Which brings us to our presidential candidates. Barack Obama has gone to great efforts to stress his humble origins. As is often the case with Obama, methinks the Messiah doth protest too much. If you read Obama’s autobiography “Dreams From My Father” (and please note it’s “From,” not “Of” – all these lefties who claim to have read the book but can’t even manage to get the title right cast their credibility into doubt), you’ll see that Obama’s claims to hardship seem a little trumped up. Yes, his father was absent and his mother a bit eccentric, but he grew up surrounded by people who loved him. It’s true Obama grew up middle class, but he was comfortably middle class. While he relentlessly harps on the purported financial hardships he bore as a youth, they didn’t prevent him from attending Hawaii’s finest and most exclusive prep school.
Obama’s adult life has also been devoid of misfortune. He has enjoyed financial comfort his entire adult life in spite of not having a real job or making any real money until he was 13 years out of law school. He can thank his wife for his material comfort. Apparently there have been no health challenges.
Professionally, Obama steadily declined to test himself and experience potential adversity. While most of his Harvard Law classmates entered the maw of big law firm life knowing they would either thrive or fail, Obama shrunk back in relative safety, organizing communities, teaching a con-law class, writing a book and generally living the life of a dilettante intellectual.
In the past 48 hours, Obama and his campaign have been stung by the suggestion that he doesn’t oppose genocide. Actually, that’s how Obama surrogate Keith Olbermann framed the issue last night on his MSNBC (whatever that may be) broadcast last night. Of course, no one is saying that Barack Obama opposes genocide as a philosophical matter. I’m sure if the topic came up at a Hyde Park cocktail party, Obama, William Ayers, Bernadette Dohrn and Jeremiah Wright all would agree that genocide is a very, very bad thing. Then they would probably crack open a bottle of Grgich Hills Chardonnay and dine on Ayers’ famous Lemon Tarragon Bell & Evans chicken which they would enjoy almost as much as their sense of moral superiority.
I’m sure the Sunnis in Iraq who would perhaps be confronting a potential genocide right now if Barack Obama’s plan for a 16 month withdrawal had taken effect in 2007 would find the spiritual kinship of the Hyde Park gang a tremendous comfort. But as a leader rather than a Hyde Park intellectual, Obama’s opposition to genocide, in order to have any real meaning, will have to be attached to action.
And this is where the hardheadedness comes in. To prevent a potential genocide in 2007 required American resolve. It also required leaders who were willing to commit American blood and treasure to doing so. Barack Obama, then a prominent senator and candidate for president, was willing to make no such commitments. He explicitly said at that time that genocide would not be reason enough to maintain an American military presence in Iraq. For special fans of Keith Olberman related ironies, MSNBC’s website reported these Obama comments.
Yesterday, Obama engaged in perhaps the cheesiest moment in modern campaigning memory by using Israel’s Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, as a backdrop for a photo-op that would visually illustrate his seriousness and gravitas. During this visit to Yad Vashem, Obama predictably said “Never again” – not quite an original sentiment, but still a welcome one. And on his website two weeks ago, he semi-reversed his position on genocide, saying that as POTUS he would reserve the right to arrest his sudden withdrawal from Iraq to stop a genocide. Of course, the statement included the linguistic gymnastics we’ve come to expect from Barack Obama – he didn’t say he would do whatever was necessary to halt the genocide. He didn’t even say he would do anything necessary to halt the genocide. He just said he reserved the right to do so. He also added the annoying caveat that he would do so while working with our international partners.
There are two Barack Obamas – the one who offers beautiful words and the one who prescribes scant actions. And the words without action or at least the credible promise of action mean nothing. “Never again” is a nice thing to say, but attaching real meaning to the words requires a certain resolve. Saving the situation in Iraq and preventing a potential genocide required an embrace of a Hobson’s Choice.
We’ve certainly learned one thing about Barack Obama during this campaign – he’s wrestled the art of saying nice words down to a science. But when the same guy who said he wouldn’t intervene to stop a genocide in Iraq a year later pops into Yad Vashem and says “Never again,” you have to take pause. And you have to wonder whether those words are anything more than hollow platitudes meant to more reflect his own sense of moral superiority rather than any actions he might take as president
