America in Transition

Everyone of my generation remembers this quote; few recall that what bellicose Nikita Khrushchev actually said was more like, “We will outlast you.” The quote had its impact at the height of the Cold War and in the 1960 U.S. elections. Kennedy and Nixon argued over who among them was best at standing up to the USSR. Kennedy argued that the Republicans had allowed a “missile gap” to develop that favored the USSR. Kennedy won — but the so-called “missile gap” actually didn’t exist.

Now it’s the frightening face of Ahmedinejad that fires the electoral imagination in the United States. Hillary Clinton promises to “totally obliterate” Iran if Iran should launch a nuclear attack on Israel. Here’s the exact quote:

“I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran (if Iran were to attack Israel with nuclear weapons),” Clinton told ABC TV on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary. “In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”

Yesterday, practically on the eve of the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, ABC TV offered Hillary a chance to revise her word choice. Her response: “Why would I have any regrets (about my choice of words)? I’m asked a question about what I would do if Iran attacked our ally, a country that many of us have a great deal of, you know, connection with and feeling for, for all kinds of reasons. And, yes, we would have massive retaliation against Iran.”

The recent National Intelligence Estimate found that Iran had stopped efforts to process or enrich uranium. CNN reports today that voters in Indiana and North Carolina don’t rate Iran among their top concerns. So why Hillary’s bellicose language?

The political logic, as during the days of the “missile gap,” is to exaggerate a threat and response in order to make your opponent look weak. There’s also the added attraction of identifying your candidacy as being more “pro Israel” in advance of Bush’s travel to Israel to commemorate her 60th anniversary.

So much for truth and politics. Or, as Khrushchev once said, “politicians are all alike. They promise to build a bridge, even where there is no river.”

In war, Aeschylus wrote, truth is the first casualty. In political war, such as the current fight to become U.S. President, truth dies a thousand deaths. Case in point: who now leads the “popular vote” in the Democratic race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton? When the results came in from Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary, Hillary quickly claimed that she had the popular vote lead, 15,116,688 to 14,994,905. But this tally included the results of two primaries that the Democratic Party National Committee had declared invalid. And it excluded the votes of thousands of Democrats who voted in states that held caucuses. Otherwise, Obama would hold on to the popular vote lead by at least a percentage point. These caveats were not mentioned by Clinton or her surrogates, since this part of the truth was — to borrow from Al Gore — inconvenient.

Countless inconvenient truths have been discarded along the campaign trail in recent months. How about John McCain’s statement last week in New Orleans that, had he been President at the time Katrina struck, he would have immediately flown to New Orleans? On August 29, 2005, just as Katrina hit, McCain was hosting President Bush in Arizona. The occasion? A photo-op commemorating McCain’s birthday. He could have told the President in person what to do. To admit last week that he didn’t was… inconvenient.

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright is destined to become this campaign’s unwitting victim of what Stephen Colbert parodies as “truthiness” — a manipulated, wished-for truth. The Clinton opposition research machine discovered some wild quotes from this pastor of a South Side Chicago church. Better yet, they had them on videotape so a couple of sound bites could be played over and over on the “news” networks and commented on by Clinton surrogates and by suitably outraged citizens who were not given an opportunity to hear Wright’s sermons in their entirety.

The knife turns slowly in the war against the truth. Less than two months ago, on 60 Minutes, Hillary could say, when asked, “He’s not a Moslem — as far as I know,” thus sowing doubt that Obama might be some sort of Manchurian Candidate for the Islamic faith. A month later, however, once the Wright tapes were discovered, Obama was “rebranded” a devout member of Wright’s Trinity Church — so close to Wright that he should be accountable for whatever the Baptist minister said.

Even Obama is not immune to the siren call of Truthiness, as when he quotes McCain as wanting U.S. troops in Iraq for “a hundred years.” McCain was clearly not talking about a wartime deployment, but some sort of peacetime basing arrangement like the U.S. has with Japan, South Korea, Italy or Germany.

For many years, it was assumed that our news media would challenge such misrepresentations of fact, but now most seem more intent on generating heat than light. Every allegation, no matter how spurious, is grist for the news cycle; if an allegation is quickly shot down, the controversy ends. So the news media, especially the commentators and the on-line partisans, do all they can to keep the “story” alive. And each camp, knowing the futility of putting out truth, responds by shooting off a new salvo of “attack” ads, or having a surrogate do it for them.

