PHOENIX (By Jon Garrido, Blue Dogs) October 27, 2008 — Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s endorsement, which came after months of conversations between Mr. Powell and Mr. Obama on a wide range of foreign and domestic policy issues, made clear Mr. Powell’s dismay at the Republican Party. He said he felt that the party had become too conservative under Mr. Bush, and Senator John McCain’s campaign was not good for the country or its reputation around the world.
In that sense, his remarks further stirred the brewing debate about the nature of the post-Bush Republican Party.
“I have some concerns about the direction that the party has taken in recent years,” Mr. Powell told Tom Brokaw on “Meet the Press” on NBC as he made his endorsement of Mr. Obama. “It has moved more to the right than I would like to see it.” In recent weeks, Mr. Powell added, “the approach of the Republican Party and Mr. McCain has become narrower and narrower.”
It will be up to the next president, Mr. Powell said, “to fix the reputation that we’ve left with the rest of the world.”
In saying he would vote for Mr. Obama over Mr. McCain, Mr. Powell aligned himself squarely against Mr. Bush, who has been counting on a Republican victory next month to see through his strategy of avoiding a rigid timetable for withdrawals in Iraq — the issue, more than any other, on which the president’s legacy will rest.
Although Mr. Powell had major misgivings about the war and what he considered the inadequate number of troops.
The fissures within the Bush administration and the fractious Republican foreign policy establishment have in the meantime played out in the 2008 presidential campaign. In many ways, Mr. Powell’s endorsement reflected the rift between the so-called pragmatists, many of whom have come to view the Iraq war or its execution as a mistake, and the neoconservatives, a competing camp whose thinking played a pivotal role in building the case for war.
Mr. Powell, who is of the pragmatist camp and has been critical of the Bush administration’s conduct of the war, was said by friends in recent months to be disturbed by some of the neoconservatives who have surrounded Mr. McCain as foreign policy advisers in his presidential campaign.
Mr. Powell also stated he is concerned Mr. McCain speaks off the cuff about national security and has not taken the time to do the deeper homework required of a presidential candidate.
In addition, a friend said when Mr. Powell met with Mr. McCain at Mr. McCain’s Arlington, Va., apartment in June, Mr. McCain spoke almost exclusively to him about the war in Iraq and the increase in troop strength, or surge, Mr. McCain had strongly supported. Mr. Obama, who met with Mr. Powell at Mr. Powell’s Alexandria, Va., office, discussed a broader range of issues and actively solicited Mr. Powell’s expertise, the friend said.
Leadership
The United States is battered and drifting after eight years of President Bush’s failed leadership. He is saddling his successor with two wars, a scarred global image and a government systematically stripped of its ability to protect and help its citizens — whether they are fleeing a hurricane’s floodwaters, searching for affordable health care or struggling to hold on to their homes, jobs, savings and pensions in the midst of a financial crisis that was foretold and preventable.
As tough as the times are, the selection of a new president is easy. After nearly two years of a grueling and ugly campaign, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has proved he is the right choice to be the 44th president of the United States.
Mr. Obama has met challenge after challenge, growing as a leader and putting real flesh on his early promises of hope and change. He has shown a cool head and sound judgment. We believe he has the will and the ability to forge the broad political consensus essential to finding solutions to this nation’s problems.
McCain's choice of a running mate so evidently unfit for the offic
e was a final act of opportunism and bad judgment that eclipsed the accomplishments of 26 years in Congress.
Indeed, the presidential campaign
has rendered McCain nearly
unrecognizable. His selection of
Sarah Palin as his running mate was
irresponsible, as Palin is the most
unqualified vice presidential
nominee of a major party in living
memory. The decision calls into
question just what kind of thinking
— if that's the appropriate word —
would drive the White House in a
McCain presidency. Fortunately, the
public has shown more discernment,
and the early enthusiasm for Palin
has given way to national ridicule
of her candidacy and McCain's
judgment.
Obama's selection also was telling.
