The Really Angry Black Man.
Speaking to reporters in the heart of tobacco country in Winston-Salem, N.C., the poor guy looked as if he were dying for a smoke. “When I say I find these comments appalling, I mean it,” Obama said. “It contradicts everything I am about and who I am.” He said that the riffs of the man he prayed with before his announcement speech give “comfort to those who prey on hate.”
Obama, of course, will only ratchet up the skepticism of those who don’t understand why he stayed in the church for 20 years if his belief system is so diametrically opposed to Wright’s.
He’s back on the tricky path he faced as a child, navigating between two racial cultures. At Trinity, he may have ignored what he should have heard because he was trying to assimilate to black culture. Now, he may be outraged by what he belatedly heard because he’s trying to relate to the white lunch-pail set.
Having been deserted at age 2 by his father, Obama has now been deserted by the father-figure in his church, the man who inspired him to become a Christian, married him, dedicated his house, baptized his children, gave him the title of his second book and theme for his presidential run and worked on his campaign.
At the very moment when his fate hangs in the balance, when he is trying to persuade white working-class voters that he is not an exotic stranger with radical ties, the vainglorious Rev. Wright kicks him in the stomach. In a narcissistic explosion that would impress Bill Clinton, the preacher dragged Obama into the ’60s maelstrom that he had pledged to be an antidote to. In two days worth of solipsistic rants, the man of faith committed at least four of the seven deadly sins — wrath, envy, pride and greed (book and lecture fees?) — while grandiosely claiming he was defending the black church.
He was certainly sore at Obama, after helping him get connected in Chicago politics, for distancing himself. But he was also clearly envious that Obama has been hailed by his flock as the halo-wearing Redeemer of America’s hope.
If Obama was going to co-opt his role as charismatic evangelist, why couldn’t he morph into a spinning politician? Obama’s anger, an unused muscle, had to be stoked by his advisers, who pressed him with drooping poll numbers and the video of Wright at the National Press Club. He again heard the preacher turning Farrakhan into an American idol, and his flame-throwing assertions that the U.S. government had infected blacks with the AIDS virus and had brought terrorist attacks on itself by practicing terrorism abroad.
But in the end, it was Wright showing “disrespect” by implying that Obama was a phony that sparked the candidate’s slow-burning temper. “What I think particularly angered me,” he said, “was his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks was somehow political posturing.”
For some, Obama didn’t offer enough outrage. “He talks about Reverend Wright violating his core beliefs as if he is detailing why he doesn’t like cheesecake or cream cheese,” said one Hillary Democrat. “He’s more passionate about basketball.”
The Illinois senator doesn’t pay attention to the mythic nature of campaigns, but if he did, he would recognize the narrative of the classic hero myth: The young hero ventures out on an adventure to seek a golden fleece or an Oval Office; he has to kill monsters and face hurdles before he returns home, knocks off his father and assumes the throne.
Tuesday was more than a Sister Souljah moment; it was a painful form of political patricide. “I did not vet my pastor before I decided to run for the presidency,” Obama said.
In a campaign that’s all about who’s vetted, maybe he should have.
Barack Obama casts himself as the candidate of change, but his campaign strategy going forward is the opposite: more of the same. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton shuffled slogans, staff and tactics in the wake of her primary losses. But Obama and his advisers, after a third major primary defeat in two months, say they are sticking with the game plan that brought him this far. "The way we are going to close the deal is by winning,” Obama told reporters in New Albany, Ind., on Wednesday, one day after losing Pennsylvania to Clinton by 9 percentage points. “And right now, we are winning." Obama’s aides said, on and off the record, that Obama would keep doing what he’s been doing: campaigning with the aim of running up big margins on friendly turf and limiting his losses where Clinton is strong.
And they said to expect no tweaks to his campaign style of speeches full of hope and attacks on Washington’s status quo, expensive field and television campaigns, and direct mail attacks on Clinton’s trustworthiness and policies. They also stressed the importance of the largest remaining state, North Carolina, as a test of both candidates. His aides also directly dismissed concerns that his relative weakness among working-class white voters — a constant since at least February — should cause superdelegates to doubt his viability in November.
“The white working class has gone to the Republican nominee for many elections, going back even to the Clinton years. This is not new that Democratic candidates don’t rely solely on those votes,” his chief strategist, David Axelrod, told National Public Radio. “The vast majority of these Democrats are going to come home,” said Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, saying the question is who would pull younger, independent-leaning Republicans away from Arizona Sen. John McCain. The spin drew a sharp rejoinder from former President Bill Clinton, whose narrow pluralities among working-class white voters were key to his victories, according to leading Democratic analysts. “Today her opponent's campaign strategist said, 'Well, we don't really need these working class people to win. Half the time they vote for Republicans anyways,'" the former president said while speaking from a flatbed truck on a baseball field in Hillsborough, N.C. "I will tell you something — America needs you to win, and therefore Hillary wants your support.”