For a taste of things to come, watch the work of a freshly minted anti-Obama group, National Campaign Fund, aka www.exposeobama.com. If the North Carolina Republican Party feels obliged to take down its own TV attack ad against Obama, they can always turn to a 527 group, like the National Campaign Fund, to get the “truthiness” out. Not directly, of course. That’s against the law.

On the eve of the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, passions are running high — higher than for any election residents of this Commonwealth can remember. This is not because the popular vote is expected to be close — all the polls favor Hillary Clinton — but because the outcome will greatly influence how and when the more than 300 uncommitted “superdelegates” will declare their loyalties. At this point, who wins the remaining superdelegates wins the Democratic nomination. And the superdelegates, along with some ten per cent of Pennsylvania Democrats voting tomorrow, have yet to make up their minds.

Let’s pause for a moment to consider the whys and wherefores of Pennsylvania procrastination.

First, the superdelegates. They come from all over the United States and most are elected officials or local party activists. Many entered politics when Bill Clinton was President and remained loyal to him throughout his tumultuous Presidency. Barack Obama has been slowly winning them over in recent weeks and Hillary needs to stop this trend. The only way she can do this is with a large victory tomorrow, since Pennsylvania’s 158 regular delegates will be split between her and Obama on a roughly proportional basis. (The Pennsylvania result could even resemble the Texas primary, where Clinton won a majority of the popular vote, but netted fewer than half of the elected convention delegates. This is because convention delegates are allocated according to Congressional districts, whose boundaries are often drawn to favor urban areas.)

This is a terrible situation for your average superdelegate, who wants nothing so much as to be on the winning side. Imagine being an elected Democrat at a local or national level and the candidate you support fails to win the Presidential nomination. Worse, most of the voters in your district/state vote for the other guy/gal, who goes on to become President. Not a good career move.

For this reason, of the 795 total superdelegates, 303 are waiting to declare allegiance until they think they know who will win. If they wait until the bandwagon is briskly moving toward Denver, they may have to run to catch up; if they hop aboard too soon, there’s a chance they may find themselves on the wrong wagon. In fact, some of the declared superdelegates (in this category, Hillary leads Obama, 258 to 234) have hinted that they could change their minds, based on Pennsylvania and the few subsequent remaining primaries.

But how about the Pennsylvanians? Pennsylvania Democrats, whether bitter or just frustrated, have other reasons for putting off the choice of a candidate. “The Keystone State” in some ways is the U.S. in microcosm. There’s a populated area in the East and a populated area in the West; traffic and transport moves East-West and West-East across the state, but often doesn’t stop in between. The North-Central region is remarkably rural. And there are many places that seem like they’ve been passed over.

Those who remain in the Pennsylvania heartland don’t necessarily regret not being in New York (or Philadelphia), but many recall better times and don’t feel that Washington has done much for them lately. They feel this more acutely than neighboring states like New Jersey or Maryland (dominated by the Boston-Washington corridor) or West Virginia (leader in pork barrel projects that their aged senator has won for them over the last half-century).

No, Pennsylvanians are a cross-section of the America that often seems neglected. They don’t mind having the spotlight for once turned on their entire state — not just a cross-state rivalry, or a sports team. This hasn’t happened for a while, and it’s unlikely to happen again soon. This despite the fact that Pennsylvania, though the sixth largest state in population, has suffered among states the third greatest number of Iraq War deaths.

So Pennsylvanians — at least some of them — will procrastinate a few hours more. They will vote their pocketbooks — and for the candidate they think best understands how different they are, and how much they resemble so much of the country.

Halfway through last night’s Philadelphia debate, the 21st among Democrats in the course of the last year, the questioners from ABC-TV finally got to substance: Will you promise to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, they asked, regardless what advice your generals give you?

Here’s the essence of Hillary’s answer:

I will ask the secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and my security advisers to immediately put together for me a plan so that I can begin to withdraw within 60 days. I will make it very clear that we will do so in a responsible and careful manner, because obviously, withdrawing troops and equipment is dangerous…

I will begin to withdraw troops within 60 days. And we’ve had other instances in our history where some military commanders have been very publicly opposed to what a president was proposing to do.

But I think it’s important that this decision be made, and I intend to make it.

