Organizing for America | Opera Singers for Obama: Political Wisdom from Punahou School's Jay Seidenstein

Political Wisdom from Punahou School's Jay Seidenstein

By Adam Flowers - Oct 22nd, 2008 at 5:47 pm EDT

Comments | Mail to a Friend | Report Objectionable Content

Dear friends whose political opinions I respect, What you are about to read began as an email in my head, a response to an old friend with whom I have enjoyed talking politics for more than four decades now. He’s smart, informed, ethical, and fair-minded – as are all my close friends – and we mostly agree on what’s important to us politically. So when he indicated a lukewarm response to Obama’s candidacy in a too-brief email, I wanted more dialogue with him. This led to a fragmented mental email, which I intended to organize, type out, and send as a reply, which seems to have given rise to whatever’s going to follow. When a second friend also indicated some reservations about Barack, I decided to expand my audience, so to speak, because 1) there are quite a few of you with whom I’d like to share my thoughts, 2) a few more of you may have similar reservations about Barack, and 3) frankly, if this gets Obama a vote he might not have gotten otherwise, I’d consider this an email well-sent. At any rate, I welcome additions, critiques, suggestions – responses of any kind. And if you think it’ll do any good, feel free to forward this to others. Warning: this’ll be a long email, but I think that in this case, an intelligent dialogue needs to cover the subtleties (at least that’s what I hope to do). I, as many of you know, am signed, sealed and delivered on Barack. I told my U.S. History students last fall that their kids will be reading about Obama in textbooks when they study USH – and he won’t be a footnote. So now you know my bias… I knew Obama when he was Barry in high school – he was a student in my after-school phys ed (basketball) class. (I tell everybody that I taught him to dunk – so total a lie that everyone who hears it laughs.) I didn’t know him well, and I’d be surprised if he remembered or recognized me today. But for some reason, I always remembered him clearly – I easily recalled his fuller face and late-70’s Afro whenever I read about him in the Punahou Alumni Bulletin. I’ve had other African-American students in my time at Punahou – not a lot, but some – and most of them (with two exceptions) haven’t remained as clear in my memory through the years as Obama has. I faithfully read the “Class Notes” section of the Alumni Bulletin. I enjoy following the post-Punahou lives of former students. At first I was surprised at the achievements of some of them: “Wow – Susan Smith is a full Professor of English at Bowdoin? She couldn’t write a coherent sentence at Punahou.” I’ve come to realize that I know students when they are sixteen or seventeen, and that of course they mature and grow after they leave my class. Such was the case with Barry. I remember thinking, “Good for him,” after seeing a brief mention that he was doing community organizing on the south side of Chicago. When I later read (in the local papers as well as in the Bulletin) that he had been elected Editor of the Harvard Law Review, again I thought of how far he seemed to have come from being an average (though smart) student at Punahou. Being the politics junkie that you all know I am, I followed (though not closely) his career up to his run for the U.S. Senate, which, thanks to better press coverage, I was able to do more easily. My point here is that though I never knew him well, Obama’s no stranger to me. My faith in him as a politician has some history behind it. Now I must say that it feels very strange to me to have typed the phrase “faith in him as a politician,” because ever since Bobby Kennedy, faith in a politician has been something laughably foreign to me, and I never imagined myself being able to type that phrase - it sounds much too naïve. So I guess after this long an intro, it’s time to explain why I have this faith, or at least why I hope you’ll vote for him. I want to do this by examining some of his perceived weaknesses as well as what I think are some of his strengths. Let’s look first at the charge that Obama lacks experience. If I were McCain, I’d stress that too, mainly because it would resonate with most people who have reservations about Obama, but also because it’s such an easy charge to level without having to go more deeply into exactly what that means and in the end, how relevant that may be – or even whether McCain or anyone else has the “experience” to make an effective president. The charge immediately puts Obama on the defensive. When Bill Clinton a few weeks ago said something along the lines of “One could argue that no one has enough experience to be president,” it was taken as an insult to Obama, but many of you who know as much about American politics as I do know that there’s a huge truth to that statement. I know that many of you have read biographies of presidents and accounts of their terms, and you know that regardless