What is striking about the McCain campaign’s deplorable smear attack in which they label Rashid Khalidi as an anti-Semite, which Philip Giraldi and Glenn Greenwald have already discussed, is how unusually lazy it is.  Of course, flinging such labels at political opponents is already very intellectually lazy and disreputable, but one expects a certain degree of polemical effort when the usual suspects set out to defame someone.  You come to expect these sorts of smears to be directed against people who do not hold approved views of Israel and Palestine, but in this case there haven’t even been the normal lame attempts to equate Khalidi’s views with anti-Semitism.  As an Arab-American with a Palestinian parent and someone who is a scholar of the history of Palestinians, Khalidi is simply assumed by the McCain campaign to hold the worst views, because this ultimately has less to do with the false claims of ties to the PLO and more to do with Khalidi’s own background and political views.  His views on Israel and Palestine would probably not be very popular, but it is Khalidi’s ethnicity that has made him the particular target of scorn.  Indeed, if Khalidi were not of Arab descent it is difficult to imagine Obama’s friendship with him being even remotely controversial. 

Contraryto the title of Mr. Giraldi’s post (which I understand was a bit of rhetorical flourish), we are not all Palestinians, just as we are not all Israelis, and neither are we Georgians nor Russians.  We Americans are Americans, and it has been our tendency to identify ourselves with other nations and take sides in conflicts that have nothing to do with us that have contributed, as I am sure Mr. Giraldi will agree, to the problems in our foreign policy debates and in our foreign policy itself.  As I said regarding the Second Lebanon War two years ago:

It is ludicrous because, no matter the feelings of goodwill and solidarity, we cannot seriously identify ourselves with another nation, nor can they identify themselves with us, because in so many respects every nation, every people is significantly different in meaningful ways that precludes an identification of any two. The fundamental differences between nations also prevent a ready and reflexive identification of the interests of any two nations on the basis of decent moral outrage at evils perpetrated on another people’s civilians.

The impossibility of such an identification does not absolve us of the obligation to condemn and, insofar as it is possible, oppose excesses and outrages in war, but it also points to the truth that our outrage, if it is as genuine as it should be, cannot be selective or one-sided and should not prefer the innocent of one side over the innocent of the other.

Saakashvili has changed prime ministers, appointing the former ambassador to Turkey to replace Lado Gurgenidze:

Saakashvili cited Mgaloblishvili’s reported skill in attracting Turkish investment to Georgia as among the ambassador’s qualifications for the job, but one political analyst believes that the career diplomat’s appointment could mean that the Georgian government intends to put greater policy emphasis on foreign affairs rather than economic development.

“Georgia’s biggest challenge today lies in the realm of foreign relations, not domestic problems such as the economy, which was the case when Gurgenidze was appointed,” said Tornike Sharashenidze, head of Foreign Relations Programs at Tbilisi’s Georgian Institute of Public Affairs.

This is a curious change, since one might have thought that it would be better on the cusp of a global recession to have a talented economic hand at the head of the government.  Saakashvili’s critics in Georgia believe the frequent changes of ministers are designed to prevent any rivals from acquiring the ability to challenge the president politically.  Opposition figures are predictably dissatisfied:

Tina Khidasheli, one of the leaders of the opposition Republican Party, called the premier reshuffle a show that has been going on for years. “What we’ve seen here for several years is one and the same merry-go-round with essentially the same figures being moved around on the chessboard,” said Khidasheli. “People known for their poor judgment … are still there, largely because of their unwavering loyalty to Saakashvili. As a result, key decisions are made almost unilaterally and there is no room left for alternative thinking.”

Having visited Taiwan very briefly in April just after the Kuomintang had won their presidential election, I was interested in this Asia Times column on the opposition to President Ma’s resumption of the KMT’s efforts at forging closer relations with Beijing:

The massive anti-China protests in Taiwan’s capital last weekend were a reminder to President Ma Ying-jeou that his attempts to forge closer links with China will not be all smooth sailing. Although the protest will not change Ma’s China policies, the rally underscores the challenges he faces as a large segment of the population remains deeply wary of the island’s longtime rival. 

