“A Ticket to Verdun”: What Troubles Me About Obama
You can consider the source and fughetaboutit, or if you have not seen it yet, you can read a spot on op-ed by Peggy Noonan in this Saturday’s Wall Street Journal. In my judgment it is the best, depressing, but the best analysis on the Obama/Clinton evolving quagmire that I have seen. She writes:
What the Democrats lost this week was the chance to paint the ‘08 campaign as a brilliant Napoleonic twinning of strategy and tactics that left history awed. What they have instead is a ticket to Verdun. Trench warfare, and the daily, wearying life of the soldier under siege. The mud, the cold, the dank water rotting the boots, all of it punctuated by mad cries of ‘Over the top’, bayonets fixed.
She then outlines how the Clintons are controlling the fight. Obama is spending too much time on the high road feeling that everything is equal if his campaign spokesman says Hillary is “one of the most secretive politicians in America today”. That is something that should be said repeatedly and by others including Obama himself. She is secretive about her taxes, secretive about her days in the White House, secretitive about her husband’s business associates and dealings, and on and on. Obama should remind everyone that part of Hillary’s experience was the secretive nature of her work on healthcare, adding that it is reminiscent of Cheney’s secretive work on energy. But Obama thinks that just saying it once is enough: that is troubling.
As Peggy Noonan reminds us, when the Hillary campaign was asked why she did not release her tax form, their answer was “It’s only February and taxes aren’t due until April. Have you done your taxes yet?” Honest, they said that. What Obama should have done is piled on by saying that not only is she secretive, but she is trivializing a matter of serious disclosure.
McCain is trying the same strategy, trying to dismissed the past of Iraq by saying “But what are we going to do now?”, adding in real commander-in-chief tones, “Surrender is not an option!” McCain gets testy when the press pushes him on these matters, and it is troubling that if Obama goes up against McCain he is going to give him the soft-glove treatment he has been using with Hillary by just saying things once.
Max was great in spotting Hillary’s bogus and shallow claims to being ready to command the troups in his post below. Obama needs to get off the “wrong-on-judgment” response he invokes every time security comes up and ask about Hillary’s tea-time in Ireland. He should flat out ask how having tea and arranging meetings informs judgment about national security? Saint Patrick’s day is around the corner: break the new strategy then, anything, something different.
To paraphrase the old question about Carnegie, “How Do You Get to the White House?” The answer is the same: Practice, practice, practice.
Posted: March 9th, 2008 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 10
Comments
Comment from timr
Time: March 9, 2008, 2:19 pm
Noonan?!? The repig attack dog Noonan?? That Noonan?? Why on earth would anything that an attack dog-repig version-would write about an opposing party candidate(esp anything written about anyone named clinton-the repig devil) and written on the WSJ editorial page-about as far gone a wingnut page as can be found anywhere-be taken seriously?? Really, no disrespect intended, but given the history of both noonan and the wsj editorial page, and the fact that they both are in the far right wing nut branch(delusional) of the repig potty, why on earth would any person take either or both seriously? I see no point in believing either one, as they have both spouted the gwb/rove party line for the last 7 years(and anyone who thinks that gwb/rove have been our best and brightest, is delusional)
Comment from Josh Hammond
Time: March 9, 2008, 2:24 pm
Yeah, you are right, but did you read it? What part of it did she get wrong?!
Comment from Sasha
Time: March 9, 2008, 3:51 pm
I’m sorry Josh but asking me to read something by that batshit crazy woman — I just can’t go there.
How about you go read Bob Herbert on what Obama should do now.
Comment from Josh Hammond
Time: March 9, 2008, 4:47 pm
To me Herbert is the shoe-shine columnist at the NYT, so I usually don’t take him serious; but this one was good. I still think you and Timr should hold your noses (where is Nose Better) and tell me where she is wrong? The Christopher Hitchens quote that I had not seen before is worth the read!
Speaking of Hebert’s rag, the NYT did not bother to cover Obama’s Wyoming win on the front page, relegating it to page 26 or whatever. Instead they did a front page, full-photo, with full page inside job on Obama’s first year in the Senate. Keep in mind that the NYT has not done a similar “analysis” on her ladyship. At least the Chicago Tribune has a better record on Obama.