Obama’s statement this time omitted his usual reference to a 16-month timetable for withdrawal:

I will always listen to our commanders on the ground with respect to tactics. Once I’ve given them a new mission, that we are going to proceed deliberately in an orderly fashion out of Iraq and we are going to have our combat troops out, we will not have permanent bases there, once I’ve provided that mission, if they come to me and want to adjust tactics, then I will certainly take their recommendations into consideration; but ultimately the buck stops with me as the commander in chief.

In terms of substance, very little difference, but in terms of tone, Obama’s reply is less declarative and more deferential toward the military. By using a lexicon that the U.S. military recognizes — mission versus tactics — Obama frames his answer in a way that is likely to give him (and his commanders) more flexibility.

On the issue of Iran, a similar difference in tone was apparent. ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, who was once a top aide to Bill Clinton, challenged Obama on what he would do about Iran — and how he would protect Israel. The latter topic is always ripe for a bidding war between candidates eager to gain the “Jewish vote,” and as I pointed out in a previous post (see “Four Letter Words” below), the question of support for Israel was bound to come up in relation to Iran. Earlier in the day, in fact, Obama had met with Jewish groups in Philadelphia — according to news reports, to “reassure” them about his views on Iran, Israel and his opposition to the deplorable anti-Semite Louis Farahkan.

In his debate response, Obama was careful to thread the needle, staking out a firm but necessarily vague position without backing down on his well-known promise to engage the Iranian leadership directly:

I will do whatever is required to prevent the Iranians from obtaining nuclear weapons. I believe that that includes direct talks with the Iranians where we are laying out very clearly for them, here are the issues that we find unacceptable, not only development of nuclear weapons but also funding terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as their anti-Israel rhetoric and threats towards Israel. I believe that we can offer them carrots and sticks, but we’ve got to directly engage and make absolutely clear to them what our posture is.

Now, my belief is that they should also know that I will take no options off the table when it comes to preventing them from using nuclear weapons or obtaining nuclear weapons, and that would include any threats directed at Israel or any of our allies in the region.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: So you would extend our deterrent to Israel?

OBAMA: As I’ve said before, I think it is very important that Iran understands that an attack on Israel is an attack on our strongest ally in the region, one that we — one whose security we consider paramount, and that — that would be an act of aggression that we — that I would — that I would consider an attack that is unacceptable, and the United States would take appropriate action.

By contrast, Hillary’s response to the same question is to up the ante with a more sweeping declaration of a “security umbrella:”

I think that this is an opportunity, with skillful diplomacy, for the United States to go to the region and enlist the region in a security agreement vis-a-vis Iran…

We’ve got to begin diplomatic engagement with Iran…at a low level. I certainly would not meet with Ahmadinejad, because even again today he made light of 9/11 and said he’s not even sure it happened and that people actually died. He’s not someone who would have an opportunity to meet with me in the White House. But I would have a diplomatic process that would engage him.

And secondly, we’ve got to deter other countries from feeling that they have to acquire nuclear weapons. You can’t go to the Saudis or the Kuwaitis or UAE and others who have a legitimate concern about Iran and say: Well, don’t acquire these weapons to defend yourself unless you’re also willing to say we will provide a deterrent backup and we will let the Iranians know that, yes, an attack on Israel would trigger massive retaliation, but so would an attack on those countries that are willing to go under this security umbrella and forswear their own nuclear ambitions.

And finally we cannot permit Iran to become a nuclear weapons power. And this administration has failed in our efforts to convince the rest of the world that that is a danger, not only to us and not just to Israel but to the region and beyond.

Therefore we have got to have this process that reaches out, beyond even who we would put under the security umbrella, to get the rest of the world on our side to try to impose the kind of sanctions and diplomatic efforts that might prevent this from occurring.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Clinton, would you?

CLINTON: Well, in fact, George, I think that we should be looking to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel. Of course I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States, but I would do the same with other countries in the region.

Again, a difference in tone.  By proposing a “security umbrella” for Saudi Arabia and Kuwait — states that don’t even recognize Israel and that have no nuclear ambitions — Clinton strives for a muscular stance.  Phrases like “trigger massive retaliation” — usually meant to imply the use of nuclear weapons — should probably not be used in campaign debates at all.  But to use them at the same time that one is promising — irrespective of military advice — to begin a withdrawal of military forces from Iraq within 60 days of taking office, sends a mixed signal to the region that we would do well to avoid.

