Obama a risky and cunning candidate

Having won a majority of delegates to the Democratic National Convention in August, Sen. Barack Hussein Obama is his party’s presumptive nominee for President of the United States. He defeated party rival Sen. Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, and he will face off against Republican Sen. John Simpson McCain IV in November. Obama is a dangerous but clever politician who should not be underestimated.

The problem with Obama is not his middle name, of course. He does not mention it for obvious reasons, as Hillary appears reluctant to call attention to her feminine one or McCain to publicize his long family pedigree. What counts are character and policy. On those grounds alone, Obama should not be elected.

Recently, Obama told an interviewer that Republicans are trying to portray him as “risky” on foreign policy and national defense and “out of touch” on what he called “cultural issues.” Of course, he told the interviewer, these charges are not true so he must do all he can to counter such “distortions” of his record.

But Republicans are not distorting Obama’s views or attitudes at all. Risky is an understatement. He is on record advocating withdrawal from Iraq, ignoring the fact that Gen. David Petraeus’s “surge” in the last 18 months has reduced the number of violent incidents to the lowest level in two years. It has also given the democratic government in Iraq the freedom to reconcile opposing factions, strengthen native military and police forces, and restore the economy, especially oil production.

Obama seems to speak from a script as he continues to inveigh against our government’s decision to invade Iraq and overthrow the criminal regime of Saddam Hussein. He dismisses the sacrifices our troops have made, ignores the gravity of the situation within that country and in the region, and is indifferent to the horrendous and horrific consequences for the Iraqi people of a precipitous American military withdrawal.

That alone would be reason enough to reject Obama. But he has publicly stated that he would meet with the dictators of North Korea, Iran, Syria, Venezuela and Cuba with no preconditions, blind to the inappropriateness and ineffectiveness of granting them undeserved legitimacy and prestige. In a lesser known statement, Obama has advocated cutting back on our nation’s military, particularly nuclear, arsenal, prior to any evidence that our adversaries would do the same or the establishment of adequate verification techniques.

Political scientists and historians have long pointed out that the two main issues in our presidential elections have been national security and the economy. We have seen how Obama flunks the first test. As to the second, he gave himself away recently when he contemptuously dismissed the lives of millions of Americans with a snide remark about “the money culture.”

Sen. Obama was speaking at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. He told the assembled graduates to avoid the temptation to join the money culture, with its emphasis on the acquisition of big houses and big cars. This despite the fact that he has both, and that there is nothing wrong per se with owning either. I am as unimpressed with what used to be called “conspicuous consumption” as anyone, yet I hardly think it is my business to tell others what they ought to spend their money on. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Obama’s campaign is awash in money, owing to the enthusiasm it has inspired among both rich and not-so-rich, both white and nonwhite. This only illustrates the truth of the proposition that money does not make winners, it follows them. Even so, he would doubtless not be at the pinnacle he is now without money, lots of it. Is his donors’ money morally superior to his rivals’?

Millions of Americans can live comfortable and enjoyable lives because they have earned the money to pay their own way in the world, without the indulgence of an aristocrat or a robber baron, a bureaucrat or a mobster. Making money is not a disgusting business; it is perfectly honorable, enabling untold millions of people to avoid poverty and misery.

Moreover, America, the country which Obama suggests is deeply flawed and hopelessly divided, was founded on the very principle which he mocks. That is, the United States is a commercial republic, meaning a regime or way of life in which economic opportunity abounds and the role of the government was intended to be only regulatory, not confiscatory–encouraging enterprise, not stifling it.

Centuries ago the Greek philosophy Aristotle observed that there are two ways to acquire the goods one needs for survival and prosperity — by force or by trade. The first is the way of pirates, tyrants and demagogues. The latter is the way of free, peaceful and civilized people, living under the rule of law. To the extent Obama sneers at the medium of exchange which makes trade possible, at home and abroad, he is undermining the country.

Obama is a threat to our national security and prosperity. Whether John McCain is your first choice or not, Obama must not be allowed anywhere near the Oval Office.

ABOUT THE WRITER
Richard Reeb taught political science, philosophy and journalism at Barstow College from 1970 to 2003. He is the author of “ Taking Journalism Seriously: ‘Objectivity’ as a Partisan Cause”  (University Press of America, 1999). He can be contacted at rhreeb@verizon.net.