Comment from Nosebetter
Time: March 9, 2008, 5:14 pm
Josh:
I think what Noonan is really saying is that neither candidate is capable of running a campaign and no way could either run the WH.
Noonan says,
“From the first voting in Iowa on Jan. 3 she had to prove that Clintons Are Magic. She wound up losing 11 in a row. Meaning Clintons aren’t magic. He had to take her out in New Hampshire, on Super Tuesday or Junior Tuesday. He didn’t. Meaning Obama isn’t magic.Two nonmagical beings are left.”
She hammers both constantly. What she would really like is for both candidates to go at it tooth and nail and blow the general election.
Both Hillary and Barack have followers that are very sure who they want to see as the nominee. I think it would not only be unwise for either to take the gloves off for the primary, but would also harm Dems in the general election.I think we are at a point where people feel so strongly about their candidate that they will take mud-slinging as a personal attack. It’s kind of like calling some one’s daughter a whore. The parent takes it as a personal attack.
Comment from Josh Hammond
Time: March 9, 2008, 5:28 pm
I think what she is saying is in the Hitchens quote, that Hillary will do and say anything to get the nomination, including ruining the Democratic Party. Remember that the party line is they want to run against another Clinton. And to them, unlike Obama, they will not hold back. Ken Starr will look like a saint when they are finished with her. She has not been vetted: her secretive nature has not been exposed and Bush is likely to give McBush some ammunition on the “secret” deals he has made with The Slick One.
I take it that you have not read Noonan, because she does not, as you put it, constantly trash Obama.
Nose Better, what is going on here as I see it is not that we are calling one’s daughter a whore, as you put it, but that what is going on here is Hillary calling Obama a whore, gender-free, of course.
Comment from Leftcoast
Time: March 9, 2008, 9:08 pm
Agree that Noonan’s piece is spot on and depressing. Matthews, that viper, said of Obama, “We know he can take a punch, but no one knows whether or not he can throw one.” Exactly.
Nose: Not sure I agree. I think she’s a lot more than a partisan hack (sorry Sasha, Coulter is bat shit crazy–Noonan just works the other side of the aisle). Noonan is not all that comfortable with any of them, especially McCain, which is why this is more like Verdun than the transcendent correction of the past 8 years it could have been.
Comment from Amos N. Handy
Time: March 10, 2008, 3:07 am
McCain has Newt in mind for veep … should fill Cheney’s shoes and look after that Iran thingy we’re all anxious to see happen.
Since we’ve taken to plugging Noonan’s, responsible, thought provoking, clap trap, I thought I’d go one step further and recommend Rush Limbaugh’s program for today. He is promoting some really good insight into those “bastawds”, the Clintons. Tune in at 1:00 pm.
Comment from Scrub Lady
Time: March 10, 2008, 4:08 am
http://www.newsweek.com/id/120243
Five years later and we treat our troops in this manner …. Now this is a democracy worth fighting for. Sewage soup anyone ?
Comment from timr
Time: March 10, 2008, 9:06 am
Josh, I did read the noonan piece, and stand by what I said to begin with. She puts the repig spin on whatever she says, and her hatred of anyone named clinton is for the ages, and the current repig potty line is to trash Obama, those who have more than the limited intelligence found in most wing nut surrogates-example is the repig congressman who has been seen on every program talking about how Obama is not a xristian or a patriot because……fill in the blank-are somewhat more subtle in their racist/anti black(or any color other than white) rantings, but the code words that they use are still their. So, no I don’t think that she is right about any of what she is saying, but being right was not the point, the point was to sow discord within the dem ranks and to vent her hatred of all things clinton. In those things she succeeded
Scrub Lady, the water problem is not a new one, military.com has been running stories on it and other similar problems for at least the last 3-4 years. KBR and other war profiteers are the problem, Ike was 100% right. The military industrial complex will be the death of democracy, the end of the US as we know it.
Write a comment