We’re now into day four of the latest media-driven debate: Was Barack Obama “elitist” last Friday in talking about small town Pennsylvanians in front of Chardonnay sipping, brie-snacking San Franciscans? Wolf Blitzer, backed by his “best political team in television”(!) is still pacing about “The Situation Room” in search of an answer. The polls in Pa. are ambiguous, he tells us. Some put Obama only a few points behind.

But wait, what is the national impact? Hillary and John McCain are on the attack. Hillary has a new TV ad, with a few select Pennsylvanians saying how offended they are that Barack would say they “cling” to guns and religion because they’re “bitter” over the state’s economic woes. McCain says Obama must be “out of touch.” Legions of out-of-state spin doctors and media meisters are in their respective war rooms, doubtless sipping wine themselves, trying to figure out how they can keep this “issue” alive in the days leading up to next Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary. Stay tuned for more serious discussion of the issues!
Such is the state of Election 2008 that after countless debates, speeches, position papers, town hall meetings, and press conferences that the three remaining candidates have said all they can possibly say, and the media have reported about all they can possibly think of. All that’s left is to wait for events — be they slips of the tongue, polls or (finally!) the elections themselves. So much for reporting.
In San Francisco, where I write from now, the gotcha quote may have come at a fundraiser at this house, Gordon and Ann Getty’s, far from the rolling hills of Pennsylvania. Between sips of Chardonnay, or so one is led to imagine, one of the wealthy assembled asked Obama why it was so hard for him to reach blue-collar voters. To which he replied:

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, a lot of them — like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they’ve gone through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, and they cling to guns, or religion, or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

The SF Chronicle tells us that blogger Mayhill Fowler got in, carrying a concealed MP3. The rest, as they say, is history — because it certainly isn’t journalism, nor is it policy analysis.

Apart from the superficiality of this “issue,” the circumstances of the fundraiser in a wealthy West Coast community may tell us more about our failure as Americans to connect with each other, than an errant quote that is alleged to divide us.

I for one, as a former small-town Pennsylvanian and current San Franciscan, don’t see a contradiction between Iron City Beer and Mondavi Cabernet. Both go well with cheese. And the price of both is going up. And that gets my attention whether I’m in Pittsburg, California or Pittsburgh, Pa. It’s time for those promoting this story to crawl out of the newsroom bunkers and campaign war rooms and talk about some real issues.

One truth about John McCain’s foreign policy views: He’s no slave to fashion. Opposed Reagan on deploying Marines to Lebanon in 1983. Lobbied the Bush White House for last year’s troop “surge” in Iraq. The NYT tried yesterday to classify McCain’s foreign policy viewpoints based on his mix of “realist” and “neo-con” advisers, but was ultimately frustrated.

The post-modernist way that political labels are viewed these days is partly responsible. “Liberals” seldom use the label when running for national office, “conservative” is almost always inadequate in describing a candidate, unless there’s a clear context in either social, fiscal or foreign policy. The Atlantic Monthly’s Jonathan Rauch calls McCain “Mr. Conservative,” but then goes on to qualify him as a Burkean traditionalist, rather than an ambitious foreign policy revolutionary.

McCain does seem to like the idea of cheering on the spread of democracy, however. For years he’s been associated with the International Republican Institute, one of the NGOs funded by Congress to advance democracy in formerly Communist countries. And now, in his recent foreign policy discourse in Los Angeles, he has proposed a League of Democracies.

The need for the League arises because, says McCain:

…we must also lead by attracting others to our cause, by demonstrating once again the virtues of freedom and democracy, by defending the rules of international civilized society and by creating the new international institutions necessary to advance the peace and freedoms we cherish. Perhaps above all, leadership in today’s world means accepting and fulfilling our responsibilities as a great nation.

One of those responsibilities is to be a good and reliable ally to our fellow democracies. We cannot build an enduring peace based on freedom by ourselves, and we do not want to. We have to strengthen our global alliances as the core of a new global compact — a League of Democracies — that can harness the vast influence of the more than one hundred democratic nations around the world to advance our values and defend our shared interests…

How different are these sentiments from the ideas of Woodrow Wilson, FDR or even Madeleine Albright? Albright started up a Community of Democracies just eight years ago in order to have a kind of forum of like-minded democratic leaders. It appears to still exist, but has scarcely been heard from in recent years.