Dispatches from the Obama trail: Obama ventured into Hillary territory, quite literally where her father is buried, to Scranton, Pennsylvania tonight and rallied 4,800 eager fans. Under the neon lights of a massive indoor soccer field, Obama also unleashed some of his harshest criticism yet of Clinton, laying out three reasons why he’d make a better nominee:
Difference #1: “When she talks about experience what she really means is: 'I’ve been around the track quite a few times, I know how it works.’ So she takes more money from Washington lobbyists than any other candidate, Democrat or Republican, because she says, and she said this in a debate recently, that lobbyists are real Americans. Now, I don’t know if any of you have lobbyists in Washington representing you, but I don’t think so… Then this weekend she starts running ads saying, ‘Oh, no, no, he’s actually taking money from these folks,’ even though we have sent back money that was from lobbyists, we sent back money from PACS. But she just ignored the facts. And listen, understand the argument that she’s making. She’s essentially saying: “Yeah, I’m bad but he’s just as bad.’ What kind of argument is that? What kind of inspirational message is that?” “Difference #2: I think it’s important for the next president to tell the people what they need to hear. Not to say one thing in one place and say another thing in another place depending on what’s politically convenient. I mean, look, we can have a difference about trade policy and Nafta, but what you can’t do is you can’t you can’t campaign on behalf of Nafta when your husband’s the president and then say that you were against Nafta all along when you are running for president. You can’t do that. You can’t say that you’re opposed to the Colombian trade deal and then have your chief strategist lobby to pass the Colombian trade deal. You can’t do that. You can’t be for the war when it’s popular and then when it’s unpopular say I wasn’t voting for the war, I was voting for diplomacy.” "And, finally, difference #3 (referring indirectly to the ABC debate): I think we need to change the tone and the tenor of our politics so that we’re talking about real problems and no phony controversies. Where we’re trying to unify the country instead of divide it.”
“Difference #2: I think it’s important for the next president to tell the people what they need to hear. Not to say one thing in one place and say another thing in another place depending on what’s politically convenient. I mean, look, we can have a difference about trade policy and Nafta, but what you can’t do is you can’t you can’t campaign on behalf of Nafta when your husband’s the president and then say that you were against Nafta all along when you are running for president. You can’t do that. You can’t say that you’re opposed to the Colombian trade deal and then have your chief strategist lobby to pass the Colombian trade deal. You can’t do that. You can’t be for the war when it’s popular and then when it’s unpopular say I wasn’t voting for the war, I was voting for diplomacy.”
"And, finally, difference #3 (referring indirectly to the ABC debate): I think we need to change the tone and the tenor of our politics so that we’re talking about real problems and no phony controversies. Where we’re trying to unify the country instead of divide it.”
READING, Pa. – Senator Barack Obama likes to tell his audiences that electing Senator John McCain would be the equivalent of giving President Bush four more years in the Oval Office.
Here, he did so again today, declaring: “That’s what John McCain is offering, a third Bush term.”
Yet as he offered his closing words at a town meeting at Reading High School, after he delivered a speech and took questions for 40-minutes, Mr. Obama offered a different view of Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee.
“You have a real choice in this election. Either Democrat would be better than John McCain – and all three of us would be better than George Bush,” Mr. Obama said. “But what you have to ask yourself is, who has the chance to actually, really change things in a fundamental way?”
In case you missed that line – “all three of us would be better than George Bush” – you almost certainly will be hearing it again and again from Republicans as a rebuttal to Mr. Obama’s often-stated argument that there would be no daylight between a President McCain and President Bush.
It had to be the first time in history that a presidential candidate had a hip-hop moment.
Barack Obama, who says he listens to Jay-Z along with his “old school guy” favorites like Earth, Wind & Fire and the Temptations, alluded to the rapper’s 2003 hit “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” on Thursday to sweep away concerns about his pugnacity.
After conceding that the Philly debate was tough, he brushed the imaginary lint of Hillary, George and Charlie from his shoulders, in a wordless reference to Jay-Z’s lyrics in his anthem about not letting anyone crimp your ride as you cruise from the bottom to the top: “Got some, dirt on my shoulder, could you brush it off for me.”
There’s no doubt the cat is cool. It’s easy to imagine the wild reception many parts of the world would give a President Obama as he loped down the stairs of Air Force One in his aviator glasses, the chic and chiseled Michelle on his arm.
