Economist's endorsement of Obama: second thoughts?

When one reads the Economist's latest leader, and considers the fact that John McCain led an effort in the Senate this week to do exactly what the Economist is calling for (killing "Buy American" provisions), one can only wonder if this august publication isn't having second thoughts about its endorsement of Obama over McCain.

The most important consideration for me is not whether a politician is left or right, brilliant or ignorant, but his or her inclination to resist populism. This is not a long held opinion of mine but something that I've arrived at with relatively experience in both a policy shop and the political process. Newfoundland's Danny Williams and Alberta's Ed Stelmach are members of "Conservative" parties, with most seriously competitive parties to their "left". Yet both are thorough-going populists. If you don't think Stephan Dion's "Green Shift" was, details aside, intelligent policy (never mind the poitics), why does Greg Mankiw (and a legion of other economists) argue for something similar?

Barack Obama is more intelligent than John McCain. But the policies of President Obama (which is what was actually being voted for) may well prove to be far more unintelligent than the policies of a President McCain would have been. This is simply because Obama might never stand up against unintelligent policy when it is politically disadvantagous to do. Obama is too smart to quickly make himself unpopular. McCain, on the other hand, might well be dumb enough, or, more charitably, pig-headed enough, to insist on doing the right thing regardless of the political consequences.

President Obama and his economic advisors should state -- no, scream -- that America is unambiguously committed to free trade.
- Jeffrey Miron, senior lecturer in economics, Harvard University

President Obama...

In the recent Canadian election, had I been in the country to vote it wouldn't have been an easy decision for me. As a youth I was down-the-line "conservative", but as I approach middle age I've become increasingly frustrated with the anti-intellectual strain that runs through cultural conservatism. What one person sees as an appeal to the values of the patriotic and hardworking man in the street is another person's rabble-rousing populism, retarding rather than advancing informed policy discussion. And the federal Canadian Tories have become master populists. A productivity agenda? If there was one, I'd suspect it was coming from the civil servants in Ottawa, not the Conservative Party. Perhaps if they had a coherent climate change strategy, or, in the alternative, the courage to simply deny the need for any government role in mitigating climate change, I could see them as the party of superior policy. But of course the Tories have been purely reactive on that file and my time on the inside of Flaherty's Finance Department occasionally made me nostaligic for John Manley, someone who, by the way, has been fighting the good fight for North American economic integration instead of just picking fights with other politicians....

The US election, however, is clearer. Make no mistake: I would vote Obama Prom King any day of the week. I like his cerebral style, his graciousness, the inspiration he provides to people of colour. But when it comes to policy, there is limited evidence for the thesis that Obama takes growth friendly policies as his starting point. It seems that he takes a conception of social and/or economic "justice" as his starting point, and then mitigates any damage to economic growth as a second step. This is a recipe for poor policy, in my view. Yes, growth only policy needs adjustment; - gross inquality can result and this can and should be mitigated. But McCain seems more likely to have the steps in the policy process in the right order. Yes, McCain doesn't know much about economics (as Joe Klein of TIME insists on pointing out), but McCain seems more inclined to defer free market economists than Obama. Obama respects expertise, of course, but explain to me how that respect actually means something in the end if, for example, he votes for rent controls as he did while a state senator?