The idea of mobilizing democracies is a lofty ambition but usually works better on paper and in speeches than in reality. George W. Bush began his Presidency without such ambitions but, by the time of his second Inaugural had become a convert. Presidential candidates are supposed to have a “vision,” but the American electorate might be content with more modest “conservative” expectations. As the curmudgeonly Pat Buchanan puts it, “What has the Bush-McCain democracy crusade produced, save electoral victories for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah and Hamas? And if we dump the sultan of Oman, President Mubarak, and the king of Saudi Arabia, who does McCain think will replace them?”

If you look carefully, you can see that Barack Obama’s vulnerability in foreign affairs is not his inexperience. His questioning of General David Petraeus on Wednesday at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing was thoughtful and probing, focusing on whether the conditions set by U.S. commanders for withdrawal could actually be achieved. Obama also correctly points out that Congressional tenure alone is no guarantee of foreign affairs expertise (watching the hearings made this painfully evident). It is even plausible that Obama’s private travel abroad in Indonesia and Pakistan actually may have given him some insights that most Congressmen never gain. Maybe that’s why he spoke out against the invasion of Iraq in 2002 when Hillary voted for it.

No, Obama’s problem in foreign affairs is not his inexperience — it’s whether he will be opposed by supporters of Israel for his stance favoring talks with Iran. As Petraeus pointed out, Iran continues to assist terrorists and insurgents in Iraq and represents a major threat to Iraq’s security. Time/CNN correspondent Michael Ware, who interviewed Petraeus on Wednesday, was particularly adamant in stressing the now obvious point that the struggle for influence in Iraq is essentially between the United States and Iran. Given Iran’s Islamic fundamentalism (at least in its leadership), its virulently anti-Israeli rhetoric, and given Obama’s support for official US contacts with Iran — Obama seems to have staked out a politically vulnerable position. It is only a matter of time before Hillary tries to turn this into a “kitchen sink” to be thrown at him. If she fails, and Obama is nominated, McCain will pick up where Hillary left off.

Washington is still digesting Petraeus’ hours of testimony and interviews, but his assessment of Iran’s activities was impossible to ignore and in other times would be a clear casus belli.

Last October, here’s what General Petraeus said:

“[The Iranians] are responsible for providing the weapons, the training, the funding and in some cases the direction for operations that have indeed killed U.S. soldiers…There is no question about the connection between Iran and these components, (the) attacks that have killed our soldiers.”

This week, the general added that Iran is “funding, training, arming and directing” Shiite Muslim militias known as “special groups… Unchecked, the[se] special groups pose the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq,” Petraeus said.

Finally, Joe Lieberman asked: “Is it fair to say that the Iranian-backed special groups in Iraq are responsible for the murder of hundreds of American soldiers and thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians?”

Petraeus’ response: “It certainly is. I do believe that is correct. Again some of that also is militia elements who have then subsequently been trained by these individuals.”
All this spells more trouble in Southwest Asia and the Middle East at a time when the American public is looking for relief from our foreign engagements there. As Senator Lugar (one of the rare foreign policy experts in the Senate and now about to retire) put it: “Simply appealing for more time to make progress is insufficient. Iraq will be an unstable country for the foreseeable future.”

Lugar’s candid comment had the intellectual honesty of someone not running for office. America is in a funk over the economy and over Iraq. It doesn’t want another four-letter word — Iran — added to its vocabulary of words best left unspoken. Congress’ fixation on withdrawal from Iraq and silent treatment re Petraeus’ warnings on Iran told Tehran all it needs to know. America will probably not attack Iran — not for killing our soldiers nor for resuming uranium enrichment — but Hillary will attack Obama verbally for being willing to talk to opponents of Israel. That’s good politics in Pennsylvania, but ignores the fact that by next January our willingness to talk may be totally undermined by our unwillingness to do anything else.

Money and its influence have become the common denominators of every story at this stage in the long presidential campaign. I know — you’re shocked, shocked.

Yesterday, it was the news that Bill and Hillary Clinton’s tax returns showed lucrative work by Bill for powerful companies that donate to Hillary’s campaign.

Before that, it was Hillary campaign manager Mark Penn’s paid work on behalf of the government of Columbia to promote a free trade pact that Hillary opposes.

And before that, it was the AP rundown of how the millions of John McCain’s wife helped bank roll his early Senate campaigns, lease jet planes and pay for real estate they both use for entertaining.

And this is just the last few spins of the news cycle.