The imagery of the 2008 race is all about cool and hot.
Obama is cool in a good way. He continues to look to the stars as the Clintons drag him down to the gutter, even when Hillary suggests he should scamper out of the kitchen since he’s so obviously sensitive to heat.
The Clintons are still scalded over the cool new kid in school precociously usurping the dream of Hillary, granddaughter of a Scranton lace mill worker and wife of a man who thinks he owes her the presidency.
This spurred the delicious spectacle of Bill Clinton, king of self-pity, suggesting that Obama was whining too much about the tone of the debate.
Like Bill, John McCain has his hot-headed flashes and struggles to stay cool.
But before it’s signed, sealed and delivered, as his campaign song goes, Obama will have to balance his cool with some heat, as J.F.K. did. He seems too imperious about the power of hot-button values issues that have proved so potent for most of his lifetime.
Sometimes when he answered questions at the ABC debate, you could see white letters on a black background scrawling across the screen of a Republican attack ad.
He can create an uplifting new kind of politics if he becomes president, but first he’s going to have to get past the shallow and vicious old politics he says he disdains (even if his campaign knows how to dip into the Clinton toolbox).
The thorny questions Obama got in the debate were absolutely predictable, yet he seemed utterly unprepared and annoyed by them. He did not do well for the same reason he failed to outmaneuver Hillary in a year’s worth of debates: he disdains the convention, the need for sound bites and witty flick-offs and game-changing jabs.
He needs to be less philosophical and abstract, and more visceral and personal. Some of the topics he acted dismissive about are real things on the minds of many Americans.
Obama does not need to wear a flag pin. By the time NBC colored its peacock logo with the Stars and Stripes after 9/11, it was clear that patriotism had been co-opted by commercialism. And he’s right that W. and Cheney used patriotism in a corrosive way to goad Americans into going along with their trumped-up war.
But when a voter from Latrobe asked in the debate why he doesn’t wear a flag pin, he high-hatted it as a “manufactured issue,” then, backing in tepidly, added, “I could not help but love this country for all that it’s given me.”
Asked about his friendly relationship with the former Weather Underground anarchist William Ayers — an association that The Wall Street Journal suggests could turn into the Swift Boat of 2008 given Ayers’s statement that “I don’t regret setting bombs; I feel we didn’t do enough” — Obama defended him with a line that only the eggheads orbiting his campaign could appreciate. Ayers, he said, is “a professor of English in Chicago.”
Obama has to prove to Americans that, despite his exotic background and multicultural looks, he shares or at least respects their values and understands why they would be upset about his associations with the Rev. Wright and an ex-Weatherman.
Even though his supporters raised Cain about ABC, Obama is smart enough to know he will need a better game against a canny war hero. Campaigning in Pennsylvania on Friday, he seemed eager to show he was not highfalutin. He said he and Michelle weren’t born with silver spoons; he shared how “burned up” he was when his sick mother could not get health insurance; he hugged a disabled veteran who thanked him for getting into the race, and he left a rally with a lusty “God Bless America.”
He’s trying, as Jay-Z says, to get flow.
During the April 16 Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia, ABC News chief Washington correspondent and co-moderator George Stephanopoulos asked Sen. Barack Obama to explain his "relationship" with former Weather Underground Organization member William Ayers and to "explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem." Stephanopoulos stated that Ayers "was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol, and other buildings. He's never apologized for that, and, in fact, on 9-11, he was quoted in The New York Times saying, 'I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough.' " The previous day, Stephanopoulos appeared on ABC Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show and New York radio station WOR's The Steve Malzberg Show. Both Hannity and Malzberg suggested to Stephanopoulos that he ask Obama about Ayers. Stephanopoulos responded: "That's a damn good question" and "I'm taking notes right now."
During the April 16 debate, Stephanopoulos asked Obama:
STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to give Senator [Hillary] Clinton a chance to respond, but first a follow-up on this issue, the general theme of patriotism in your relationships. A gentleman named William Ayers -- he was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol, and other buildings. He's never apologized for that, and, in fact, on 9-11, he was quoted in The New York Times saying, "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." An early organizing meeting for your state Senate campaign was held at his house, and your campaign has said you are friendly. Can you explain that relationship for the voters, and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?
STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to give Senator [Hillary] Clinton a chance to respond, but first a follow-up on this issue, the general theme of patriotism in your relationships. A gentleman named William Ayers -- he was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol, and other buildings. He's never apologized for that, and, in fact, on 9-11, he was quoted in The New York Times saying, "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough."