Obama is a genuine expert in constitutional law. I'll grant that. But as someone with a degree in both law and business, I believe that business expertise and/or experience is far more valuable in a politician than legal expertise. Suppose that foreign policy is a more pressing issue than the economy. On that count we've already seen McCain exhibit better judgment on issues ranging from the surge to Georgia. Yes, Obama was right on Iraq, however one has to ask whether Obama's decision wasn't based on his sense of justice as opposed to a prescient appreciation of the subsequent practical problems; i.e. an ideological approach that happened to be proved right as opposed to a savvy pragmatic approach. The man TIME magazine called Obama's top foreign policy advisor, Tony Lake, has claimed that the guilt of Alger Hiss is not settled. Yet John Ehrman notes that "The basic question — whether Alger Hiss was a spy for the Soviet Union during the 1930s and 1940s — was finally settled during the 1990s". The bipartisan Moynihan Commission concluded that "The complicity of Alger Hiss of the State Department seems settled" and Moynihan (D-NY) himself said there is "conclusive evidence of his guilt". Stanley Kutler has observed that "In the end, the publication of the Venona intercepts of wartime Soviet espionage referring to "Ales" settled the matter". Scholar David Oshinsky says that the "vast majority of historians” accept Whittaker Chambers' overall version of events and "[t]o accept the guilt of Alger Hiss is to admit the bitter truth about a small but sinister part of America's "progressive" past". Intelligence expert Thomas Powers notes that "...much additional evidence about Hiss's involvement with the Soviets has turned up since the voluminous and explicit claims by Whittaker Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley in the 1940s, claims which no serious scholar of the subject any longer dismisses". See also Robert Beisner, Mark Kramer, David Greenberg, Allen Weinstein, John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr ("Outside the ranks of Nation readers and a dwindling coterie of academic leftists, there are few people still willing to claim that Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White were not Soviet agents"), Vasili Mitrokhin, Ronald Radosh ("Except for a dwindling group — mostly Nation magazine readers and editors ... the consensus has solidified: Hiss was undoubtedly a Soviet spy"), Sam Tanenhaus, G. Edward White etc. etc. Leftist academic Ellen Schrecker concedes that "There is now too much evidence from too many different sources for anyone but the most die-hard loyalists to argue convincingly for the innocence of Hiss" as does Maurice Isserman ("Let's face it, the debate just ended" (in Isserman's review of Weinstein's Haunted Wood)). Even at the self-described "flagship of the left", Nation contributor Athan Theoharis grants that the "conventional assessment" is that Hiss was "an unreconstructed Soviet spy" and editor Victor Navasky himself allows that he's not with the "consensus historians". If that isn't enough, one could cite the New York Times, the Washington Post, TIME, PBS NOVA ("Venona also helps to settle the case of Alger Hiss") etc. And this is Obama's top foreign policy advisor?

When did the media call attention to the fact this Obama advisor is offside all but the most dogmatically leftist of experts on at least this one issue? In the mean time, you've got the running media narrative that questioning Obama's assocations amounts to dirty campaigning.

A review of this substantive editorial in the Times of India indicates the international enthusiasm for Obama is less than universal. The Wall Street Journal has distinguished itself in its coverage of this election (unlike the vast majority of the media), and one asks oneself why other papers aren't carrying the observations of, to take one example, Nobel Prize winning economist Vernon Smith, who writes, "it is entirely likely that Mr. Obama will succeed in going for higher business, capital gains and income taxes, but it is an economic illusion to think for a minute that this will benefit the poor." Then there's others, like the (incidentally black) economist Thomas Sowell, who suggests that tomorrow's election will provide "all the ingredients for a historic meltdown".

Obama's support for the Farm Bill, and McCain's opposition to that egregious legislation, is probably my single biggest problem with Obama, closely followed by Obama's ties to anti-trade interest groups like unions "("...I owe those unions" - "Audacity of Hope", paperback, p. 142). McCain's is far more emotional than Obama, and that goes to judgement, but that detractor for McCain is somewhat tempered by the fact I see that as a greater inclination to have greater affection for and sympathy for his enemies. Obama's post-partisanship might well be entirely rhetorical.

If the generally accepted narrative about Obama was skeptical, I'd be more comfortable with the idea of President Obama. But it isn't, and I'm not.

McCain wisely endorses statement by Eastern Europeans on Georgia

I have my reservations with McCain, and I've expressed them. But the fact remains that intelligent and well-spoken liberals like Michael Kingsley consider McCain "honest, courageous, likable and intelligent."

Would I prefer that McCain had a more (Obama-like) cerebral bearing and approach? Of course. But whether McCain "gets it" with the Russians because of an evidence-based approach or because of a skeptical intuition that happens to be correct ultimately doesn't matter in the end.

Fact is, McCain is right on the money to "strongly support" the Joint Declaration of Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish Presidents on the situation in Georgia. Having visited 11 former Soviet republics within the last two years I can tell you that that declaration is not the least bit surprising. The eastern Europeans know what real imperialism looks like. Real imperialism simply doesn't give a damn about other countries think. There is no reasoning with it, no moral conscience to appeal to, no point in trying to argue at all.

