McCain, Obama, and Patriotism
Someone asked about the allegation that McCain has questioned Obama's partiotism. Well, in my view, yes.
And it is not just me. Here is a quote from Bob Herbert writing in the New York Times. You should read the whole thing since it gets the views of both me and Carmen letter perfect on several aspects of the campaign. Here is the part about patriotism.
“For four days, Senator John McCain and his allies have accused Senator Barack Obama of snubbing wounded soldiers by canceling a visit to a military hospital because he could not take reporters with him, despite no evidence that the charge is true.”
Evidence? John McCain needs no evidence. His campaign is about trashing the opposition, Karl Rove-style. Not satisfied with calling his opponent’s patriotism into question, Mr. McCain added what amounted to a charge of treason, insisting that Senator Obama would actually prefer that the United States lose a war if that would mean that he — Senator Obama — would not have to lose an election.
But it could just be us I suppose. And yes, I do view the latter accusation as tantamount to calling Obama a traitor.
Though I suppose we could take it as simply politics as usual, the other side is just as bad, they all do it, it works, etc.
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Labels: McCain, political dirt, presidential campaign
posted by Clemens @ 8:09 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
So because McCain makes an attack you (and I) find distasteful, he has thereby questioned Obama's patriotism? Isn't "patriotism" taking a rather broad meaning all of a sudden?
It is no more "treason" to prefer the presidency to victory in Iraq than it is a "high crime and misdemeanor" to prefer the presidency to a more equitable distribution of tax cuts. It may be crass and disgusting politics on Obama's or McCain's parts to hold such politically convenient positions, but it is not treason, nor is it inherently a lack of patriotism, unless one is pigheaded enough to conflate patriotism with a jingoistic militarism that insists on winning every conflict no matter the cost.
For example, I recall being called hateful, angry, and anti-immigrant because I oppose granting in-state tuition to "undocumented immigrants", or for that matter the McCain-Kennedy amnesty program. And that was by my own bishop at the time, the Most Rev. Joseph F. Gossman himself. By the logic you've employed, I can now conclude that my bishop called me a racist, and has implicated me in Nixon's Southern strategy, and has fingered me for a fellow-traveler with Jesse Helms or, better yet, Theodore "the Man" Bilbo.
Stating that Obama is happy to lose a war so long as he wins an election strikes me as a perfectly legitimate argument to raise. I happen to think it is even correct. If this appalls you, then I am sorry, but it strikes me as no less legitimate an argument to raise than the one that McCain fell over himself to embrace Bushitler in order to win an election, e.g. on the tax cuts he once opposed, or on torture—well, maybe not that one.
Do I think Obama is a traitor because he'd rather win an election than a war? Not hardly. If the war were unwinnable, Obama would be correct. McCain has said this himself.
So is the current war in Iraq unwinnable? McCain's point is that the generals think it is, and that Obama doesn't care what the generals think. The question is one of judgment, and becomes one of patriotism only because liberals think that anyone who questions their never-incorrect judgment on a topic questions everything that might remotely be related to that topic: patriotism, morality, religion, etc.
The best criticism of McCain's attack was written I forget where: McCain would help himself more by stating clearly what he thinks "victory" is, and how we will achieve it.
Saying that McCain has questioned Obama's patriotism is not merely bad criticism, it is completely wrong.
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