of who sits in the Oval Office, it’s mostly on-the-job-training. Harry Truman said that often about his presidency (in fact, he admitted that he was almost totally unprepared), but it didn’t apply just to him. And interestingly and ironically, the two presidents for whom this may have been less true – LBJ and Nixon – managed to get themselves and the country in a mess o’ trouble anyway. And by the way, if McCain can level the ”lack of experience” charge against Obama, isn’t it fair to question McCain’s experience (which no one, including Obama, has done)? If one is afraid of the fact that Obama has never had to balance a budget, shouldn’t he or she ask if McCain has ever had to balance a budget? Moreover, exactly which experiences would he (or would you) cite which he (or you) thinks are relevant to being an effective president? Which experiences do you value? Is it McCain’s Hanoi Hilton heroism? Fine, but then why not honor – or at least see as relevant and not disrespect - Barack’s decision to work in a troubled Chicago South Side? One more thing about experience: you’ve all heard or read Barack’s supporters compare his experience to Lincoln’s when he was first elected. If you have doubts about Obama, that probably comes off more as silly than accurate, especially if the speaker or writer is implying that Barack will be as great a president as Abe was. (The answer is of course no.) But what I think made Lincoln a great president was the fact that he grew so amazingly after he became president. He had to make decisions for which there was no experience, so he fell back on his intelligence and judgment. It seems to have served him well, no? I’m pretty sure you know where I’m going with this “intelligence and judgment” thing, but I’ll say it anyhow: I think Obama has demonstrated his intelligence and judgment in many ways, among which is not only a clear denunciation of the war we were about to get into (when the war and Bush were popular, by the way), but an accurate prediction of what that entrance would cost us in the future. And think about it, isn’t the “three a.m. phone call” more about judgment than experience? How exactly does one gain an experience for the unpredictable? And Jeez, look how Bush handled his “three a.m.” phone call, when it came six or seven hours later: he remained in the company of fourth graders (i.e., he froze) for literally six-plus minutes after he heard the news of 9/11. (And he’s considered one of the heroes of 9/11. Go figure…) And let me remind you of instances with which you are already familiar. What was JFK’s mistake in the Bay of Pigs? As a new president, deferring to Ike’s and the Joint Chiefs’ experience, he went against his better judgment and allowed the Eisenhower-planned invasion to proceed. Later, in the Cuban Missile Crisis, in an act of admirable judgment, he rejected the advice of those who wanted to bomb Cuba and (with the help of “inexperienced” Bobby’s judgment) settled the crisis without going to war. I could cite other instances with which we are all familiar, but you get my point on judgment by now, I’m sure. But what about Barack’s judgments (in addition to those regarding Iraq)? Though campaigning and governing are not the same, I think that one can look at the way Obama has run his campaign and the Democratic Convention and make certain educated guesses about his judgment, and certainly about his competence. Look at the steadiness, competence and intelligence with which Obama –a relatively novice campaigner and a totally novice convention-planner - has run his presidential campaign and with which he ran the Convention, despite the fact that he had never done either thing before. Wouldn’t you agree that they demonstrate Obama’s intelligence and competence? And if you attribute his success to his advisors, then aren’t they a demonstration of his ability to choose competent advisors (an ability also required of an effective president)? Those who support Obama say he’s got charisma; those who oppose him call him a celebrity. Since there’s no need to preach to the choir, let’s deal with the “celebrity” label. Of course it’s meant to belittle (or cut him down to size?), but let’s for the moment say that he is a celebrity, meaning that people pay attention to and magnify even the smallest details of his life, sometimes beyond reason. If people are going to choose someone to be a celebrity, what’s wrong with Barack? Look at how he has lived his life and what he has achieved. As soon as one becomes president (or First Lady) he (and she) zooms to the top of the Most Admired Person lists. So if that’s going to happen, what’s wrong with admiring someone who graduated from Harvard for one, and second, instead of pursuing more prestigious and lucrative positions, went to work to help the less powerful? He has surely lived a more admirable professional life in that respect than I have. And what’s wrong with having kids admire someone who writes as beautifully and speaks as, well, literately and grammatically, as Obama does? And what’s wrong with admiring