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A PRESIDENT VERSUS A PRETENDER
This entry was posted on 9/20/2008 12:34 PM and is filed under uncategorized.
As we go into the final stretch of this campaign season, right now is the best time to see for yourself the difference between a president and a pretender.
Yesterday, Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, gave a concise, four-point response to the economic crises that threatens to bankrupt our nation:
http://www.truthout.org/article/obama-a-time-resolve
This link that I'm giving you not only reproduces the response in full, but it also has the video, which lasts about six minutes.
In it, Obama explains that, due to the gravity of the situation, and based on talks he's had with Treasury Secretary Paulson and Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bernanke, that he will refrain from presenting a detailed blueprint for what his administration would do.
For one thing, he says, you can't put together such an important plan in one day, and right now, this is too important for partisan political wrangling. ("Wrangling" is his word.) And for another, he wants to wait and see what the specifics are for their own plan, so that he can respond to that.
It must be pointed out here that, although CNN showed his remarks in full, the only one of the three major broadcast networks to even include a soundbite was CBS evening news, and the correspondent actually pointed out that Obama had been mentioning these same reforms for at least six months.
"For too long," said Obama, "this administration has been willing to hit the fast-forward button in helping distressed Wall Street firms while pressing pause when it comes to saving jobs and helping people in their homes."
So his first and most important point is that Main Street needs to be included on any sort of comprehensive economic reform package, who, as he stated, have been in crises for "months and months."
Secondly, he calls out the industry practice of rewarding poor CEO's who caused the problem in the first place by giving them multi-million dollar golden parachutes, and said that any money that goes to rescue their businesses should not also go to reward them in anyway. "Just as support is not designed to pay off egregious executive compensation, it should not reward those who are relentlessly foreclosing on American families."
Third, he states that this bail-out should be temporary, with a plan in place to wind down government support while at the same time, instituting "tough new oversight and regulations of our financial institutions."
Fourth, he calls on the global community to be part of a coordinated effort to stabilize credit markets: "We should ask other nations, who share in this crises, to be part of the solution as well."
Then, he lays blame where blame belongs:
"One last point. We did not arrive at this crisis by some accident of history. What led us to this point was years and years of a philosophy in Washington and on Wall Street that viewed even common-sense regulation and oversight as unwise and unnecessary; that shredded consumer protections and loosened the rules of the road. CEOs and executives got reckless. Lobbyists got what they wanted. Politicians in both parties looked the other way until it was too late. And it is the American people who have paid the price. The events of this week have rendered a final verdict on that failed philosophy, and it will end if I am President of the United States. We must build upon the ideas I have laid out over the last several years about how to modernize our financial regulation in this country, and establish commonsense rules of the road for our financial system to help restore confidence in our financial system."
And finally, Obama channels Franklin Roosevelt, who knew, even as he entered office as a new president, that the biggest problem facing America was not the Great Depression, but the fear of its people. He calmed them, and let them know that help was at hand.
Obama is mindful of this as well:
"I know these are difficult days. And I know there are a lot of families out there right now who are feeling anxiety - about their jobs, about their homes, about their retirement savings. But here's what I also know. This isn't a time for fear or panic. This is a time for resolve and for leadership. I know we can steer ourselves out of this crisis. That's who we are. That's what we've always done as Americans. Our nation has faced difficult times before. And at each of those moments, we've risen to meet the challenges as one people, and one nation. That is the America we need to be and can be today."
This reaction to the economic catastrophe that has struck our nation--aided and abetted not just by George W. Bush and his right-wing cronies, but by John McCain, who as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee for six years, directly contributed to the deregulation that has caused this--was measured, pragmatic, and inspirational.
Presidential.
Contrast that to McCain's. And I'm not just talking about his flip-flops on "the fundamentals of our economy are strong," or even on his threat to fire the chairman of the Security and Exchange commission--which an outraged Wall Street Journal editorial pointed out was not within the purvue of the presidency and that, furthermore, such rash and irrational blurt-outs would do nothing to calm the crises--I'm talking about how his campaign chose to respond.
While Obama was releasing a two-minute sit-down condensed version of his plan in an ad buy designed to reassure the American people that he was aware of the problem and had ideas to fix it--McCain was releasing a spate of nasty, lying attack ads about Obama.