An early organizing meeting for your state Senate campaign was held at his house, and your campaign has said you are friendly. Can you explain that relationship for the voters, and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?
During his appearance on Malzberg's program, Stephanopoulos responded to Malzberg's suggestion that he ask about Ayers by saying: "What do you think the question is on that?" Malzberg said:
MALZBERG: William Ayers is a man who was head of the Weather Underground, a radical group in the 60s and 70s, set bombs at the Capitol, set bombs at the Pentagon, and was quoted in The New York Times oddly enough, ironically enough on September 11 before obviously the events of that day, saying that he didn't go far enough. He doesn't regret it at all, and he wished he could have done more. Your campaign has described your relationship with William Ayers as "friendly." How could a man running for the presidency of the United States possibly have anything to do, or have anything but disdain, for a man who did what he has done to this country?
Stephanopoulos responded to Malzberg: "That's a damn good question."
In his appearance on Hannity's radio program, Hannity suggested Stephanopoulos ask about Obama's "association with Bill Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist from the Weather Underground, who on 9-11, of all days, in The New York Times was saying, 'I don't regret setting bombs. I don't think we did enough.' " (Contrary to Hannity's and Stephanopoulos' suggestion, Ayers' comment had nothing to do with the 9-11 terrorist attacks, but happened to have been published in The New York Times the morning of September 11, 2001.) Hannity continued: "When asked about it by the Politico, [Obama campaign chief strategist] David Axelrod said they have a friendly relationship and that they had done a number of speeches together and that they sat on a board together. Is that a question you might ask?" Stephanopoulos responded: "Well, I'm taking notes right now." Hannity went on to ask if Stephanopoulos "want[ed] any more questions," to which Stephanopoulos responded: "Yeah, keep going."
Following the debate, on the April 16 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Hannity credited Stephanopoulos for asking the question: "Now, look, I watched this debate, and, by the way, all credit finally to ABC News and George Stephanopoulos and [co-moderator] Charlie Gibson, 'cause they asked very tough questions. Finally, the media asked him about Bill Ayers, which we have been pointing out."
The Los Angeles Times blog Show Tracker reported on April 17 that Stephanopoulos "denied he'd been spoon-fed the question by Fox News host Sean Hannity":
"We have been researching this for a while," Stephanopoulos said in a phone interview from New York. ABC News political correspondent Jake Tapper, he said, had blogged about the issue April 10, after it was first reported by Politico, the political news website. "Part of what we discovered is that Sen. Obama had never been asked directly about it, even though it's being written about and talked about and Republicans are signaling that this is gonna be an issue in the general election."
From the April 15 broadcast of WOR's The Steve Malzberg Show:
MALZBERG: All right, now the last time they debated, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, was back in February 26 and that was before the Reverend Jeremiah Wright tapes became public and were broadcast all over television. Is this something that you think ABC -- you and Charlie Gibson will bring up? STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, I'm not going to talk about my questions specifically, but I think, you know, the -- there's a lot that's happened since the last debate, and you can bet we're going to cover the waterfront and get the right mix of questions that deal with sort of the personal character, the campaign controversies, and the issues that are on top of people's minds as well. MALZBERG: All right, George. Let me ask you this -- and I'm not going to ask you then to answer -- I won't ask you if you can ask this -- but do you think between now -- I remember the panel you moderated that I was on at D.C. a couple of weeks ago. You asked, you know, what's going to be big, and I said it's basically up to guys like you as to what's going to be big for the general public and the mainstream media. Do you think the William Ayers story will -- STEPHANOPOULOS: What do you think the question is on that? MALZBERG: What do I think the question is? William Ayers is a man who was head of the Weather Underground, a radical group in the 60s and 70s, set bombs at the Capitol, set bombs at the Pentagon, and was quoted in The New York Times oddly enough, ironically enough on September 11 before obviously the events of that day, saying that he didn't go far enough. He doesn't regret it at all, and he wished he could have done more. Your campaign has described your relationship with William Ayers as "friendly." How could a man running for the presidency of the United States possibly have anything to do, or have anything but disdain, for a man who did what he has done to this country? STEPHANOPOULOS: That's a damn good question. MALZBERG: Well, thank you. I hope you ask it. I mean, I'll be watching anyway.
MALZBERG: All right, now the last time they debated, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, was back in February 26 and that was before the Reverend Jeremiah Wright tapes became public and were broadcast all over television. Is this something that you think ABC -- you and Charlie Gibson will bring up?
STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, I'm not going to talk about my questions specifically, but I think, you know, the -- there's a lot that's happened since the last debate, and you can bet we're going to cover the waterfront and get the right mix of questions that deal with sort of the personal character, the campaign controversies, and the issues that are on top of people's minds as well.