Remembering that the DPP was ousted decisively not even eight months ago, I find the decline in Ma’s political fortunes remarkable.  Elected with 58% of the vote, his approval ratings are at 30%, which does not bode well for the long-term success of his proposals if broad popular discontent aids the DPP in future parliamentary elections.  Ma is already suffering from building anti-incumbency sentiment on account of the effects of the financial crisis and his speed in pushing for a closer economic relationship with China.  One of Taiwan’s great economic difficulties is that many international firms now bypass Taipei entirely and do all of their regional business on the mainland, and on the whole Ma seems to recognize this and is addressing it with proposals of establishing a common market and allowing Taiwanese companies to invest more their total assets in the mainland.  Along with the rest of East Asia, Taiwanese exports are suffering from weakened demand overseas, and this economic weakening will make closer economic integration with China even harder to avoid despite strong DPP opposition. 

Update: The Economist story on the protests is here.  They report that Ma’s approval has dropped to 24%.  Ted Galen Carpenter describes the political backlash against Ma here.

I don’t think in my lifetime I have ever witnessed quite a campaign in which the wife of the Presidential candidate has been sequestered lest she voice yet another sweeping generalization that can be rightfully interpreted as denigrating both the American system at large or the values of other Americans; or in which the Vice Presidential candidate has been sequestered from press questioning lest…once again in an interview or an impromptu says something that either is so bizarre that it makes no sense at all or serves as a good argument not to vote for [the] running mate [bold mine-DL]; or in which the Presidential nominee himself knows that if he stays on the teleprompter he has a good chance of winning, but if he wades in to banter wtih the crowd there is equally a good chance that he may say something so disturbing that the entire facade that he has so carefully constructed simply collapses. ~Victor Davis Hanson

Guess which campaign Hanson is talking about.  Except for the line about “the American system,” almost this exact thing could be and has been said as a criticism of the McCain campaign over the past two months.  Are McCain supporters seriously going to start complaining about the other party’s seclusion of a VP candidate or the inaccessibility of the candidate’s wife?  Of course, with McCain the problem is a little different: he says disturbing things when he sticks to the script, and when speaking from a teleprompter keeps smiling in that creepy way we have all come to fear.

Is McCain, as the subhed has it, the “best man” to unite America? Well, I think he’d have to be. Let me stress that “uniting America” isn’t necessarily the highest priority of the next president — perhaps Barack Obama would not “unite with” about 35 percent of the country that is bitterly opposed to his agenda, and I think that’s fair nough. But McCain would, in my view, be forced to unite America because he became the standard-bearer of a minority faction in our politics. How could McCain govern without engaging in really radical outreach to Democrats and independents? ~Reihan

This is right, and I wonder whether my original remarks on Reihan’s column were entirely fair.  After all, in the improbable event of a McCain win, the next administration would be faced with a hostile Congress and an electorate that would have elected McCain in spite of its hostility to the Republican Party.  His main concern would be to placate the majority, and not shore up his support within the party.  Besides, were McCain to win, Palin would be sent off to tamp down conservative rebellions and make a lot of rhetoric about how much the President appreciates their support.  With the exception of needing a couple votes in the Senate from time to time to eliminate the possibility of a filibuster, on many issues McCain would not need to bring along that many other Republicans.  What they think of him would not be that important during the first two years, and depending on midterms he might feel free to ignore them for much of his first term. 

There is a factor I overlooked before.  This is the habit of rallying to the President of your party, which Republicans are even more likely to do as a result of their postwar dependency on winning the White House as their main route to power.  Were McCain to win, it would delay and probably quash any nascent conservative skepticism about the expanding power of the executive branch, as the Presidency would once again become the sole focus of national Republican politics, and there would once again be a strong impulse to defend the administration against its critics.  (You can already see why a McCain victory would be very unhealthy for conservatism, whatever else it might bring.)  Even though conservatives would probably find important parts of McCain’s domestic agenda to be somewhere between annoying and appalling, their instinct to support “their” President would be powerful and would be particularly hard to resist so long as we have ongoing foreign wars.

Philip Weiss discusses “Obamaguity” (shouldn’t that be Obambiguity?):

It’s time to identify a central characteristic of this great politician: his ambiguity. Obama is neither black nor white, he is neither progressive nor conservative, indeed even his sexuality can seem ambiguous. His femininity is part of his enormous charm. Look how lithe he is next to masculine McCain. Ambiguity has served Obama very well indeed. For instance, he alienated no one at Harvard Law School–the stories are always about him engaging a group of people in a spirited discussion of issues, and giving nothing away, never taking a stand [bold mine-DL].

