Monday, October 20, 2008

Temperament and Judgement


I voted early today, and then I gave the campaign more money. And it felt good, even knowing yesterday's remarkable numbers . According to their recent statements, I voted with Colin Powell and Kenneth Adelman, both R's in the administration of George the Lesser.

Adelman explains his thinking in the New Yorker:

Why so, since my views align a lot more with McCain’s than with Obama’s? And since I truly dread the notion of a Democratic president, Democratic House, and hugely Democratic Senate?

Primarily for two reasons, those of temperament and of judgment.

When the economic crisis broke, I found John McCain bouncing all over the place. In those first few crisis days, he was impetuous, inconsistent, and imprudent; ending up just plain weird. Having worked with Ronald Reagan for seven years, and been with him in his critical three summits with Gorbachev, I’ve concluded that that’s no way a president can act under pressure.

Second is judgment. The most important decision John McCain made in his long campaign was deciding on a running mate.

That decision showed appalling lack of judgment. Not only is Sarah Palin not close to being acceptable in high office—I would not have hired her for even a mid-level post in the arms-control agency. But that selection contradicted McCain’s main two, and best two, themes for his campaign—Country First, and experience counts. Neither can he credibly claim, post-Palin pick."

But Powells statement of support for Obama was withering:

I don’t believe [Palin] is ready to be president of the United States,” Powell said flatly. By contrast, Obama’s running mate, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, “is ready to be president on day one.”

Powell also told NBC’s Tom Brokaw that he was “troubled” by Republicans’ personal attacks on Obama, especially false intimations that Obama was Muslim and the recent focus on Obama’s alleged connections to William Ayers, a co-founder of the radical ’60 Weather Underground.
.
Stressing that Obama was a lifelong Christian, Powell denounced Republican tactics that he said were insulting not only to to Obama but also to Muslims.

“The really right answer is what if he is?” Powell said, praising the contributions of millions of Muslim citizens to American society.

“I look at these kind of approaches to the campaign, and they trouble me,” Powell said. “Over the last seven weeks, the approach of the Republican Party has become narrower and narrower.”

Narrower and narrower pretty much describes the e-mail I got from a West Texas businessman who sent this piece from investors.com to everyone on his contacts list. In it, the author writes:

Throughout his career, Obama has worked closely with a network of stone-cold socialists and full-blown communists striving for "economic justice."

He's been traveling in an orbit of collectivism that runs from Nairobi to Honolulu, and on through Chicago to Washington.

Yet a recent AP poll found that only 6% of Americans would describe Obama as "liberal," let alone socialist.

Public opinion polls usually reflect media opinion, and the media by and large have portrayed Obama as a moderate "outsider" (the No. 1 term survey respondents associate him with) who will bring a "breath of fresh air" to Washington.

The few who have drilled down on his radical roots have tended to downplay or pooh-pooh them. Even skeptics have failed to connect the dots for fear of being called the dreaded "r" word."

I know being an "R" is a scarlet letter for my group, but apparently it is wider spread that I knew.

Seriously, I didn't know what other "r" the writer meant until I thought about it.

Not all "R"s are "r's.

But they've built their southern strategy on it.

And that may be just about all they'll have,

when the dust settles on this race. . .

When Temperment and Judgement

overcomes hate and fear,

and liberty and justice
.
meet once again
.
in the hall of our honor.
.
Because after all,
.

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2 Comments:

Blogger memo said...

...and what if Obama is a socialist? If a socialist is someone who advocates the redistribution of wealth ( as defined by the McCain mouthpieces) then surely the architects of the redistribution of wealth over the last eight years surely qualify as socialists also.

9:39 PM  
Blogger oZ said...

I fixed a mispelling in the title thanks to MW

2:38 PM  

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