So egregious was this reaction that the Washington Post's, lead political writer, Dan Baltz, called him on it in his piece: "On Economy, Obama Offers Ideas, McCain Blames Rival:"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/19/AR2008091903823_pf.html
"But while (McCain) too, said both parties must work together to solve the crises, he mostly spent the day going after Obama in highly personal terms, saying the senator from Illinois had been 'gaming' the system rather than trying to restore it."
And McCain, apparently, either flat-out lies about taxpayer burdens, or does not understand the complexities:
"McCain has aired and prepared, respectively, two ads that link Obama to former Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae chief executives Jim Johnson and Franklin D. Raines. McCain told a large, loud audience in Blaine, Minn., that Johnson had walked away from the mortgage giants with $21 million "of your money" in severance pay, while Raines received $25 million.
"'Let's tell them to give it back,' McCain said, and the crowd obliged, chanting "Give it back. Give it back."
"While Fannie and Freddie have held favored statuses with the federal government that have contributed to their profits, the severance packages were paid by company shareholders, not taxpayers."
And then, with unimaginable hubris, coming from someone who has not only been in congress and the senate for close to 30 years, but has been directly responsible for policies that have provoked this crises, McCain actually blames OBAMA for the misery:
"'We've heard a lot of words from Senator Obama over the course of this campaign,' McCain said. "But maybe just this once he could spare us the lectures, and admit to his own poor judgment in contributing to these problems. The crisis on Wall Street started in the Washington culture of lobbying and influence peddling, and he was right square in the middle of it.
"He added: 'That's not country first. That's Obama first.'"
Those of you out there who are still undecided on who to vote for, or who are still smarting from Hillary's loss in the primaries and are considering casting a protest-vote, need to understand that what we are seeing right here, right now, is the difference between a PRESIDENT and a PRETENDER.
But don't take it from me.
Take it from a man named Wick Allison, a very conservative Republican who was hand-picked by right-wing guru William F. Buckley to sit as editor-in-chief of the conservative Bible, the National Review.
Allison, who is now editor of "D" Magazine in his home-town of Dallas, Texas, just penned a powerful, thoughtful, and courageous essay on why he was supporting Barack Obama for the presidency. In it, he made the following point:
"Barack Obama is not my ideal candidate for president. (In fact, I made the maximum donation to John McCain during the primaries, when there was still hope he might come to his senses.) But I now see that Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history. I disagree with him on many issues. But those don’t matter as much as what Obama offers, which is a deeply conservative view of the world. Nobody can read Obama’s books (which, it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man. It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers.
"Most important, Obama will be a realist. I doubt he will taunt Russia, as McCain has, at the very moment when our national interest requires it as an ally. The crucial distinction in my mind is that, unlike John McCain, I am convinced he will not impulsively take us into another war unless American national interests are directly threatened.
"'Every great cause,' Eric Hoffer wrote, 'begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.' As a cause, conservatism may be dead. But as a stance, as a way of making judgments in a complex and difficult world, I believe it is very much alive in the instincts and predispositions of a liberal named Barack Obama. "
When Allison is using the word "conservative" in this passage, he is referring to a mindset, not a political philosophy; a measured, thoughtful, intelligent approach to problem-solving that our nation is in desperate need of at this moment.
If you want to elect a true president, in every good sense of the word, to face the staggering problems our nation confronts, I beg of you:
Cast your vote for Barack Obama on November 4.
UPDATE: I'm going to copy over a portion of a comment I made, for those of you who don't have time to read the comments, on an interesting development right in line with the premise of this blogpost:
Today, George Will--a conservative if I ever saw one--said that during this crises, Obama "was presidential, was calm, and willing to wait and see what Paulson recommends." He said that McCain, however, "as usual, substituted volitility for substance." When George Stephanopoulos pointed out that the McCain campaign was going to try to make this election about personality rather than issues, Will replied, "Well, we've seen John McCain's personality this week, and many of us found it SCARY."
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal positively BLASTED McCain in an editorial for threatening to fire the SEC chair.
What I'm seeing is a resistance from fiscal conservatives toward McCain, like Mr. Allison. They've never liked him anyway; they were already appalled by Sarah Palin; they were unhappy when McCain mouthed off against Russia; and now, they think he was all over the map this week. I think we will be seeing a surprising number of thinking conservatives pull the curtain behind them and cast a secret vote for Obama. And that will NOT show up in the polls.
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