It is hard to avoid being importuned for money by the candidates, their supporters, and their political parties, or reading about how they’re spending it. When you go to the candidates’ Web sites, the first page you see is an appeal to give them more money.

Don’t they know we’re in a recession?

If you win one of the on-going campaign lotteries — sorry, contests — in exchange for a donation you can win a trip on McCain’s bus (“The Straight Talk Express”), a ticket to Hillary’s Elton John concert, or a sit-down dinner with Barack Obama. Now, Clinton’s campaign offers you the opportunity to designate how you want your donation spent.

Think of it as a funded “earmark.”

The biggest news about Barack Obama in the last day or so is that he raised $40 million last month — twice as much as Hillary.

You can see why Hillary would be concerned. A billion dollars has been spent by all the campaigns already just for the primaries. That amounts to spending money faster than Bill can give speeches.

No one must love the political process more than TV and radio broadcasters in Pennsylvania, where the Democrats are spending millions on campaign ads in advance of the April 22 primary.

Oddly, none of this spending seems to have been adversely affected by that other money story — the recession. But the money never runs out for political campaigns because the need for the influence it provides never ends.

By the way, the Wall Street Journal’s “Political Market” (a “free fantasy political stock market” — not to be confused with the equity markets) puts Obama way out in front as the likely Democratic nominee, with 84% betting for him. Nearly 60% will “buy” a contract that the Democrats will win the White House this fall.

Or you can place your bets at any Las Vegas casino — that is, if one of the candidates is not holding a fund raiser there.

Last week, when the U.S. archives released 11,000 pages of Hillary Clinton’s documents from her eight years as First Lady, it was not the trove of information that many expected. Why? One reason: some of what transpired was never written down. Another: the government censored much of the most potentially enlightening information. The official, misleading word for this practice is “redaction.” But this wasn’t mere editing. Of the 11,000 pages, many had extensive content blacked out before they were released to the press.

Did Mrs. Clinton play a role in the Northern Ireland peace process? Did she negotiate the transit of refugees from Kosovo? Did she contribute to the formulation and conduct of foreign policy during her husband’s tenure as President? She and her campaign say that she did, but the “redacted” documents from her tenure as First Lady don’t tell us the answer. On the days when Bill Clinton made critical foreign and security policy decisions – the disastrous Somalia intervention, the response to the bombings of U.S. Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, the terrorist attack on the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen, the U.S. air attack on Yugoslavia – there is no contemporaneous record of Mrs. Clinton having taken part in them. There is obviously no official role for a First Lady in the “3 a.m. phone call” scenario that has become so much a part of Hillary Clinton’s campaign advertising. We are asked to believe that she is “ready on day one” based on her proximity to decision makers, not her having been one.

Mark Penn and other Clinton supporters point to now-Senator Clinton’s decades-long life in the public eye as evidence of “vetting” – another misused word. True, many journalists have written about Bill and Hillary Clinton in the course of their political lives – enough to fill a library. But “vetting” is usually an organized, directed process, not the independent activity of journalists. Also, it usually implies a positive outcome, as in “Mrs. Clinton has been vetted for the position of X, and has been cleared for duty.” Political candidates – even for high office – really don’t get vetted in any systematic way. (Witness last week’s chance revelations that led to the downfall of New York Governor Elliot Spitzer.) Even when personal peccadilloes are exposed, voters may not be aware of them, or may disregard their importance. Victory in a political campaign should not be confused with ethical vindication.

It is not clear why so much of Hillary Clinton’s record as First Lady has been censored – sorry, redacted. But it is clear that we cannot consider her “vetted” until all evidence – supporting and otherwise – about her foreign policy record is made available. For the same reason, the public has every right to see “unredacted” copies of the Clintons’ tax records.

When we hear about State Department contract employees prying – unauthorized — into Barack Obama’s passport file, or seven-year-old videos of Obama’s church pastor being surfaced in an effort to discredit him, it is clear that we are into a very extreme season of “opposition research” – yet another misnomer. Such so-called “research” amounts to nothing so much as an effort to find more mud beneath a river of slimy political tactics.

Senators and Representatives travel abroad on a regular basis, usually on fact-finding trips funded through the generosity of one various interest group or another. As a Senator, John McCain has made many such trips, many of which have been to the Middle East and Europe. This time, though, the purpose is broader.

