BARACK OBAMA

"Whites in the United States, considered separately, enjoy the highest quality of life in the world..." (page 87)

I disagree with this blanket statement, however it defines "quality of life."

"It is also, he argued, partly due to the fact that whites are no longer materially secure enough to tolerate the granting of surplus resources to disadvantaged minorities." (page 89)

This contradicts page 85, where he says: "Not only did tight labor markets, access to capital, and programs like Pell grants and Perkins loans benefit blacks directly; growing incomes and a sense of security among whites made them less resistant to minority claims for equality."

Edwards also stated his objection to the liquefaction of coal, since "the last thing we need is another carbon-based fuel in America." Obama responded with a rambling answer that called for "putting national interests ahead of special interests," but he led off by saying, "I actually think that we should explore nuclear power as part of the energy mix"—as if nuclear hadn't already been deeply explored for decades and found to be too expensive and unsafe.(page 30)

As Street notes, the transcript [1] shows that Obama's answer is long. But rambling? Only in the sense that it covers the several options in a complex picture. Here's the complete passage:

OBAMA: "I actually think that we should explore nuclear power as part of the energy mix. There are no silver bullets to this issue. We have to develop solar. I have proposed drastically increasing fuel efficiency standards on cars, an aggressive cap on the amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted.

OBAMA: "But we're going to have to try a series of different approaches.

OBAMA: "The one thing I have to remind folks, though, of — we've been talking about this through Republican administrations and Democratic administrations for decades."

OBAMA: "And the reason it doesn't change — you can take a look at how Dick Cheney did his energy policy. He met with environmental groups once. He met with renewable energy folks once. And then he met with oil and gas companies 40 times. And that's how they put together our energy policy. We've got to put the national interests ahead of special interests, and that's what I'll do as president of the United States." (APPLAUSE)

That's 163 words, 5 paragraphs versus Edwards' 137 words, 2 paragraphs. It's not that much longer than Edwards' answer (less than one-sixth longer, actually.) And I'd call it comprehensive rather than rambling. But I grant it isn't what Street wants to hear.

Speaking at NASDAQ's headquarters, he told the nation's financial elite, "I believe all of you are as open and willing to listen as anyone else in America. I believe you care about this country and the future we are leaving to the next generation. I believe your work to be a part of building a stronger, more vibrant, and more just America. I think the problem is that no one has asked you to play a part in the project of American renewal."

These were strange beliefs to (claim to) hold in light of the actual historical pattern of business behavior that naturally results from the purpose and structure of the system of private profit. An endless army of nonprofit charities and social-service providers, citizens, environmental and community activists, trade union negotiators, and policymakers has spent decades asking (often enough begging) the American corporate and capitalist overclass to contribute to the domestic social good. The positive results are generally marginal and fleeting as the "business community" works with structurally super-empowered effectiveness to distribute wealth and power ever more upward and to serve the needs of private investors and capital accumulation over and above any considerations of social and environmental health and the common good at home or abroad.(page 50)

Dr Street is largely correct about this. However, I think in his distaste for corporatism he forgets that some executives are civic-minded. Even those that aren't respond better to persuasion than condemnation. I think persuasion is exactly what Obama was attempting here. It's a worthwhile public-relations gambit. If a bouquet fails, there's always time for the brickbats.

My sense is that here, as when Street wrongly decides Obama "dissed" the late Paul Wellstone (page 42), and at several other places in the book, his righteous indignation leads him to unfairly harsh interpretations.

As Alexander Cockburn noted prior to the 2004 election, "Kerry offers himself up mainly as a more competent manager of the Bush agenda, a steadier hand on the helm of the Empire. . . . Kerry enthusiastically backed both of Bush's wars, and in June of 2004, at the very moment Bush signaled a desire to retreat, the senator called for 25,000 more troops to be sent to Iraq, with a plan for the US military to remain entrenched there for at least the next four years. (page 129)

As I don't recall any such signal, I'm not sure what this implies. But it was not Kerry who got us into Iraq, and given the shaky situation there, no one could get us out quickly.