US imperialism is an imperialism that's obvious to the good professors of Post Colonial Studies (imposing the "corporate agenda" on long suffering brown people) but far from obvious to sub-Saharan Africans (with whom GWB is quite popular) or ordinary people on the ground in regions that attract the interest of Moscow or Beijing.

Far from there being no point in arguing with US-style imperialism, its opponents essentially argue against it non-stop. This very fact is a tacit recognition that Americans recognize rules about how the game should be played, such that it is worth one's time to appeal to those rules.

I don't support the neo-cons. I've long considered myself either a libertarian or a paleo-con. The neo-cons are liberals who became cynical about the means while remaining idealistic about the ends. I've been a cynic since day 1. I don't like Cheney, or Rumsfeld, or Bolton. But many Canadians compare the US against some abstract, hypothesized idea of ideal behaviour in a mental exercise that much of the world doesn't have the luxury of engaging in. The eastern Europeans know that US foreign policy leaves a lot to be desired. But it's far preferable to Russian power and, indeed, nobody has the American back in the Middle East like the eastern Europeans do.

The notion that South Ossetia's right to self-determination is being crushed by the Georgians is another one of these academic exercises. Thinktanks without a radical-left bias have long recognized that the Russians have been building a hornet's nest of smugglers, criminals, and other agents of destabilization for years now, and when the Georgians finally got stung so many times they decided to take a whack at it, the Russians had exactly the propaganda narrative they wanted. Press coverage of Russia's cyberwar against Georgian and Baltic websites in July was limited, as was coverage of Russian violations of Georgian airspace. The Russians themselves have never recognized any independence referenda in South Ossetia as valid, nor have they recognized South Ossetia as legally independent of Georgia. If this were truly about self-determination for the Ossetians, the Russians would have recognized that legally first before invading. The Baltic states, of course, have no time for the Russian claims of protecting the innocent because they've got substantial Russian minorities of their own (imported during the Soviet occupation) and know how the Russians use "protecting Russians" as a pretext for interference.

The equivalency I've seen drawn between the west's stance on Kosovo and Russia on South Ossetia does not follow. The west's recognition of Kosovo followed a Russian rejection of a UN proposal that never mentioned "independence" or talked of an "independent" Kosovo. Slobodan Milosevic's extended campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo was internationally verified and recognized, with the result that more than a dozen nations decided on a proportionate, air only response to Milosevic. Milosevic wanted international involvement out, Saakashvili wants it in.

Whether McCain came to his cynicism of Russian intentions by temperament or by reflective experience, McCain is seeing Russia as those closest to the real Russia see it.

good and bad for McCain

Seeing as the world media is focused on Obama and his speech to 200 000 in Berlin (photo), I'll spend a moment or two calling some attention to McCain.

First the bad:

McCain has recently

- referred to an "Iraq - Pakistan border" (these countries do not border)

- twice referred to Czechoslovakia, a country that ceased to exist 15 years aago

- mixed up Sunnis and Shiites

- identified Vladimir Putin as president of Germany

But the good:

The Club for Growth says that "When it comes to his support for free trade, Senator McCain has not wavered one bit" and his opponents have called him an "ideologue" on the issue. This despite the fact Rasmussen says only 16% of Americans favour NAFTA and 56% want NAFTA renegotiated. As McCain himself noted in an AP interview, "I have to convince them the consequences of protectionism and isolationism could be damaging to their future. I understand it's very tough."

why I'm for McCain

McCain to advocate free trade in Latin America

"As McCain headed abroad, Democrat Barack Obama repeated his vow to renegotiate NAFTA..."

Note McCain's observation that Latin American development will reduce immigration pressures in this TV ad.

US protectionists who claim their concern is for protecting the Colombian people from the depredations of international capitalism should consider the fact Colombian president Uribe was re-elected in 06 with 62% of the vote and has an 80% approval rating.

Meanwhile, Obama would raise the federal marginal tax rate for a high income entrepreneur from 37.7% to 53%, the highest since 1971.