MALZBERG: All right, George. Let me ask you this -- and I'm not going to ask you then to answer -- I won't ask you if you can ask this -- but do you think between now -- I remember the panel you moderated that I was on at D.C. a couple of weeks ago. You asked, you know, what's going to be big, and I said it's basically up to guys like you as to what's going to be big for the general public and the mainstream media. Do you think the William Ayers story will --
STEPHANOPOULOS: What do you think the question is on that?
MALZBERG: What do I think the question is? William Ayers is a man who was head of the Weather Underground, a radical group in the 60s and 70s, set bombs at the Capitol, set bombs at the Pentagon, and was quoted in The New York Times oddly enough, ironically enough on September 11 before obviously the events of that day, saying that he didn't go far enough. He doesn't regret it at all, and he wished he could have done more. Your campaign has described your relationship with William Ayers as "friendly." How could a man running for the presidency of the United States possibly have anything to do, or have anything but disdain, for a man who did what he has done to this country?
STEPHANOPOULOS: That's a damn good question.
MALZBERG: Well, thank you. I hope you ask it. I mean, I'll be watching anyway.
From the April 15 broadcast of The Sean Hannity Show:
HANNITY There are two questions that I don't think anybody has asked Barack Obama and I don't know if this is going to be on your list tomorrow. One is his -- the only time he's ever been asked about his association with Bill Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist from the Weather Underground, who on 9-11, of all days, in The New York Times was saying, "I don't regret setting bombs. I don't think we did enough." When asked about it by the Politico, David Axelrod said they have a friendly relationship and that they had done a number of speeches together and that they sat on a board together. Is that a question you might ask? STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, I'm taking notes right now. HANNITY: September 11, 2001, of all days, there was an article in The New York Times and there are a number of quotes about Bill Ayers and the Politico had in there the comments about -- from David Axelrod. I think that's an interesting question that nobody in the media has really brought up. We've highlighted it a little bit more here on this program but -- let me see if I can help you. Do you want any more questions? STEPHANOPOULOS: Yeah, keep going. HANNITY: The Chicago Reader talked about and commented -- has comments of Barack Obama -- why he attended the Million Man March. STEPHANOPOULOS: Hmm-mm. HANNITY: And most people don't know that, I don't think. STEPHANOPOULOS: That's been pretty -- didn't he write about that in his book? HANNITY: I don't remember that in particular, but I know that he was quoted extensively in the Chicago Reader December 8. I forget the year. We're going back a couple of years. My memory is not that good, George.
HANNITY There are two questions that I don't think anybody has asked Barack Obama and I don't know if this is going to be on your list tomorrow. One is his -- the only time he's ever been asked about his association with Bill Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist from the Weather Underground, who on 9-11, of all days, in The New York Times was saying, "I don't regret setting bombs. I don't think we did enough." When asked about it by the Politico, David Axelrod said they have a friendly relationship and that they had done a number of speeches together and that they sat on a board together. Is that a question you might ask?
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, I'm taking notes right now.
HANNITY: September 11, 2001, of all days, there was an article in The New York Times and there are a number of quotes about Bill Ayers and the Politico had in there the comments about -- from David Axelrod. I think that's an interesting question that nobody in the media has really brought up. We've highlighted it a little bit more here on this program but -- let me see if I can help you. Do you want any more questions?
STEPHANOPOULOS: Yeah, keep going.
HANNITY: The Chicago Reader talked about and commented -- has comments of Barack Obama -- why he attended the Million Man March.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Hmm-mm.
HANNITY: And most people don't know that, I don't think.
STEPHANOPOULOS: That's been pretty -- didn't he write about that in his book?
HANNITY: I don't remember that in particular, but I know that he was quoted extensively in the Chicago Reader December 8. I forget the year. We're going back a couple of years. My memory is not that good, George.
From the April 16 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:
HANNITY: I spent a lot of time talking with pollster Scott Rasmussen who is very clear that the impact in the Democratic primary is insignificant -- KATE OBENSHAIN (Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute advisory board member): Yeah. HANNITY: -- but it is major as we head toward the general election as a new narrative, [Fox News contributor] Pat Caddell, has emerged. Now, look, I watched this debate, and, by the way, all credit finally to ABC News and George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson, 'cause they asked very tough questions. CADDELL: Really? HANNITY: Finally, the media asked him about Bill Ayers, which we have been pointing out. He gave a pathetically weak answer. They finally asked him about Reverend Wright and some of the inconsistencies here. A new narrative has emerged. I mean, he was once hopeful, optimistic, likeable, and now people are questioning a lot of issues about him. This has changed dramatically for him, hasn't it? [...] HANNITY: Here, Kate, let me go back to you. This is -- and I don't want to reiterate too many points here, but most of the country, until tonight -- you know, we have been all over the Ayers issue both on radio and television. We've pointed it out. The new media's been on it. But now, other people are going to become aware of that issue. They asked him about the flag lapel. You know, we add to that Reverend Wright. We add to that Michelle Obama's comments, and we add to that -- OBENSHAIN: Yeah. HANNITY: -- what he said -- what he never thought would be heard in front of a bunch of, you know, rich San Francisco liberals about people in Pennsylvania, who are the heart and soul of this great country.