But Obama's most telling Iraq War comments during the 2004 Democratic Party convention did not occur during his famous address. One day before he gave his historic speech, Obama told the New York Times that he did not know how he would have voted on the 2002 Iraq War resolution had he been serving in the U.S. Senate at the time of the vote.(page 142)

This is telling, all right. But what it tells me is that Obama was being honest in acknowledging that restricted information about Saddam Hussein's capabilities might exist. He would not have been privy to such information, and might not even had he been serving in the U.S. Senate.

What it tells Dr Street, evidently, is that Obama is hypocritical for suggesting that, given different information, he might have chosen a different path. But I submit that a) we should expect every politician to change course to meet a new situation, and b) since Dr Street's case is built upon what Obama actually said and did, he's not entitled to pick and choose among hypothetical outcomes.

Fallujah was the site of colossal U.S. war atrocities—crimes including the indiscriminant slaughter of civilians, the targeting even of ambulances and hospitals, and the leveling of practically an entire city—in April and November 2004. The town was designated for destruction as an example of the awesome state terror promised to those who dared to resist U.S. power. (pages 152-3)

Rumors of Fallujah's destruction have been greatly exaggerated. Michael Totten, a reporter who traveled there afterward, pointed this out. [2] But the chorus of outrage is persistent. The many mistakes made by U.S. forces during that period give such claims a veneer of believability. Nevertheless, the truth is that Fallujah was nowhere near completely leveled.

Obama continued to prove his fierce loyalty to the bipartisan imperial consensus in a summer article in the establishment journal Foreign Affairs. Containing numerous dubious historical reflections that put a shiny coat of whitewash on various past U.S. crimes abroad, this essay then moved into current events in ways that should have strongly fed suspicions that an Obama presidency could be expected to perpetuate ongoing imperial transgressions and commit new ones. Declaring that "we can be [Kennedy's] America again," he accused the Bush administration of dropping the ball of empire. "The American moment is not over, but it must be seized anew," Obama proclaimed, adding that "we must lead the world by deed and by example" and "must not rule out using military force" in pursuit of "our vital interests." (page 159)

No faint praise there. And yet, America does have vital interests, and securing them may require the use of military force.

Striving to show that Obama and his speechwriters rip off campaign rhetoric, Street enumerates a long list of catch phrases from presidential campaigns all the way back to 1984, including "we're going to take this country back." [3] (page 179) I really think this is overdone. There are only so many ways to put into words the aims of a political contest, which basically involve uniting the people, improving conditions for them, and winning the office — in the case of a presidential candidate from the opposition party, taking the country back. How many such phrases are truly novel?

Speaking to a town hall event at a local high school gymnasium in Greenburg, Pennsylvania, [Obama] said he wanted to return America to the more "traditional" foreign policy of such past presidents as "George Bush's father, or John F. Kennedy," and, "in some respects, Ronald Reagan." He spoke in flattering and favorable terms of the way George H.W. Bush had handled the supposedly virtuous and necessary Persian Gulf War. (page 162)

I differ with Street in that I supported Desert Storm. Granted, it can almost always be argued that war could have been avoided by more adroit diplomacy. But we cannot replay history for a better outcome.

Obama would honor those earlier examples by concluding his instantly famous True Moral Values Address with a broad policy agenda, including legislation guaranteeing all Americans food, clothing, health care (on a single-payer basis), education, employment, union organizing rights, (a "change"-oriented Obama would immediately embrace and advance the popular Employee Free Choice Act) and a living wage. (Afterword, page 215)

This Address may well be famous, but Google finds no trace of it. A citation would have been welcome.

In Appendix B, "Barack Obama's 'Shift to the Center' in June of 2008," Street writes: "In addition, there were reports that Obama asked Robert Gates, George W. Bush's hawkish, hard right defense secretary, to stay on into an Obama administration." (Page 228) This may be one indication that Obama was shifting right, but it's a decision I predicted in October of that year for the simple reason that Gates was doing a good job and had earned respect from both sides of the aisle. I think time has confirmed Obama's judgement in this. Few people complain about the job Robert Gates is doing.