This reminds me of an old Daily Show clip mocking Cheney’s claim to be part of the legislative branch: “He is neither man nor beast, yet has elements of the twain!….He is the Highlander!”   That line about Obama never taking a stand is worth noting.  In this context, it’s clear that it means that he never took firm positions in these discussions, but looking at Obama’s entire career it becomes clear that he is not in the habit of taking stands that jeopardize his continued advancement.  What I have never quite understood is why Obama’s supporters find this quality attractive, since it guarantees that he is almost certainly going to yield to established policies and interests concening most things that they take seriously.  It suggests that any promise he makes to his constituents that involves challenging entrenched power is more or less worthless.  The conclusion that Weiss and a number of Obama supporters never seem to reach is that this ambiguity is a means to disarm opponents who might create difficulties for him if he took a clear position one way or the other, and that his opponents ultimately include them on the issues that matter most to them.      

Weiss continues:

Obamaguity–I need to coin this–is a big issue for us on the left. We want Obama to be a leader not a pol; we want him to be the Reagan of the left. And, in my little camp, we want him to be the savior of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination. He gives us very mixed signals. He used to be Rashid Khalidi’s friend.  I’m sure he knows the Palestinian narrative, and not just from eating Mona Khalidi’s hummus. Now Obama’s thrown Khalidi under the bus. 

Well, of course he has.  If he threw Wright under the bus, there was and is no one he won’t be willing to abandon if it becomes politically necessary.  What Weiss mistakes for “mixed signals” are not signals at all.  Obama’s friendship with Khalidi had and has no significance when it comes to policy.  Obama’s signals on Israel and Palestine have been unambiguously “pro-Israel” in the most conventional sense.  Let’s grant that he knows the Palestinian narrative–that has not changed his policy views at all.  The belief that he will later turn against this position is an expectation that is just waiting to be dashed.  Far more likely, it is his progressive and antiwar supporters whom he is likely to turn on after Tuesday, because he will not need them nearly as much once he is President and they will be told time after time that they have nowhere to go if they don’t like what Obama is doing.

In the same article, Dr. Fleming remarked on Palin and Robert Stacy McCain’s defense of her:

Dan Larison on his Eunomia blog now on AmCon has drawn attention to our old friend Stacy McCain’s defense of ignorance.  Palin and her supporters are virtuous, he is arguing, precisely because what they don’t know won’t hurt them.  I fear, however, that it will hurt us.  This is worth an entire issue of the magazine.  Since Socrates (at least) we have understood that to pilot the ship of state requires skill, not just a good heart, especially when that ship is no longer a simple republican skiff but a nuclear powered submarine armed with missiles carrying nuclear warheads.  Besides, it is easier to make a judgment of someone’s experience and competence than of the soundness of his heart.

McCain has responded to the effect that her lack of competence in national and international issues, which is at the heart of the critique of her candidacy, is a mark in her favor:

Sarah Palin is the governor of Alaska, a very popular and for all I know a very good governor. She apparently focused her attention on the job she was doing and, prior to being chosen as McCain’s running mate, had paid little attention to the national and international issues that the presidential campaigns were talking about. Very good, I say — I wouldn’t want my governor to be obsessed with presidential politics, but rather to concentrate on doing his job as governor.

Palin’s honest ignorance of presidential-level issues was held up as evidence that she is, or was, unprepared for the vice-presidency — as if years of studying such issues were in itself qualification for the office. Evidence contradicts this idea.

Study of such issues might not prepare someone to be in such a position, but a lack of knowledge about them cannot be considered a recommendation.  Indeed, it must be considered a serious and probably disqualifying deficiency.  When a person applies for a post in the upper reaches of a firm, an academic department or, for that matter, a magazine, don’t we expect that the person to have not just relevant experience but the requisitive knowledge to fulfill his responsibilities?   

As a New Mexican, I can appreciate the point about wanting one’s governor to do his job and not go galivanting around the globe or the country to aggrandize himself, but a focus on state priorities should not require someone to be oblivious about everything else.  It is debatable whether she is a particularly good governor, as her main accomplishments to date have been spending other people’s money (which I am reliably informed by a certain Vice-Presidential candidate is tantamount to socialism) and negotiating a pipeline that apparently cannot be built without the cooperation of the very oil companies whose taxes she raised in order to buy the love of the people with rebate checks.  Of course, we cannot know what she might have done had she not been catapulted onto the national stage after barely a year and a half in office, but that drives home the point that it remains to be seen whether she is a successful governor, much less whether she is capable of the responsibilities of the Presidency that might fall to her in the (increasingly unlikely) event of a McCain victory.   