HANNITY: I spent a lot of time talking with pollster Scott Rasmussen who is very clear that the impact in the Democratic primary is insignificant --
KATE OBENSHAIN (Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute advisory board member): Yeah.
HANNITY: -- but it is major as we head toward the general election as a new narrative, [Fox News contributor] Pat Caddell, has emerged. Now, look, I watched this debate, and, by the way, all credit finally to ABC News and George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson, 'cause they asked very tough questions.
CADDELL: Really?
HANNITY: Finally, the media asked him about Bill Ayers, which we have been pointing out. He gave a pathetically weak answer. They finally asked him about Reverend Wright and some of the inconsistencies here. A new narrative has emerged. I mean, he was once hopeful, optimistic, likeable, and now people are questioning a lot of issues about him. This has changed dramatically for him, hasn't it?
[...]
HANNITY: Here, Kate, let me go back to you. This is -- and I don't want to reiterate too many points here, but most of the country, until tonight -- you know, we have been all over the Ayers issue both on radio and television. We've pointed it out. The new media's been on it. But now, other people are going to become aware of that issue. They asked him about the flag lapel. You know, we add to that Reverend Wright. We add to that Michelle Obama's comments, and we add to that --
OBENSHAIN: Yeah.
HANNITY: -- what he said -- what he never thought would be heard in front of a bunch of, you know, rich San Francisco liberals about people in Pennsylvania, who are the heart and soul of this great country.
I’m not bitter.
I’m not writing this just because I grew up in a house with a gun, a strong Catholic faith, an immigrant father, brothers with anti-illegal immigrant sentiments and a passion for bowling. (My bowling trophy was one of my most cherished possessions.)
My family morphed from Kennedy Democrats into Reagan Republicans not because they were angry, but because they felt more comfortable with conservative values. Members of my clan sometimes were overly cloistered. But they weren’t bitter; they were bonding.
They went to church every Sunday because it was part of their identity, not because they needed a security blanket.
Behind closed doors in San Francisco, elitism’s epicenter, Barack Obama showed his elitism, attributing the emotional, spiritual and cultural values of working-class, “lunch pail” Pennsylvanians to economic woes.
The last few weeks have not been kind to Hillary, but the endless endgame has not been kind to the Wonder Boy either. Obama comes across less like a candidate in Pennsylvania than an anthropologist in Borneo.
His mother got her Ph.D. in anthropology, studying the culture of Indonesia. And as Obama has courted white, blue-collar voters in “Deer Hunter” and “Rocky” country, he has often appeared to be observing the odd habits of the colorful locals, resisting as the natives try to fatten him up like a foie gras goose, sampling Pennsylvania beer in a sports bar with his tie tight, awkwardly accepting bowling shoes as a gift from Bob Casey, examining the cheese and salami at the Italian Market here as intriguing ethnic artifacts, purchasing Utz Cheese Balls at a ShopRite in East Norriton and quizzing the women working in a chocolate factory about whether they could possibly really like the sugary doodads.
He hasn’t pulled a John Kerry and asked for a Philly cheese steak with Swiss yet, but he has maintained a regal “What do the simple folk do to help them escape when they’re blue?” bearing, unable to even feign Main Street cred. But Hillary did when she belted down a shot of Crown Royal whiskey with gusto at Bronko’s in Crown Point, Ind.
Just as he couldn’t knock down the bowling pins, he can’t knock down Annie Oakley or “the girl in the race,” as her husband called her Tuesday — the self-styled blue-collar heroine who reluctantly revealed a $100 million fortune partially built on Bill’s shady connections.
Even when Hillary’s campaign collapsed around her and her husband managed to revive the bullets over Bosnia, Obama has still not been able to marshal a knockout blow — or even come up with a knockout economic speech that could expand his base of support.
Even as Hillary grows weaker, her reputation for ferocity grows stronger. A young woman in the audience at a taping of “The Colbert Report” at Penn Tuesday night asked Stephen Colbert during a warm-up: “Are you more afraid of bears or Hillary Clinton?”
