Barack Obama has some genuine strengths: He is good looking, he is unusually serene for a man so young, and he seems decent and straight-talking for a politician. Also he is a man comfortable in his own skin, which is refreshing coming after people like Bill Clinton and Al Gore who are still "growing up" in their fifties.
Obama's weakness is that he is inexperienced. This shows in his numerous naive and inane statements which I will be blogging about in the months to come. But what intrigues me is Obama's insinuation that experience doesn't matter. Whever Hillary chides Obama with inexperience Obama basically replies, "Look where experience has gotten us."
There is some truth in this. Abraham Lincoln had no experience and yet he became America's greatest president. Nixon was experienced and yet his presidency ended in disgrace. Reagan had limited experience and yet his two terms were a triumph. Hillary's own experience is mainly in screwing up.
But this historical record cuts both ways. Eisenhower's experience in foreign policy contributed to American power and prosperity in the 1950s. Jimmy Carter's inexperience resulted in American abandonment of the Shah of Iran and brought us the Ayatollah Khomeini. George H. W. Bush's experience helped assemble an international coalition that won the Gulf War. His son's inexperience led to some serious mistakes in the early period of the Iraq war.
Obama's non-sequitur is that experienced people have screwed up, therefore experience is irrelevant. Apply this reasoning to other areas and its absurdity becomes obvious. Consider the following extensions of Obama's argument: "The experienced CEO made a bad investment, so let's replace him with the least experienced guy at the company." "The skilled skater fell during the Olympic trials, so let's put a guy on a team who has never skated before." "The general made a flawed maneuver, so let's turn over the company to Pee Wee Herman."
The Lincoln analogy--which others have applied to Obama--is flawed. The 1860 election was a single-issue election and focused on a grand struggle that would determine what kind of country America would be. That single issue was slavery. Lincoln had been an anti-slavery man all his life and on this issue he was thoroughly experienced. He had addressed the slavery issue in a series of profound debates with Stephen Douglas, debates that are still studied in classrooms today. Lincoln was inexperienced on matters like the economy, but those issues didn't matter very much.
So what is Obama's great issue? Where are his profound meditations on it? These may be forthcoming, but so far we have seen no signs of it, and my sense is that with Obama, what we've seen is what there is. Perhaps Gertrude Stein's words are applicable: "There is no 'there' there."
Reader Comments ( Page 5 of 40)
61. Presisent Regan was my favorite President. Oh how I miss the Gipper!!!!!!
REGINA MARTIN at 6:06PM on Mar 5th 2008
62. 34. jerry,
i do have a fair and permissive attitude toward liberals. i just think they are lost as a ball in high weeds.
brian at 4:34PM on Mar 5th 2008
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No offense, but that's how we feel about you guys.
Except that your side is neither fair nor permissive. As if we need your permission anyhow.
You were looking for the word "tolerant" perhaps.
You're not tolerant either.
Godless Heathen Brian at 6:05PM on Mar 5th 2008
63. Yeah, he thought ketchup was a vegewtable in school lunches. I miss him too. For the comic relief.
At least he didn't start unjust wars for kicks.
Godless Heathen Brian at 6:07PM on Mar 5th 2008
64. Vegetable. not vegewtable. Oops.
Godless Heathen Brian at 6:08PM on Mar 5th 2008
65. I remember Regan. I always thought of him like a senile old man who didn't have a single original thought in his life, but he was likeable enough in an avuncular way. He seemed one of those presidents that had a much smarter staff that told him what to say, like a puppet. Or perhaps an actor.
Of course, GWB is even worse in that respect. At least Regan could act. GWB tells lies that are transparent as glass, no acting ability whatsoever, and yet he still pulls them off, since the target audience has gotten even dumber since the '80s....
Godless Heathen Brian at 6:14PM on Mar 5th 2008
66. "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishenss."
- Kenneth Galbraith
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I love that quote. So true. So true."
On the contrary, it's so false it's laughable. Selfishness is morally justified in the philosophy of ethical egoism. No conservative is an ethical egoist; if he were, he wouldn't be a conservative (calling a conservative an ethical egoist would be akin to saying that a Christian doesn't have any beliefs about Jesus or his teachings).
Some conservatives pragmatically -- not morally, mind you -- justify selfishness on grounds presented by Adam Smith, i.e. our selfish actions indirectly benefit others when undertaken within certain institutional structures.
If this is to true, as you two suggest, can either of you present one conservative argument that is an instance of a moral argument (not a pragmatic argument) justifying selfishness?
Tiny Tim at 6:17PM on Mar 5th 2008
67. Sure. Saying that you're going to war against the people that attacked us, and then going into Iraq to secure the oil instead, all the while lying about it. The cronyism between Bush and Big Business, where everybody wins except the taxpayer. Using christianity as a tool to get people to vote for you. Pick one.
Godless Heathen Brian at 6:21PM on Mar 5th 2008
68. And let me get this straight. You're saying that no conservative is an egotist?
AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!
They practically ALL are!
Godless Heathen Brian at 6:24PM on Mar 5th 2008
69. The argument that experience doesn't matter is a straw man with Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had tremendous experience, and is commonly cited as a series of failures that he learned from.
The founding fathers, writers of our constitution, and the ones creating our great country had no experience in what they were doing.
Why not explore what great statesmen, without experience can do? It's clear the writer does NOT want to go there.
The argument the writer makes seems intentionall weak and is suspect. Indeed when coupled with the statement that he will be negatively blogging about Obama (thus by his own admission this is a hit job, not reporting).
Lee Church at 6:35PM on Mar 5th 2008
70. carter abandoned the shah? he was thrown out by the iranians themselves. do you think that everytime someone is deposed it is because an american president didnt support him. it is quite the opposite. we were responsible for deposing mossadeq and bringing back the shah. we were responsible for deposing arbenz and bringing in long years of military dictatorship in guatemala. we were responsible for the death of allende and bringing in the repressive pinochet. in all these cases we were responsible for deposing democratically elected governments and bringing in hated dictatorships. ronbo.
ron bobel at 6:43PM on Mar 5th 2008
71. They look for ways to justify their selfishness. Moral ways. As in, saying that they're the chosen people, and that atheists are immoral somehow, when they're the ones stretching morality like a rubber band. They use the Bible to justify whatever action they wish to do. For instance, years ago they used the bible to justify slavery. Today they are using it to foment hatred against gays and atheists.
They justify starting an unnecessary war by saying that they're on God's side, when Jesus would have spit in their eye for it.
Godless Heathen Brian at 6:28PM on Mar 5th 2008
72. Dinesh D'Souza is annoying. He talks all that Christian talk which is the right-wing hijacked form of Christianity--and is always criticizing this country and it's people. Why doesn't he go back to India where they still worship devils and idols.
I've met many Indian 'Christians' before and they seem to be very silent on the idolatrous state of their nation--while criticizing the moral state of this country. I think it's Un-American.
spe at 6:33PM on Mar 5th 2008
73. Just the fact that modern conservativism has intentionally entwined itself inextricably with fundamentalist christianity in order to fill it's ranks with willing brainwashed servants and voters is morally reprehensible and selfishly egotistical in the extreme. Read David Kuo's book sometime if you doubt me. He has no reason to lie.
Godless Heathen Brian at 6:35PM on Mar 5th 2008
74. Of course, I knew it way before Kuo admitted it in print. I'm not stupid. It's very apparent if you're not brainwashed.
Godless Heathen Brian at 6:37PM on Mar 5th 2008
75. Godless Heathen Brian, I think you need to do a search on "ethical egoism." You clearly have no idea what it means.
Tiny Tim at 6:38PM on Mar 5th 2008