A perspective on Sen. McCain's "shift" on DADT

Just sayin'

Poor Lindsay

One of the things that the press and Republicans seem to forget is the same thing that McCain's speechwriters so memorably put in Sarah Patin's sneering little pie hole: Barack Obama was a Community Organizer. A good one, apparently (though he takes little credit for it in The Faith of Our Fathers). As a community organizer he had a habit of finding common ground with people of different agendas and aims than his, in order to get their support on things they can agree on. The New York Times and Lindsay Graham seem shocked by this.

And then Lindsay, perhaps worried that he's losing his BFF, says this,

Mr. Emanuel said he did not remember any discussion of Iraq. “Barack has been clear that he is going to stick to his responsible reduction in forces, and he hasn’t changed from that,” he said.

But Mr. Graham, who accompanied Mr. McCain to the meeting, said Mr. Obama took a notably different tone toward Iraq than he had during the campaign, emphasizing the common ground in their views.

“He said that he understands that we had differences but he wanted to let us know that he also understands that we have got to be responsible in how we leave Iraq,” Mr. Graham recalled. “What the Obama-Biden administration has talked about is not losing the gains we have achieved. ”

He added, “Obama does not want to be the guy who lost Iraq when it is close to being won.”

I'm betting on Rahm's memory for this one.

It's smart politics for Obama to reach out to a handful of Republicans with whom he can find common ground on a host of issues, like immigration reform, medical records reform, and climate change, and if McCain can help provide cover for efforts to cut defense spending, all the better. But I doubt they will find agreement on Iraq as long as huckleberries like Graham think we can still "win" in Iraq when they don't know how to define "winning."

UPDATE: Forgotten link restored.

Heckuva job

A most peculiar evening, I have to say.

The choice

If Senator Obama finally pulls this thing off, we will have an interesting choice in November.

Barak Obama:

This is why, Obama's advisers argue, national security depends in large part on dignity promotion. Without it, the U.S. will never be able to destroy al-Qaeda. Extremists will forever be able to demagogue conditions of misery, making continued U.S. involvement in asymmetric warfare an increasingly counterproductive exercise -- because killing one terrorist creates five more in his place. "It's about attacking pools of potential terrorism around the globe," Gration says. "Look at Africa, with 900 million people, half of whom are under 18. I'm concerned that unless you start creating jobs and livelihoods we will have real big problems on our hands in ten to fifteen years."

Obama sees this as more than a global charity program; it is the anvil against which he can bring down the hammer on al-Qaeda. "He took many of the [counterinsurgency] principles -- the paradoxes, like how sometimes you're less secure the more force is used -- and looked at it from a more strategic perspective," Sewall says. "His policies deal with root causes but do not misconstrue root causes as a simple fix. He recognizes that you need to pursue a parallel anti-terrorism [course] in its traditional form along with this transformed approach to foreign policy." Not for nothing has Obama received private advice or public support from experts like former Clinton and Bush counterterrorism advisers Richard Clarke and Rand Beers, and John Brennan, the first chief of the National Counterterrorism Center.

The Obama foreign-affairs brain trust balks at the suggestion that what it's proposing is radical. "He said we'd take out al-Qaeda's senior leadership in the Pakistani tribal areas if Pakistan will not. That's not, to me, a revolutionary policy," Rhodes says. "Watching him get attacked on the right is absurd. You've got guys who argued for a massive invasion and occupation of a country that had nothing to do with 9-11 criticizing him for advocating the use of highly targeted force to kill Osama bin Laden!"

John McCain:

As you know, I was in Iraq, Jordan, Israel, France and England on my last visit. And a couple of days ago, as you probably know, an audiotape -- actually it was last week -- an audiotape was released where bin Laden said, and I have to quote bin Laden, ... 'the nearest field to support our people in Palestine is the Iraqi field.' He urged Palestinians and people of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to quote 'help in support of their mujahedeen brothers in Iraq, which is the greatest opportunity and the biggest task.' Now my friends, for the first time I have seen Osama bin Laden and General Petraeus in agreement, and that is, the central battleground in the battle against al Qaeda is in Iraq today. And that's what bin Laden is saying and that's what General Petraeus is saying and that's what I'm saying, my friends, and my Democrat opponents who want to pull out of Iraq refuse to understand what's being said and what's happening, and that is, the central battleground is Iraq in this struggle against radical Islamic extremism.

In short, Obama's advisers are calling for a comprehensive rethinking of our foreign policy, putting, as former adviser Samantha Power quotes FDR, "freedom from fear and freedom from want" along with more traditional anti-terrorism efforts as the best, probably only way to confront the rise of radical Islamism and terrorism in general.

John McCain, on the other hand, wants to do what Osama bin Laden tells us to do.

I urge you to read the entire Spencer Ackerman piece on the people -- all of whom were right about the war and were hammered for it -- who have chosen to align themselves with Obama as foreign policy advisers. They're calling for a truly ambitious change in our approach to the rest of the world.

Tearing apart a satin pillow

The best analysis of last night's GOP "debate" I've read yet...from His Rudeness.

Our Constitution...in bronze

I posted on McCain's willful ignorance of the Establishment Clause, but because of innate laziness I hadn't seen the full quote.

A recent poll found that 55 percent of Americans believe the U.S. Constitution establishes a Christian nation. What do you think?

I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation. But I say that in the broadest sense. The lady that holds her lamp beside the golden door doesn't say, "I only welcome Christians." We welcome the poor, the tired, the huddled masses. But when they come here they know that they are in a nation founded on Christian principles.

So, does John McCain equate Emma Lazarus's words on the Statue of Liberty and the Bill of Rights?