He might have scored a steeper bump
in the polls by making a more
dramatic choice than the capable and
experienced Joe Biden. But for all
the excitement of his own candidacy,
Obama has offered more competence
than drama.
Given the particularly ugly nature of Mr. McCain’s campaign, the urge to choose on the basis of raw emotion is strong. But there is a greater value in looking closely at the facts of life in America today and at the prescriptions the candidates offer. The differences are profound.
Mr. McCain offers more of the Republican every-man-for-himself ideology, now lying in shards on Wall Street and in Americans’ bank accounts. Mr. Obama has another vision of government’s role and responsibilities.
In his convention speech in Denver, Mr. Obama said, “Government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves: protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology.”
Since the financial crisis, he has correctly identified the abject failure of government regulation that has brought the markets to the brink of collapse.
Mr. Obama also understands the most important single counter to inequality, and the best way to maintain American competitiveness, is improved education, another subject of only modest interest to Mr. McCain. Mr. Obama would focus attention on early education and on helping families so another generation of poor children doesn't lose out. His budgets would be less likely to squeeze out important programs such as Head Start and Pell grants. Though he has been less definitive than we would like, he supports accountability measures for public schools and providing parents choices by means of charter schools.
But Mr. Obama, as anyone who reads his books can tell, also has a sophisticated understanding of the world and America's place in it. He, too, is committed to maintaining U.S. leadership and sticking up for democratic values, as his recent defense of tiny Georgia makes clear. We hope he would navigate between the amoral realism of some in his party and the counterproductive cocksureness of the current administration, especially in its first term. On most policies, such as the need to go after al-Qaeda, check Iran's nuclear ambitions and fight HIV/AIDS abroad, he differs little from Mr. Bush or Mr. McCain. But he promises defter diplomacy and greater commitment to allies. His team overstates the likelihood that either of those can produce dramatically better results, but both are certainly worth trying.
But the stress of a campaign can reveal some essential truths, and the picture of Mr. McCain that emerged this year is far from reassuring. To pass his party's tax-cut litmus test, he jettisoned his commitment to balanced budgets. He hasn't come up with a coherent agenda, and at times he has seemed rash and impulsive. And we find no way to square his professed passion for America's national security with his choice of a running mate who, no matter what her other strengths, is not prepared to be commander in chief.
But Mr. Obama's temperament is
unlike anything we've seen on the
national stage in many years. He is
deliberate but not indecisive;
eloquent but a master of substance
and detail; preternaturally
confident but eager to hear opposing
points of view. He has inspired
millions of voters of diverse ages
and races, no small thing in our
often divided and cynical country.
Hispanic News thinks Barack Obama is the right man for a
perilous time. A man for all
seasons.
Barack Obama
is the competent, confident
leader who represents the
aspirations of the nation.
It is inherent in the American
character to aspire to
greatness, so it can be
disorienting when the nation
stumbles or loses confidence in
bedrock principles or
institutions.
That's where the
United States is as it prepares
to select a new president: We
have seen the government take a
stake in venerable private
financial houses; we have
witnessed eight years of
executive branch power grabs and
erosion of civil liberties; we
are still recovering from a
murderous attack by terrorists
on our own soil and still
struggling with how best to
prevent a recurrence.
Our nation has never before had a
candidate like Obama, a man born in
the 1960s, of black African and
white heritage, raised and educated
abroad as well as in the United
States, and bringing with him a
personal narrative that encompasses
much of the American story but that,
until now, has been reflected in
little of its elected leadership.
The excitement of Obama's early
campaign was amplified by that
newness. But as the presidential
race draws to its conclusion, it is
Obama's character and temperament
that come to the fore. It is his
steadiness. His maturity.
We need a leader who
demonstrates thoughtful calm and
grace under pressure, one not
prone to volatile gesture or
capricious pronouncement. We
need a leader well-grounded in
the intellectual and legal
foundations of American freedom.
Yet we ask that the same person
also possess the spark and
passion to inspire the best
within us: creativity,
generosity and a fierce defense
of justice and liberty.