Acting as his party’s chief ambassador, McCain is meeting with high-ranking officials in Israel, Iraq and Europe. In preparation for his time with Prime Minister Brown and President Sarkozy, McCain released this op-ed in the Financial Times. In it he says,

Americans and Europeans share a common goal – to build an enduring peace based on freedom. Our democracies today are strong and vibrant. Together we can tackle the diverse challenges we face…

McCain seeks to “strengthen the transatlantic alliance,” but in order to do so he must secure his party’s nomination and win November’s general election; which is, after all, the purpose of his trip (it’s not as if the average middle class family in London are potential swing voters from whom he is asking for votes).

Note the venues and personalities involved in McCain’s excursions: Prime Minister Blair, President Sarkozy, Iraq, the Wailing Wall, Israel, and Palestine. These are images well known to the politically conscious American. While filling the presidential role, McCain seeks to raise awareness of his foreign policy background, and reinvigorate his own image as a forward-thinking candidate for President.

Update: From the New York Times,

Senator John McCain’s trip abroad this week — which took him from the Middle East to No. 10 Downing Street to the Élysée Palace here — was more than just a Congressional fact-finding trip, or even a candidate’s attempt to appear statesmanlike.
It was also an audition on the world stage for Mr. McCain in his new role as the Republican presidential nominee. And it offered him the chance to test his hope that he could repair America’s tattered reputation by shifting course on some of the policies that have alienated its allies, in areas like global warming and torture.

John McCain, while bolstering his foreign policy credentials on a trip to Europe and the Middle East, made an erroneous and rare gaffe today.

Iran=majority Shiite. Al-Qaeda=majority Sunni. For years John McCain has worked on foreign affairs issues in the Senate and as a presidential candidate, but the basics are good to have down. As some commentators have noted, if it weren’t for Obama’s speech winning a great deal of free media, this might be on the front pages of the papers. Nevertheless, what a good friend and travel buddy Joe Lieberman is!

Hillary Clinton delivered a major speech on Iraq today, amid the growing sense of crisis in the financial markets.

“The American people don’t have to guess whether I’m ready to lead or whether I understand the realities on the ground in Iraq or whether I’d be too dependent on advisers to help me determine the right way forward.”

John McCain is on a short trip to Europe and Iraq to highlight his foreign policy experience. From the Wall Street Journal:

John McCain takes an overseas detour from the campaign trail this weekend to the Middle East and Europe. The Arizona senator says he is doing it as a ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, not the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. He insists this isn’t a campaign trip.

In both cases, events that could presumably generate significant foreign policy press–and therefore discussion–have been overshadowed by the concern foremost on Americans’ minds: the economy.

News of the buyout of Bear Stearns echoed throughout Wall Street and international markets. The news of the weakening dollar and likelihood that the U.S. is in a recession filtered through the national news.

In what was expected to be the foreign policy election, voters are increasingly finding the economy to be their foremost concern. At this point in the process, very few have changed their story to: “it’s Iraq, stupid.”

Writing at the New York Times, Andrew Kohut reports on new Pew Center data that Americans, while voicing clear domestic priorities, are unsure about the direction foreign policy should take after Bush.

Opinion surveys show that American views about the world will not only challenge the presidential candidates of both parties in the general election, but will force the winner in November to deal with a citizenry that is downbeat about the world and fractured along partisan lines.

Disillusionment with the Iraq war has ushered in a rise in isolationist sentiment comparable to that of the mid-1970’s following the Vietnam war. Pew surveys have found as many as four in 10 Americans saying the United States “should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own.”…

A rise in isolationism has signaled a diminished public appetite for the assertive national security policy of the Bush years and, in general, a less internationalist outlook.

Did Bush, inadvertently, bring about a new era of isolationism? As the economy looks to be on the verge of recession and the dollar at record-breaking lows, are Americans realizing the cost of the Iraq war–as the Economist writes, what economists like Joseph Stiglitz estimate to be 3 trillion dollars?

Great powers almost never pay for their wars up front. Even in America’s war of independence, the revolutionaries printed money to finance their campaign.

But the Pew figures point to a populace that is starting to experience the effects of the war expenditures. If the news continues to worsen, the candidates will have little choice but to draw upon isolationist sentiments. Whether the U.S. can afford such a lack of foreign policy remains an open question.