There is something in all of this I don’t understand.  On the one hand, we are supposed to believe that Palin is being treated unfairly because she does not have the establishment’s preferred educational pedigree and, by implication, that her education was sufficient, but at the same time we have the acknowledgement, indeed celebration, of the fact that Palin really does not know much concerning national and international issues.  Which is it?  As Mr. Bush’s example reminds us, it does not necessarily follow that going to elite universities leads to any broader understanding of the world, nor does it necessarily spur interest in the rest of the world, but what this seems to prove is that Palin would not be qualified for the post she is seeking even if she had gone to all the “right” schools.  The exact same arguments could have been used and were used to defend Mr. Bush’s candidacy in 2000, and I would suggest that the results of giving him the benefit of the doubt have been nothing short of calamitous.  If it is true that experts, self-appointed and otherwise, helped to plunge us into the Iraq debacle, it is also true that Mr. Bush did not have the wit, knowledge or wisdom to reject their supposedly expert advice.   

While there should always be a healthy skepticism of experts, in part because many of those claiming or receiving the title do not necessarily deserve it, the failure of so many experts in connection with Iraq should make clear to us that the experts who supported the war were wrong and were evidently not quite the experts they claimed to be, but not that expertise is undesirable.  We ought to be careful to notice the distinctions between government officials and establishment pundits on the one hand and experts who question and challenge government policy on the other.  It should tell us something that Palin, purveyor of pseudo-populism, has sided repeatedly with the former, which is not surprising, as she is in her current position almost entirely because certain establishment insiders and pundits promoted her.      

McCain keeps invoking the dread specter of Jeb Bush as one reason why we should reconcile ourselves to Palin.  First, why is Palin the most likely to thwart the return of the Bushes?  Second, why exactly is Palin preferable to Jeb Bush anyway?  Like his brother, he is pro-amnesty, but then so is she.  He was the successful, twice-elected governor of a large state, and he is well-versed in a number of national issues.  There is no question that preventing another Bush dynasty restoration is highly desirable, but why should we think that Palin is the one to do it and why do we think that she would represent an improvement?

Dr. Fleming has some thoughts on the election as it comes to a close, and sums up the main conservative objection to Obama:

He is an enemy of anything good that has ever been done in this country or this civilization, and when he is elected, I hope that all those Silicon Valley libertarians who supported him will live to see their property confiscated and their kids sent to reeducation camps.  Yes, that is mean-spirited and unChristian but it is unsettling to realize that you have lived among such monsters for so long without grasping the depth of their depravity and stupidity.

I would add a few observations here.  It is a measure of how profoundly wrong this administration and McCain have been on critical questions vital to our country’s welfare that Obama’s candidacy, much less his Presidency, is even remotely possible.  Whenever anyone contemplates the worst aspects of a future Obama administration, he should remember that Bush, McCain and their allies share in the blame for it.  Just as they bear responsibility for the consequences of their policies long after they have departed from the scene, they bear the burden of responsibility for the political consequences of their failure, which include making someone of such genuinely atrocious views, particularly as it concerns human life and dignity, electable and broadly popular.  That much may be obvious, but it should be kept in mind. 

It has fascinated me, in the original sense of the word as a mixture of wonder and terror, to watch legitimately outraged critics of the torture regime or unjust war suddenly discover moral ambiguity and gray areas when it comes to Obama’s indefensible record on abortion.  This is one of the few moral outrages left in the world that is discussed as if it were an unfortunate accident; it is something, to listen to the standard pro-choice argument, that should be reduced in number while simultaneously given full legal protection and government support.  Why an outrage against human dignity committed by the government is more outrageous than one permitted and defended by the government has never been clear to me.  One crime is justified in the name of necessity, the other in the name of autonomy, but both are crimes against human dignity, which has been and must be one of the fundamental goods that our civilization defends.  If we deny the sanctity of life itself, is it any wonder that we devalue and dehumanize others?

Libertarians who support Obama are more amusing.  Obama is a supporter of the PATRIOT Act and warrantless wiretapping, the bailout and vast new entitlement schemes, all of which expand the reach of government and trample on our liberty.  At every turn, he has favored centralism and expansion of the power of the state.  The natural response to this is that “the Republicans are no different,” which is by and large true, but it is not much of an excuse for siding with someone who in virtually every respect promises to repeat the mistakes of this administration while possessing few redeeming features that I can see.  Even balancing against this the recognition that someone as dangerous and reckless as McCain must never be allowed to wield executive power, there is not really anything positive that can be said about the likely future President.   

Peter Suderman poses the question:

If McCain is not a real conservative, then shouldn’t principled conservatives be justified in refusing to vote for him?