someone who has (oh please make this be true) remained faithful to his wife? The press has recently told the swoon- inducing details of how John McCain first met Cindy in Honolulu in the early ‘70s: he saw her across the floor, walked over, introduced himself, asked her on a date, and the rest is history. But the rest really isn’t history, because the press hasn’t given much space to the fact that McCain was married at the time that he first put the moves on Cindy. Maybe I shouldn’t be throwing stones – I’ve been married twice too. But I’ve never seen my name on a most- admired list (if any of you have, please let me know). So though I think they should matter less, face it, family values do matter to a lot of people: look at the trashing that Bill Clinton still takes for his infidelity, and more important, look at how the results of that infidelity damaged not just him but the Democratic Party (I think it partially accounts for Gore’s loss in 2000). And I think that Barack will set a good example. (Though it backfired at the time, Jimmy Carter wearing sweaters in the White House in order to save energy is a good example of how a president can use his celebrity in a positive way, something I believe Obama, as a celebrity, can and will do). During the Democratic convention, the Republicans put up billboards in Denver with the slogan “a mile wide, an inch deep,” and I know that none of you needs an explanation of what they meant. But from what I think I know of him, Obama has true depth. If you have not yet read Dreams from My Father, I suggest it for two main reasons: 1) it’s a beautifully crafted book – this man knows how to think and write with precision, and 2) his discussion of race in America is about the best I’ve ever read, and that includes Malcolm X’s Autobiography. This man knows how to think, how to deal with complexities and contradictions. And though he’s been called a flip-flopper on issues like guns and the death penalty, a reading of his second book shows that it’s not flip-flopping. First of all, just about everything he’s said in the campaign is consistent with what he writes in The Audacity of Hope. And second (also obvious in The Audacity of Hope), he understands and respects both sides of these controversial issues - in a pragmatic way. I think that he learned as a community organizer that the most effective way to deal with conflicts is to bring as many factions as possible into the tent. That’s a valuable and more necessary-than-ever skill these days. The fact that he teaches at the University of Chicago is being used to paint him as a member of the elite, which, being a senator, he automatically is, but so what? So were both Roosevelts and all the Kennedys, who managed to transcend their class interests more often than their opponents. Moreover, they were born into the elite; at least Barack worked his own way up there. But also note that he teaches Constitutional Law. Of all the courses I took in school, the two Con Law classes in grad school were the ones that stretched me the most intellectually. One can be a shallow thinker and be a Con Law student (I may have proved that), but one can’t be a shallow thinker and be a successful Con Law teacher. So do you see what’s happening – again? Just as the Republicans – to head-scratching success - used Kerry’s Vietnam War heroism AGAINST him in 2004, they have decided to do the same with Obama’s strengths (intelligent = professor = elite). And people are listening. Think about this: we study great speeches and speakers in U.S. History classes: mine study the Gettysburg Address and the “I Have A Dream” speech because they inspired the best in Americans. Yet somehow the Republicans have tried to make Obama’s charisma and his abilities as a speaker (and speechwriter) a liability, as if it’s an indication of shallowness. Furthermore, even many of us who are moved by his charisma and his abilities as a speaker don’t seem to realize what a valuable political asset this could turn out to be. Think of JFK and Reagan, two charismatic politicians who could deliver a speech. Now I’ve come to see JFK as a fair-to-good president at best, whose assassination has obscured his rather shallow record. But he does deserve credit, in my opinion, for convincing people that government can and should be a force for good (in civil rights, for example), and inspiring some of the best and the brightest to enter public service. Yes, I know the best and the brightest occasionally screwed up – sometimes big-time - but wouldn’t you prefer the best and brightest to the mediocre and cynical, an inevitable result of a disrespect for government? Then, two decades later comes Reagan, with the message if we want to screw something up, bring government in to do it. It not only became a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it re-framed the terms of political debate ever since to the Republicans’ advantage. All debates now start with the assumption that more government is bad – those with opposing views begin on the defensive. Now admittedly, the