McCain calls Dean Acheson "a great statesman"

In McCain's Ottawa speech yesterday he saluted Truman's Secretary of State Dean Acheson. Apparently both of Acheson's parents were Canadian.

In March of last year I was staying in an old Jerusalem hotel with a Mandate feel and a reading room with small library upstairs. I came across Acheson's 1969 Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department and ended up deciding against a planned visit to Jordan in order to remain in Israel and finish the book.

The transformation in US foreign policy from FDR's wartime support for Stalin (which ranged from refusing to support Churchill's proposal to assist the Warsaw Uprising since it would defy "Uncle Joe", to presiding over State and Treasury Departments shot through with Communist spies, to suppressing a report that would have correctly blamed Stalin for the Katyn Massacre) to a proxy war against Stalin on the Korean pennisula is one of the remarkable phenomena of 20th century history, especially in light of the popularity of isolationism in the US as late as 1940.

In many respects, support for capitalism as an economic system collapsed in the wake of the Great Depression, with central and eastern Europe moving to either fascism or communism the 1930s, and western Europe / North America moving to a mixed economy. The Red Scare of the post-War period would never have had the traction it did if communism in American hadn't been a real deal in the 1940s. The wartime culture reflected a common, if not the prevailing, sentiment, with Hollywood reeling off unabashed pro-Soviet propaganda productions like Mission to Moscow, Song of Russia, and The North Star.

Acheson's book sheds some light upon that transformation, written as it is by someone who was a lifelong Democrat (in 1950 House Republicans resolved unanimously that he be removed from office... this is where I remind you of McCain's "great statesman" tribute) and a (mistaken) defender of Alger Hiss. Acheson was prepared to trust and work with his country's wartime ally in Moscow but was unable to do so. Who he could work with was his country's wartime enemy. When it came to actual negotiating, Acheson became an admirer of West Germany's first Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, while he was occasionally frustrated with the French and ultimately of the view that Stalin's people were implacably hostile and obstructionist.

If I had any criticism of Acheson's memoirs, it would be that he wasn't self-critical enough. When US soldiers were dying in Korea in 1950, shouldn't that have raised some questions about how Stalin seized North Korea in the first place and why that wasn't prevented? FDR's veep Henry Wallace published Where I Was Wrong (about the Soviets) in 1952, but from Acheson I got the impression he didn't believe that he, or the adminstrations he worked for, were ever seriously wrong.

McCain tells Hillary supporters he was for Breyer and Ginsberg?

It's one thing to be a maverick, and another to be a total apostate (although whether McCain was EVER loyal to conservatism is debatable).

Johnny Mac reportedly met privately with Hillary supporters at his Virginia headquarters and, in response to a question about judges, said "he supported Bill Clinton with both Ginsberg and Breyer."

Although it is true that Ginsberg was confirmed by a Senate vote of 96 to 3 and Breyer in an 87 to 9 vote, it is jaw dropping that McCain would say, in 2008 and after Obama voted against John Roberts' appointment, that he supported the appointment of these two judges.

Ginsberg, co-founder of the Women's Rights Project at the ACLU, claimed that the Boy Scouts perpetuate stereotyped sex roles, so they must be gender-integrated or abolished. "Midshipman" should be changed to "midshipperson", and so on. Just two weeks before she gave opening remarks at a lecture series co-sponsored by the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund and to which she lent her name, as a sitting Supreme Court Justice she had supported the side promoted by this feminist lobby group in its friend-of-the-court brief.

Yesterday, the USSC decided in favour of the US Chamber of Commerce against union interests by a 7 to 2 vote. The two dissenters? Ginsberg and Breyer.

What, again, is the point of voting for McCain? To send a message to everyone who has waited patiently to immigrate legally to the USA that they should have entered illegally since they would ultimately be granted an amnesty in the end? To support someone who on Iraq and militarism generally has stood with the Bush neo-cons against paleo-cons like Pat Buchanan? To have a President who explodes in inarticulate rage on a regular basis? An Obama Presidency would be very well received internationally, and although international opinion, along with the opinions of Obama's key American constituencies (blacks, youth, and the educated) must be rejected if Obama's wrong on the issues, if that's to be done it should be crystal clear that Obama is, in fact, wrong. With Obama's recent excellent speech on fatherhood and his backing away from the anti-NAFTA rhetoric, there is reason to believe he might give more heed to moderating voices, like Austan Goolsbee on economic policy, than his Chicago activist days might suggest.