These are qualities American
leadership has sorely lacked for
close to a decade. The Constitution,
more than two centuries old, now
offers the world one of its more
mature and certainly most stable
governments, but our political
culture is still struggling to shake
off a brash and unseemly
adolescence. In George W. Bush, the
executive branch turned its back on
an adult role in the nation and the
world and retreated into
self-absorbed unilateralism.
Obama inspires confidence not so much in his grasp of Wall Street finance but in his acknowledgment of and comfort with his lack of expertise. He will not be one to forge far-reaching economic policy without sounding out the best thinkers and practitioners, and he has many at his disposal. He has won the backing of some on Wall Street not because he's one of them but because they recognize his talent for extracting from a broad range of proposals a coherent and workable program.
We may one day look back on this presidential campaign in wonder. We may marvel that Obama's critics called him an elitist, as if an Ivy League education were a source of embarrassment, and belittled his eloquence, as if a gift with words were suddenly a defect. In fact, Obama is educated and eloquent, sober and exciting, steady and mature. He represents the nation as it is, and as it aspires to be.
The Economy
The American financial system is the victim of decades of Republican deregulatory and anti-tax policies. Those ideas have been proved wrong at an unfathomable price, but Mr. McCain — a self-proclaimed “foot soldier in the Reagan revolution” — is still a believer.
Mr. Obama sees that far-reaching reforms will be needed to protect Americans and American business.
Mr. McCain talks about reform a lot, but his vision is pinched. His answer to any economic question is to eliminate pork-barrel spending — about $18 billion in a $3 trillion budget — cut taxes and wait for unfettered markets to solve the problem.
Mr. Obama is clear that the nation’s tax structure must be changed to make it fairer. That means the well-off Americans who have benefited disproportionately from Mr. Bush’s tax cuts will have to pay some more. Working Americans, who have seen their standard of living fall and their children’s options narrow, will benefit. Mr. Obama wants to raise the minimum wage and tie it to inflation, restore a climate in which workers are able to organize unions if they wish and expand educational opportunities.
Mr. McCain, who once opposed President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy as fiscally irresponsible, now wants to make them permanent. And while he talks about keeping taxes low for everyone, his proposed cuts would overwhelmingly benefit the top 1 percent of Americans while digging the country into a deeper fiscal hole.
National Security
The American military — its people and equipment — is dangerously overstretched. Mr. Bush has neglected the necessary war in Afghanistan, which now threatens to spiral into defeat. The unnecessary and staggeringly costly war in Iraq must be ended as quickly and responsibly as possible.
While Iraq’s leaders insist on a swift drawdown of American troops and a deadline for the end of the occupation, Mr. McCain is still taking about some ill-defined “victory.” As a result, he has offered no real plan for extracting American troops and limiting any further damage to Iraq and its neighbors.
Mr. Obama was an early and thoughtful opponent of the war in Iraq, and he has presented a military and diplomatic plan for withdrawing American forces. Mr. Obama also has correctly warned that until the Pentagon starts pulling troops out of Iraq, there will not be enough troops to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Mr. McCain, like Mr. Bush, has only belatedly focused on Afghanistan’s dangerous unraveling and the threat that neighboring Pakistan may quickly follow.
Mr. Obama would have a learning curve on foreign affairs, but he has already showed sounder judgment than his opponent on these critical issues. His choice of Senator Joseph Biden — who has deep foreign-policy expertise — as his running mate is another sign of that sound judgment. Mr. McCain’s long interest in foreign policy and the many dangers this country now faces make his choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska more irresponsible.
Both presidential candidates talk about strengthening alliances in Europe and Asia, including NATO, and strongly support Israel. Both candidates talk about repairing America’s image in the world. But it seems clear to us that Mr. Obama is far more likely to do that — and not just because the first black president would present a new American face to the world.
Mr. Obama wants to reform the United Nations, while Mr. McCain wants to create a new entity, the League of Democracies — a move that would incite even fiercer anti-American furies around the world.