role of government has been in constant debate since the country’s birth, and no one’s going to resolve it once and for all. But I predict that if he’s elected, Obama, with his intelligence, speaking ability, and charisma, will be able to re-frame questions of government more to my (and most of our) liking. And that’s a biggie… Traveling in Europe and South Africa this year, I wasn’t surprised to find that Obama had great support in those parts of the world, but the depth and breadth of that support did surprise me. Now before you get all hot and bothered, I know that we don’t elect a president because he wins a popularity contest in France. And I know that lots of people don’t give a damn if we’re hated by people in foreign countries, but there are several political/military realities to consider here: 1) we may not like to ask, but with our military stretched so thin, who knows when we’ll need (if we don’t already) the help of other countries; and 2) it will be a lot easier for politicians in other countries to support us (in various ways and positions) if their citizens look upon the US more favorably than they do now. I am certain that this would happen with Obama’s election. Could he screw it up? Of course, but at least he’d begin with more support than a Republican would. (People with whom I talked politics in South Africa never failed to say something like, “I understand that anyone can make a mistake once (election of 2000). But twice…?” A Republican would make it three times in their minds.) Having read his books, I am struck by and admire Obama’s ability to show respect and understanding for those who disagree with him on various issues. As I said above, it has occasionally been presented as flip-flopping, but I don’t see it that way; I see it as an indication of his desire to have a true and respectful dialogue and to compromise where possible on tough-to- resolve issues. Reading the section on Obama as a community organizer in Chicago, it’s clear that he learned a lesson: that given the way our political system works, respectful negotiations with opponents is usually essential for a successful outcome; one rarely succeeds by brute force. Hey, I’m as partisan as they come, but the vitriol with which politics has been conducted during the past sixteen years must abate. I think that Obama can be the kind of healer we need (for many of the reasons mentioned above). Hang on just a little longer – I’m almost through… Notice, except for a few times when I couldn’t help myself, I have tried not to dwell on what I think (and most of you who are reading this know) are the many reasons NOT to vote for McCain/Palin. I prefer to focus on what I see as Obama’s positive (and occasionally unrecognized) attributes. I’ve also tried to refrain from discussing Barack’s image, unless I thought it was relevant to his effectiveness as president. Would I want t have a beer with him? How is that relevant? Does he care about me personally? How can I ever really know? Is he arrogant? Why should I care, as long as he tries to do what I want him to do? So I assume that, like me, you care more about Obama’s policies, ideology, and goals. And when you think about it, even a specific, detailed policy statement may not be the best criteria for judging what kind of president Obama – or anyone else – will be; we can’t yet know the forces (lobbyists, special interest groups, members of both parties in Congress) with whom he or any other president will have to deal and compromise in order to get results on his proposals. Think of Clinton’s health care failure – or his support for and passage of NAFTA. And those voted for Bush in 2000 because they hoped he’d be able to fulfill his (sincere) campaign promise of reversing Roe v. Wade must be disappointed. So, given the reality of electoral and presidential politics, how does one judge what kind of president a candidate will be? I believe that his (or her) history is the best indicator. (I didn’t like most of what Reagan did as president, but given his history, he certainly was consistent and predictable.) Look at your own history, and think how well those of us who know your history know you. Then look at the history of those you know well. Doesn’t it explain – and wouldn’t it have been an accurate predictor – of what you and they have become? Isn’t most of what you’ve said and done in the past an indicator of your values? So as you evaluate him as a candidate, look at Barack’s history; look what he has done with his life. Where do you find it wanting? I never expected this to go on for so long – it’s probably a sign of your friendship that you’ve gotten this far, and I thank you. I wish I could conclude with words to inspire you to support Barack with the enthusiasm that I do, but in the end, I guess that’s his job.

Reader Comments	Comments RSS
Comments are closed for this post.

No comments have been written yet.

Content on blogs in My.BarackObama represents the opinions of community members and in no way should be interpreted as endorsed or approved by the campaign.