Now, it could be that Will Bower, the source of this McCain quote on judges, is less than totally reliable. As the Ben Smith blog post notes, he's the founder of PUMA ( "Party Unity, My A$$"), and (as claimed by fivethirtyeight)

On Wednesday, Bower attended Larry Sinclair's press conference, saw Sinclair literally accuse Obama of murder, saw Sinclair's lawyer wearing a kilt, saw Sinclair flee the room after the press conference because he was moments away from being arrested, and came away saying that Sinclair's story was "worth exploring".

UPDATE:

Bower now says on fivethirtyeight's comment section that

McCain said that he wants more justices like *Roberts* and *O'Connor*. He did not say that he *wants* justices like Ginsburg and Breyer. He simply stated that he supported Bill Clinton's authority to nominate justices, and that he (McCain) felt that Ginsberg and Breyer were far too qualified to be rejected for any ideological reasons.

This suggests that the Straight Talk Express hasn't completely derailed (and if there are further reliability questions, they'd likely be better put to Ben Smith than Bowers). McCain's suggestion elsewhere that Alito was too brazenly conservative for him, which I've noted earlier, indicate that a preference for Roberts and O'Connor is entirely plausible, especially before an audience of Clintonites. That he would prefer O'Connor to a Scalia is not going to impress conservatives, of course, but at least he voted for Roberts, which Obama did not. That Obama was unwilling to extend to Roberts what McCain was willing to extend to Ginsberg and Breyer certainly supports the argument that McCain is more centrist and bipartisan than Obama.

And McCain remains fundamentally more correct on some important policy issues.

Obama the uniter

Obama's "arrival" on the national stage came with his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Amongst his memorable lines:

Even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spinmasters and negative-ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight: There's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there is the United States of America.

Call me cold, call me cynical, but this sort of thing doesn't really move me. According to the National Journal, Obama was the most liberal Senator in 2007. When you consider that there are 100 Senators, this 1st place showing is significant. John McCain, meanwhile, was, between 2002 and 2006 (he did not receive a rating in 2007 because he missed too many votes) the 45th, 44th, 49th, 45th, and 46th most conservative Senator. In 2004, only two Republicans were considered more liberal than McCain, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Olympia Snowe of Maine, and those two were ranked 1 and 2 in Human Events' list of the "Top 10 RiNOS [Republicans in Name Only]" in 2005.

Some asides:
- Mitt Romney was #8 on the Top 10 RiNOs list
- although DiNO would be the presumptive term for a Democrat on the right wing fringe of his or her party, some sources indicate that "Fox News liberal" or "Fox Democrat" is the preferred term, especially when the context is the extent of agreement with or deference to their conservative and/or Republican counterparts in media fora like TV talk shows.

Given that Chafee, who voted against the Iraq War authorization when Hillary Clinton voted for it, has subsequently left the party and even endorsed Obama, one can argue that Snowe is the only Republican Senator consistently to McCain's left, meaning that McCain is to the left of more than 95% of his party colleagues in the upper house. Although that might be overstating it, keep in mind that Chafee was the only Republican to vote against Samuel Alito's Supreme Court nomination (Alito was confirmed by a 58 to 42 vote), and McCain, in turn, has stated, disapprovingly, that Alito "wore his conservatism on his sleeve". Elsewhere, when asked if "Wouldn't it be great if you get a chance to name somebody like Roberts and Alito?" McCain replied "Well, certainly Roberts" (John Roberts, current Chief Justice of the US, was confirmed 78 to 22). Certainly McCain is not conservative on immigration (even libertarians would have reservations about his vote against an immigration bill amendment putting more weight on job skills than on family ties).