Even though Democratic elders worry that the two candidates will terminally bloody each other, they each seem to be lighting their own autos-da-fé.
At match points, when Hillary fights like a cornered raccoon, Obama retreats into law professor mode. The elitism that Americans dislike is not about family money or connections — J.F.K. and W. never would have been elected without them. In the screwball movie genre that started during the last Depression, there was a great tradition of the millionaire who was cool enough to relate to the common man — like Cary Grant’s C.K. Dexter Haven in “The Philadelphia Story.”
What turns off voters is the detached egghead quality that they tend to equate with a wimpiness, wordiness and a lack of action — the same quality that got the professorial and superior Adlai Stevenson mocked by critics as Adelaide. The new attack line for Obama rivals is that he’s gone from J.F.K. to Dukakis. (Just as Dukakis chatted about Belgian endive, Obama chatted about Whole Foods arugula in Iowa.)
Obama did not grow up in cosseted circumstances. “Now when is the last time you’ve seen a president of the United States who just paid off his loan debt?” Michelle Obama asked Tuesday at Haverford College, referring to Barack’s student loans while speaking in the shadow of the mansions depicted in “The Philadelphia Story.”
But his exclusive Hawaiian prep school and years in the Ivy League made him a charter member of the elite, along with the academic experts he loves to have in the room. As Colbert pointed out, the other wonky Ivy League lawyer in the primary just knows how to condescend better.
Michelle did her best on “The Colbert Report” Tuesday to shoo away the aroma of elitism.
Growing up, she said: “We had four spoons. And then my father got a raise at the plant and we got five spoons.”
Looking back at a week in which the most widely covered news to emerge from the campaign trail is that former presidents tend to write books and give speeches for large amounts of money, and that campaign consultants who undermine their boss’ key policy positions for personal profit tend to be fired, it may be worthwhile to consider where a Democratic primary based more on personal than ideological differences may eventually conclude.
So prepare yourself for more weeks of boxing and bowling, of incendiary preachers and invisible snipers, and of declining favorability ratings for the two candidates and increasing numbers of Democratic primary voters indicating a willingness to vote for Senator John McCain in the fall if their preferred candidate does not receive the nomination.
The question isn’t whether Democrats will come together behind the eventual nominee: judging by recent polling, the level of anger toward the current president among party regulars is such that they could decide the nomination on Halloween and still be a united force by election day. But the moderates, independents and even renegade Republicans who were thinking nice things about Senator Obama earlier this year are not nearly as favorably disposed to him anymore. And in the absence of large-scale policy distinctions between the two candidates, the personal nature of their exchanges are more likely to result in lasting damage. It’s one thing to argue about the cost of two health care programs: it’s a bigger problem to be taking potshots at the honesty, integrity and experience of your opponent.
Any number of top Democrats have attempted to step in and bring some order to this process, but none possess the stature to help the candidates, the superdelegates and the rest of the party structure come together. Former President Bill Clinton is compromised, of course, former nominee John Kerry has been marginalized and most other high-level Democrats have already endorsed a candidate, undermining their credentials as impartial brokers.
When Barack Obama’s Indonesian classmates are asked to recall the boy they all called “Barry” (pronounced “Berry”), their description is unanimous: “chubby.”
He was the tall, chubby kid in Bermudas who joined their 4th grade class at the Besuki elementary school in 1970, the boy with the white mother and Indonesian stepfather who brought his own sandwiches to school (odd to a noodle-eating crowd) and, strangest of all, wrote with his left hand.
“It was so weird that he was left-handed,” recalled Ati Kisjanto, now a marketing consultant. “That was considered impolite here, and you were forced to write with your right hand.”
A dozen of Obama’s classmates were gathered at the house of Sandra Sambuaga, exchanging stories over Indonesian delicacies. For two years after Obama was elected to the Senate in 2004, they were unsure this was the boy registered at their school as Barry Soetoro (the family name of his stepfather).
“We just couldn’t believe this skinny U.S. senator with another name was our chubby, hyperactive Berry!” said Dewi Asmara Oetojo, a politician. “We were only convinced when we saw a photo of him as a boy.”
The atmosphere at the gathering was raucous. The school was in the upscale Menteng neighborhood; everyone has done all right. A small crucifix hangs from Sambuaga’s wall: she’s a Christian. Most of the other classmates are Muslims in this country that is home to the world’s largest Muslim population.
Only Citra Dewi wore a headscarf. “I used to sit next to him and I’d say ‘Berry, move away, you’re sweating!’ ” she told me. “In Indonesia we say active boys ‘smell of the sun.’ ” Everyone laughed at that.