This blog recently reported on the volatility of the Obama campaign’s foreign policy surrogates (Susan Rice: neither Clinton nor Obama are ready for the 3am phone call; Samantha Power: Clinton is a “monster”). Throughout the campaign, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have had to keep a particularly watchful eye on their surrogates’ and supporters’ public appearances. But as the media attention grows and the campaigns need surrogates to convey increasingly negative messages, surrogates are taking on a greater burden.

Geraldine Ferraro, an open supporter of Hillary Clinton, has taken her turn spurning controversy. After the South Carolina incidents for which Mrs. Clinton apologized, Geraldine Ferraro has again brought race into the conversation:

If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color), he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.

Marc Ambinder says it best: “gas, meet fire.”

UPDATE: The former Vice Presidential candidate is now a former member of Hillary Clinton’s finance committee. Geraldine Ferraro stepped down today saying “that Senator Barack Obama’s campaign was twisting her words to make her appear racist and that this was hurting Mrs. Clinton.”

The two incidents that have caused resignations from the Obama (Samantha Power) and Clinton (Ferraro) campaigns, demonstrate the unprecedented speed with which

A comment each to a Scottish or a minor Los Angeles area newspaper first led to vehement controversy on the Internet, then cable news, then national news. In just two days, and amid the height of another political scandal, it’s yet another sign that campaigns are facing increased scrutiny from all sides this time.

Photo: Getty Images via npr.org

Democrats have a problem. Not the excitement of a close race, in which millions have voted in primaries for the first time, and not the prospect of running against a Republican Party weakened by an unpopular President. The Democrats’ problem, which threatens to outweigh their considerable advantages, is their inability to govern themselves.

It is now mathematically certain that, without delegates from Florida and Michigan, neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama can go to the Democratic Party convention in Denver in August with enough elected delegates to win the nomination. Democrats from Florida and Michigan, you will recall, decided last fall to disobey the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and hold their primaries in January. The Party then ruled that the delegates chosen in these two states would not be allowed to vote at the Convention.

In deference to the DNC, Obama and Clinton did not campaign in Florida and Michigan — although Hillary did go to Florida for fund-raisers right before the vote. Obama’s name was not even on the Michigan ballot. Hillary won both primaries easily, and now Hillary’s supporters in these two states are lobbying to have the election results upheld and the delegates seated. More likely, there will be a new primaries scheduled in Michigan and Florida.

NPR’s Juan Williams said it best last night on Fox News:

I think that Barack Obama is in a trap here. He can’t say, “No, I oppose a do-over,” because otherwise, he’d then be saying he wants the status quo, which is to disenfranchise those voters. Hillary Clinton can take the higher ground, but you and I both know what she has out of this is delegates. She wants to say she she’s won not only the popular vote and she’s likely to win the popular vote in both those states, but to win those additional delegates. It’s a trap.

Now, that’s the scenario. If you count today the delegates elected through votes in primaries or caucuses, Obama has 1366, Clinton 1222. A candidate needs 2025 delegate votes at the Convention to win the nomination. There are a total of only 611 more delegates left to be chosen through state primaries. Because delegate votes will be awarded proportionate to the election results in these states, neither Hillary or Obama can capture enough in the remaining primaries — excluding Michigan and Florida — to win the nomination.

Michigan and Florida together would have added another 338. That leaves the Democratic Party with a potentially schism-causing choice: either change its ruling in effect and include Michigan and Florida votes, or allow the so-called “superdelegates” — there are 795 of them from around the country — to determine who becomes the Party’s candidate. Right now, the superdelegates who have already declared a preference are fairly evenly split between Obama (209) and Clinton (242). But they are not “pledged,” and can change their minds and vote for whomever they please.

Hillary and Obama have already staked out positions on how the Michigan and Florida primary results should be treated, but there is really no one in a strong position to mediate between them. The DNC and its Chairman, Howard Dean, have been shown to be ineffectual so far in enforcing their own decisions.

There are a number of nightmare scenarios for the Democrats that are, of course, dream scenarios for the Republicans. The worst might be if a candidate who wins the most votes in the primaries — with or without Florida and Michigan — fails to get the nomination. This would not only be a “train wreck” in terms of efforts to unify the Party for the general election, but would discredit the American political process in the eyes of many in the United States and around the world.

As the WSJ’s Peggy Noonan puts it today, the Democrats are in the trenches today, and for weeks to come. As they fight it out, in the muck and mud of a now less than clean campaign, they need to decide if a non-democratic result will help the Democratic Party.