He voted for it again.
This isn’t the first time McCain has been outmaneuvered by more nimble legislators and a savvy (compared to him anyway) George W. Bush — or has completely sold his integrity down the river for cheap political gain. (You decide…) I suspect that Senator Straight Talk has been distracted and confused by all those pesky political considerations, which have rendered him incomprehensible on nearly every issue. Torture, you would think, would be the one which offers easy moral clarity to a man whose shoulders were dislocated so badly while imprisoned in North Vietnam that he can’t raise his arms above his head.–Digby
One of the things that should be very interesting to see in the Fall is whether Obama will be able to use his rhetorical skills to neutralize the fear motivation exploited now for so long by the GOP. It came to a head this week with the FISA/Telecom immunity bill in the senate and the vote yesterday to require that the CIA abide by the U.S. Army Field Manual. McCain, who voted on the wrong side of both these issues, it is clear, is at best a ‘specterer’–says one thing, votes another. So in the debates to come this Fall, assuming it’s McCain vs. Obama, I fervently hope that Obama will aggressively take it to McCain on these issues.
He needs to make McCain’s support, and Republican support in general, of the surveillance-torture state central to his attack. I hope he trusts in the receptivity of the American people to be motivated by something other than fear. I hope that he can tactfully, but clearly, make the case that we are better than what we have allowed ourselves to become, that we didn’t know what we were doing for the past seven years, that we’ve allowed ourselves to be manipulated by appeals to our fears, and that it is possible to respond to the very real dangers and threats in the world with intelligence, poise, and courage rather than with hysteria.
In my piece last week about "Charisma and Change",
I was trying to make the point that leaders are powerless unless they
reflect aspects of the collective soul of the people they lead. The
Republicans have found leaders who effectively reflect the fear and
anxiety many Americans feel about terrorist threats. They have very
effectively sought ways to use that fear to get the support they need
to promote their militaristic and quasi-authoritarian agenda.
Authoritarian regimes are Big Daddy regimes: The children are afraid,
and they look to Daddy to keep them safe. It’s important for
authoritarian leaders to keep the people in a childish state of mind.
The most disappointing thing about the last seven years has been
that no Democratic (or Republican) voice has stood up to effectively,
eloquently, counter that fear message with a message to face our fears
as grownups. No one has arisen who has capably been able to reflect
back to the American people what is adult, decent, and generous in the
American soul.
The Republican adventure in the Middle East did not call upon
American virtues in the least. Its program has been one of hubristic
folly made possible by the administration’s exploitation of the
people’s fears and their need to flail out in revenge after 9/11. The
administration asked for no collective sacrifice, and laid the burden
unfairly on the shoulders of a minuscule segment of the American people.
Nothing good is possible in the political sphere unless there is
broad support for it in the collective soul. That darker impulses of
the American soul have a long history, but they are not the only
elements that compose that story. There are other, nobler and more
generous impulses, and they need leaders who can call them out. The
Democrats over the last couple of decades have proved themselves
incapable of doing that, but the Republican leadership has proved
itself more than incapable. If anything, its power thrives on the
exploitation of these darker, more primitive impulses.
So while I care about Obama’s positions on certain key issues, I
care more about whether he will be able to be that adult voice that
reflects back to us what it means to be responsible, thoughtful
grownups in a democratic republic: Can he reflect back to us what it
means be prudent rather than fearful, courageous rather than bullying,
generous rather than greedy, intelligent rather than mindlessly
flailing, interdependent rather than isolated and self-absorbed.
I don’t know if he can do it, but that’s the element of the campaign
in the Fall I will be most interested to watch. I’m not as interested
in the debate over specific policies, but in whether Obama will be able
to effectively rouse this better part of the American soul to immunize
it against the fear tactics that have brought us preemptive war, the
justification of torture, warrantless surveillance, the loss of habeas
corpus, to name only the most obvious. These are the legacy of the Bush
administration, and they will remain in place once he leaves. As such
they are the foundation for an authoritarian regime of the future to
build upon. Will Obama have the political will and the political
capital to dismantle that infrastructure and to replace it with another
kind of foundation upon which a mature democratic republic for the next
century can be built?
I think that’s a challenge he’s eager to take on. I will be very disappointed if he does not.
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