The media keep telling us that the polls place John McCain ahead of Barack Obama when it comes to national security. People just somehow believe that a Republican can keep us safer. Ironic, considering that we've had Republicans in the White House since pre-9/11, and they neither prevented the attack nor captured or killed Osama bin Laden. But that's a whole other rant.
The fact is that too many people mistakenly believe that McCain can keep them safer. So I've been wondering if it might help if Obama were to select a running mate with some war clout.
I had been thinking about General Wesley Clark, but the media's twisting of Clark's recent remarks, in which he said that McCain's military service does not automatically qualify him to be commander in chief, was probably enough to take him out of the running. This is no fault of Clark's, in my opinion, since there are a lot of former POWs and other military veterans who aren't necessarily good presidential material. But such is the world of politics and media spin.
I had also been thinking about Virginia Senator Jim Webb, who happens to be a Vietnam vet. But, on July 7, Webb proactively issued a statement indicating that "[u]nder no circumstances" does he want to be considered for the VP slot. While he promised to work hard to help Obama get elected, Webb believes that he can do more good by staying in the Senate right now. I am hugely disappointed. But, of course, it's Webb's prerogative.
Now there seems to be a lot of speculation about the possibility of an Obama-Hagel ticket, especially in light of the fact that (Republican) Senator Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam vet, plans to accompany Obama on an upcoming trip to Iraq. The prospect of an Obama-Hagel ticket is fascinating and somewhat appealing, but unlikely.
Like many others, I believe that Hillary Clinton would be a strong addition to the ticket. Of course, she doesn't have any war clout, just lots of baggage. But she's tough, and that could be a big plus when it comes to military issues.
Is there another VP choice out there who could help Obama close up the war/security gap? Does he really even need to? For both questions, I think the answer is that it depends -- on so many factors.
It depends on whether we see an October surprise, be it an attack on Iran by Bush or by Israel, a terrorist attack on U.S. interests, or even just another bin Laden tape.
It depends on whether Obama and his running mate can adequately dispel the myth that the Republicans can keep us safer.
And, perhaps most importantly, it depends on whether the voters place more importance on health care, the economy, our constitutional rights, and the need to move away from the toxic neocon agenda.
Heaven help us if they don't.
http://www.maryshawonline.com
Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist, with a focus on politics, human rights, and social justice. She is a former Philadelphia Area Coordinator for the Nobel-Prize-winning human rights group Amnesty International, and her views appear regularly in a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites. Note that the ideas expressed here are the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Amnesty International or any other organization with which she may be associated.
Would a VP with war clout be good especially when the Democratic base overwhelmingly wants out of Iraq and no war with Iran?
We don't need another hawk (even a liberal one) who wants to show how he can wage a better war, a smarter war, with Afghanistan or Pakistan or any -istan or Middle East country for that matter.
Our country's resources, its people, and its laws demand that we push our leaders to abandon war as a solution to clashing interests.
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Kevin Gosztola (212 articles, 114 quicklinks, 70 diaries, 811 comments)
on Saturday, July 19, 2008 at 8:30:22 AM
What is this country's obsession with militarism? It is anachronistic, backward looking, inhuman, and destructive, but everything seems to have to be measured through the prism of 'war readiness" (ironic, since the 'war readiness' people are the ones who have DESTROYED our war readiness with their kneejerk jingoism and wastes of huge amounts of money and personnel and materials. It is like a man who is exhausted on the ground continuing to obsess on running another marathon when he can't even get up or breathe. This country is bankrupt, prostrate, in tatters and unable to fight any more wars, and yet here we are measuring all these presidential candidates by the amount of jingoism and saber ratttling they are able or willing to muster. This kind of thinking is what got us into the mess we are in now, and the Lamestream media keeps pushing the tired old mantras and suppressing any new ways of doing things or thinking because they are owned by right wing corporations who have a stranglehold on the public airwaves, in violation of the terms of leasing airtime from the FCC. Our media have hijacked the public discourse to fit a narrow set of anachronistic, outmoded forms of thinking that are wasteful, useless and destructive and precisely at a time critical to our country to dig out of the current ways of thinking. There needs to be trust busting on the major news media companies, much like what was done with Miccrosoft a few years ago. Bust up the corporate monopoly on the means of news dissemination and maybe people will have a fighting chance at thinking in some way other than the old militarism-big-spending ratholes.
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JOHN LORENZ (17 articles, 81 quicklinks, 46 diaries, 180 comments)
on Saturday, July 19, 2008 at 9:14:11 AM
Please. Obama will clean McCain at the polls and the war will not be on the vast majority of people's minds, the deteriorating economy will. Don't expect Bush to do much about anything in the next few months which plays into Obama's hands to the detriment of McCain. By November the US public is going to be so fed up that we will see a sweep unheard of before in Presidential politics without a war VP.
Let Obama take his time on selecting someone for the VP slot. In my view, he could select Clinton and it would not stop his momentum going into the fall Election because McCain has no momentum, no exciitement. It is probably going to be far better for Obama to select someone he can work with well, not someone who gets his goat and has their own agenda. If I were Obama I would look for someone I respect and someone whose opinion I valued. The McCain factor and security issue is irrelevant to the equation.
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Peter Wedlund (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 164 comments)
on Saturday, July 19, 2008 at 8:01:09 PM
The reason why Senator Jim Webb would have harmed Obama is in the below video.He made very sexist remarks about women when he was in the military. He is also reported to be a hot head that puts his foot in his mouth too often.
Webb on Women in the Military - Meet the Press - Tim Russert- 2006
"Mistakenly" is such a nice word, in this case a euphonism for stupidity. Instead of pandering to the general public's stupidity by somehow attracting a vp candidate with so called "war experience" why not embark on a full blown educational program to teach the public the truth about U.S. security and how Bush and McCain have compromised it terribly?
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Archie (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1130 comments)
on Sunday, July 20, 2008 at 12:07:31 PM
7 comments
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