I listened and tried to imagine the 9-year-old Obama too embarrassed to sing, swapping his sandwich for sticky rice, enduring the fascination with his hair (“it kept curling back, like our noodles,” said Sambuaga).
No wonder Obama is adept at exploring the spaces in between, the areas that are neither black nor white, neither “with us” nor “against us,” neither red state nor blue state: he has spent his life building bridges to assemble a coherent identity. Only by uniting disparate threads could he become whole under the name of Barack Obama in a world experienced as defined by divergent truths.
One such many-shaded truth was religion. His stepfather, according to Obama’s memoir, “followed a brand of Islam that could make room for the remnants of more ancient animist and Hindu faiths.” That tracks with the pliant, tropical Islam of Indonesia where a “you shall have your religion, and I shall have mine” tolerance dwarfs pockets of radicalism.
The United States has an Islam problem. Say the name of the religion of almost 20 percent of the world’s population and images of bearded, Wahhabi extremists surge. They reflect a reductive unease born of 9/11 and ignorance. A central challenge of the next president will be reinventing America’s relations with the Islamic world, and stimulating open dialogue between Muslims.
Obama has lived with Islam, from his boyhood Indonesia to a later encounter with the similarly malleable Islamic faith of Kenyan relatives. He can situate Saudi Wahhabism as one current among many. With Islam as with most things, it’s better to deal with a multi-faced reality than simplified demons.
I’m troubled by Hillary Clinton’s recent innuendo-dripping remark that her Christian faith “is the faith of my parents and my grandparents.” As opposed, of course, to Obama, who came to Christianity from a mother whose “secular humanism” held that “rational, thoughtful people could shape their own destiny,” and a Kenyan father born into a Muslim family, and a Muslim stepfather.
We live in the Age of Interaction. Fluidity and connectedness define the world, forging hybrid identities not fixed in formaldehyde. Clinton, on an Obama-is-aloof kick, now says she’s a pro-gun churchgoer. That may play in west Pennsylvania but won’t bridge the national and international chasms Bush bequeaths.
“I used to support Hillary, but now I look at her eyes and see someone always wired, always calculating, whereas in Berry I see some wisdom,” said Kisjanto.
I went to the school, where there’s a huge photograph of pilgrims at Mecca in the entrance; I imagined Fox News filming it one day to pronounce the place a Madrasa. It’s nothing of the sort. It’s a state school whose students are 85 percent Muslim, a little below the national average.
There’s a mosque and a small Christian prayer room with a sign saying: “I understand we are all different and include everyone.” Kuwadiyanto, the principal, told me: “Christians and Muslim kids mix easily. Maybe more Americans should come here to see what’s really happening.”
Obama already has. He’s shed his chubbiness but not Indonesia’s lesson, emblazoned on the national coat of arms, of “unity in diversity.”
What will a Hillary Clinton presidency look like?
The answer by now seems obvious: It will look like her presidential campaign, which in turn looks increasingly like the first Clinton presidency.
Which is to say, high-minded ideals, lowered execution, half truths, outright lies (and imaginary flights), take-no prisoners politics, some very good policy ideas, a presidential spouse given to wallowing in anger and self-pity, and a succession of aides and surrogates pushed under the bus when things don't go right. Which is to say, often.
And endless psychodrama: the essential Clintonian experience that mesmerizes the press, confuses the citizenry, confounds members of both parties in Congress (not to mention the Clintons themselves, at times) and pretty much keeps the rest of the world constantly amused and fixated.
Such a picture of Clinton Redux is, by definition, speculation. But it is speculation based on the best evidence at hand: the demonstrable and familiar record of Hillary and Bill Clinton coupled together in Permanent Campaign-mode for a generation, waging a continuous fight on the national political stage since 1992, an unceasing campaign for the White House, for redemption, for their ideas (sometimes) and for themselves (almost always), especially in 2008.
The basic dynamics of the campaign, except for the Clintons' vast new-found personal wealth and its challenges, have been near-constant since they arrived in Washington: through Whitewater, health care, the battle of the budget, the culture wars, the tax returns released only under duress, the travel office, Monica, impeachment, the pardons and through Hillary Clinton's often repugnant presidential campaign.
In many ways, the characteristic tone, secrecy, and resilience of the Clinton political march have been determined more by Hillary Clinton than by her husband, reflecting her deepest attributes and attitudes, fermented in recognition of the antipathy held against both of them, and often, the foul tactics of their enemies. As an aide put it (quoted in my book, A Woman In Charge: the Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton):