They should, but I take Joe Carter’s point, whichismoreorlessthe point I havebeenmakingformonths, that there is not really a conservative argument for a vote for Obama.  Anti-McCain arguments are abundant, and this is what almost every Obamacon argument is, because it has to be.  As I said yesterday, the most credible pro-Obama argument that can be made is that the GOP must be held accountable and Obama is not McCain, but I still don’t think that is a persuasive case for casting a vote for Obama, much less urging others to do likewise.  You have to believe strongly that a McCain Presidency would be an intolerable disaster for our country, but for the most part the people who are most inclined to believe this about him are not the ones going over to Obama.  Many have hedged their Obama endorsement with paeans to the “old” McCain whom they once liked and their alleged Obama endorsements are filled with disappointment that McCain has let them down, as if to say, “I can’t believe you’re making me do this.”  Pretty clearly, the Obamacon phenomenon is on the whole not really an endorsement of Obama or anything he proposes to do, which is why most of the endorsements coming from the right cannot withstand much scrutiny.  That’s the whole point: the Republican ticket is so unappealing to these people that they will vote for its defeat in full knowledge that there is little or nothing to say on behalf of the man they’re electing.  That is how complete Republican failure now is.  Imagine how much worse it might have been had the Democrats nominated another “centrist” Southerner.   

Endorsing Obama is a vote of no confidence in the Republican Party, but in a weird way it is also an expression of what is probably utterly misguided hope that the Republicans will learn from the defeat and adjust to new political realities.  It is also a failure of imagination to the extent that Obamacons sometimes rhetorically ask, “How much worse could it get?”  It could get much, much worse, and Obama endorsers have put themselves in the odd position of taking on some responsibility for what is to come while having absolutely zero influence, but if it doesn’t bother them I can’t get very worked up about it. 

Everyone who is voting Obama to punish the GOP thinks that there is some small chance that the GOP might change its ways.  The diversity of views among Obamacons reflects how many different future directions are expected, guaranteeing that many will be disappointed, but it also reflects how badly the GOP has failed on multiple fronts that it is simultaneously losing so many prominent and obscure Catholic pro-lifers, libertarians, foreign policy realists, moderates and small-government conservatives, among others, to a Democratic nominee who genuinely is the most liberal of any they have had since 1972.  Under normal circumstances, a vote for Obama ought to be unthinkable for almost all of the people on the right who have endorsed him, but the GOP has failed so badly that it has made the unthinkable mundane and ordinary.  It’s reaching a point where the report of another Obamacon endorsement is no more remarkable than when the leaves start falling in autumn.  Far more important in the aftermath than coming up with new and amusing ways to mock the Obama endorsers is an effort to understand and remedy the profound failures that made this phenomenon possible before a major realignment does occur.

Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama’s associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks [bold mine-DL].  Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate’s free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.

“If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,” Palin told host Chris Plante, “then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.” ~Political Radar

If they’re not negative attacks, what are they?  Charming compliments? 

Having hidden behind every P.C. shield her defenders could think to set up around her (i.e., criticism of Palin is sexist, elitist, etc.), Palin has now adopted the most extreme victimization pose that equate criticism and news reporting with oppression and violations of her rights.  This just seems silly at first and increasingly irrelevant as the election approaches, but since we are being informed on a regular basis that Palin is the future of the Republican Party it seems worthwhile to consider what this remark means.  It seems to me that this dresses up contempt for accountability as zeal for free speech, and it remarkably makes the press the enemy of freedom of the press when the press has the gall to report accurately that a candidate is engaging in negative campaigning.  There is an old tradition of “working the refs” in political campaigning, and it is actually a bipartisan practice, but here Palin is implying that accurate reporting of a candidate’s activities should be considered illegal.  This is an elected public official saying that the press violates politicians’ rights by characterizing negative attacks as negative attacks–just imagine how oppressive it must be when journalists point out that you lie about or distort your record!   

Of course, there is nothing necessarily wrong with negative campaigning, which is not the same as making false and dishonest claims about one’s opponent.  Palin wants us to identify the two and then wants to claim that she is not engaging in negative campaigning, by which she means to say that she believes she is not launching scurrilous or misleading attacks.  Even this latter point is debatable, but it is instructive that Palin’s instinct when confronted with media scrutiny and bad coverage is to wrap herself, the public official, in the First Amendment that is supposed to protect a free press from intimidation by and interference from the government.  If that does not worry her admirers, particularly those who are journalists, it should.