Unfortunately, Mr. McCain, like Mr. Bush, sees the world as divided into friends (like Georgia) and adversaries (like Russia). He proposed kicking Russia out of the Group of 8 industrialized nations even before the invasion of Georgia. We have no sympathy for Moscow’s bullying, but we also have no desire to replay the cold war. The United States must find a way to constrain the Russians’ worst impulses, while preserving the ability to work with them on arms control and other vital initiatives.
Both candidates talk tough on terrorism, and neither has ruled out military action to end Iran’s nuclear weapons program. But Mr. Obama has called for a serious effort to try to wean Tehran from its nuclear ambitions with more credible diplomatic overtures and tougher sanctions. Mr. McCain’s willingness to joke about bombing Iran was frightening.
The Constitution and the Rule of Law
Under Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the justice system and the separation of powers have come under relentless attack. Mr. Bush chose to exploit the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, the moment in which he looked like the president of a unified nation, to try to place himself above the law.
Mr. Bush has arrogated the power to imprison men without charges and browbeat Congress into granting an unfettered authority to spy on Americans. He has created untold numbers of “black” programs, including secret prisons and outsourced torture. The president has issued hundreds, if not thousands, of secret orders. We fear it will take years of forensic research to discover how many basic rights have been violated.
But Mr. Obama has gone beyond that, promising to identify and correct Mr. Bush’s attacks on the democratic system. Mr. McCain has been silent on the subject.
Mr. McCain improved protections for detainees. But then he helped the White House push through the appalling Military Commissions Act of 2006, which denied detainees the right to a hearing in a real court and put Washington in conflict with the Geneva Conventions, greatly increasing the risk to American troops.
The next president will have the chance to appoint one or more justices to a Supreme Court that is on the brink of being dominated by a radical right wing. Mr. Obama may appoint less liberal judges than some of his followers might like, but Mr. McCain is certain to pick rigid ideologues. He has said he would never appoint a judge who believes in women’s reproductive rights.
The Candidates
It will be an enormous challenge just to get the nation back to where it was before Mr. Bush, to begin to mend its image in the world and to restore its self-confidence and its self-respect. Doing all of that, and leading America forward, will require strength of will, character and intellect, sober judgment and a cool, steady hand.
Mr. Obama has those qualities in abundance. Watching him being tested in the campaign has long since erased the reservations that led us to endorse Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primaries. He has drawn in legions of new voters with powerful messages of hope and possibility and calls for shared sacrifice and social responsibility.
Mr. McCain, whom we chose as the best Republican nominee in the primaries, has spent the last coins of his reputation for principle and sound judgment to placate the limitless demands and narrow vision of the far-right wing. His righteous fury at being driven out of the 2000 primaries on a racist tide aimed at his adopted daughter has been replaced by a zealous embrace of those same win-at-all-costs tactics and tacticians.
He surrendered his standing as an independent thinker in his rush to embrace Mr. Bush’s misbegotten tax policies and to abandon his leadership position on climate change and immigration reform.
Mr. McCain could have seized the high ground on energy and the environment. Earlier in his career, he offered the first plausible bill to control America’s emissions of greenhouse gases. Now his positions are a caricature of that record: think Ms. Palin leading chants of “drill, baby, drill.”
Mr. Obama has endorsed some offshore drilling, but as part of a comprehensive strategy including big investments in new, clean technologies.
Mr. Obama has withstood some of the toughest campaign attacks ever mounted against a candidate. He’s been called un-American and accused of hiding a secret Islamic faith. The Republicans have linked him to domestic terrorists and questioned his wife’s love of her country. Ms. Palin has also questioned millions of Americans’ patriotism, calling Republican-leaning states “pro-America.”
This politics of fear, division and character assassination helped Mr. Bush drive Mr. McCain from the 2000 Republican primaries and defeat Senator John Kerry in 2004. It has been the dominant theme of his failed presidency.
The nation’s problems are
simply too grave to be reduced to slashing “robo-calls” and negative ads.
This country needs sensible leadership, compassionate leadership, honest
leadership and strong leadership. Barack Obama has shown that he has all of
those qualities.
Why Catholics can in Good
Conscience back Barack Obama