Should it be any surprise that both parties are nominating candidates on the left fringe of their respective parties (as evidenced by voting records, which I suggest is far more predictive than rhetoric)? Of course not: everyone knows that 2008 should be one of the best years ever for left leaning (on the US spectrum) candidates. But the Democrats are in serious danger of over-reaching here. McCain is already far more competitive in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Florida than Democrats should be comfortable with.

If Obama's support should significantly change, I think it is more likely to go down than up. Not because of anything Obama does in 2008 or because of past ethical concerns, but because of stories that suggest Obama's more distant history is relatively out of step with the American mainstream. Obama gave a great speech re Jeremiah "a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell" Wright (photo above) but that doesn't change the fact Obama joined and remained with a church whose leader was most definitely on the fringe.

Who else might come out of Chicago to say that, since going national, Obama is using uniting rhetoric to cover an activist past (and inclination)? Charles Lipson identifies several possibilities. Of particular note is the observation that while Obama, bomber-turned-professor Bill Ayers, and leading Palestinian activist Rashid Khalidi served on the board of the Woods Fund, the Fund gave $40 000 to the Arab American Action Network. Obama's real attitudes with respect to the Middle East conflict may, indeed, become a major issue. Ali Hasan Abunimah, an advocate of the single state solution (in which Jews in the region would likely lose political power by virtue of becoming a minority) and a co-founder of the Electonic Intifada, writes:

... I met [Obama] about half a dozen times, often at Palestinian and Arab-American community events in Chicago including a May 1998 community fundraiser at which Edward Said was the keynote speaker. In 2000, when Obama unsuccessfully ran for Congress I heard him speak at a campaign fundraiser hosted by a University of Chicago professor. On that occasion and others Obama was forthright in his criticism of US policy ....
The last time I spoke to Obama ... [h]e responded warmly, and volunteered, "Hey, I'm sorry I haven't said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I'm hoping when things calm down I can be more up front." He referred to my activism, including columns I was contributing to the Chicago Tribune critical of Israeli and US policy, "Keep up the good work!"

Abunimah's piece includes a photo of Obama talking with Chicago scholar and Palestinian activist Edward Saïd, a "good friend" and fellow traveller of Noam Chomsky.

Now just as Stephen Harper has a history of association with various "right wing" outfits, Obama's connections with leftist Chicago preachers and/or Palestinian activists may not preclude him from the highest office in the land, were it not for the fact that so many Obama advisors of 2008 have butted heads with the "Israel lobby".

Barack Obama's military adviser and national campaign co-chairman Merrill "Tony" McPeak, former US Air Force Chief of Staff, told the Oregonian that the "problem" is in "New York City. Miami. [where there is] a large vote in favor of Israel. And no politician wants to run against it." Robert Malley, another Obama foreign affairs advisor, has come under attack for what are claimed to be anti-Israel views. Same goes for advisors Zbigniew Brzezinski and Samantha "[Hillary] is a monster" Power. Ditto for Susan Rice and donor George "anti-Semitism is caused by Israel and the US" Soros.

Naturally all this makes many voters even more enthusiastic about Obama. And it might ultimately say more about the power of the "Israel lobby" than about Obama if the issue becomes a deal breaker for him. But the people who oppose Israel are not swing voters. According to Gallup, Americans sympathize with Israel over the Palestianians by more than a 3 to 1 margin. Even if Israel is indeed the primary problem causer over there, Obama will end up seriously offside with the US swing voters in the north-east if it should come out that everything besides his national campaign speeches (i.e. his pre-Senate, Chicago days and the background of his advisors) suggests he's with the Palestinians, or, more generally, America's victims.

When I first arrived in Ottawa six years ago my immediate supervisor was a speechwriter for Paul Martin. Martin was so scripted even his apparent asides were scripted! There was plenty of doubt within the Finance Department that Martin would have a sense of direction after he left our people, in particular our policy experts, in Finance to surround himself with his own yes-men in the PMO. I don't doubt that Obama is genuinely skilled at giving speeches. But I do have my doubts concerning how much campaign speeches say about a politician's real inclinations.

mind the gap

In New Jersey, a state that has not voted Republican since Reagan was in the White House, today Rasmussen polling reports that McCain leads Clinton by 3% and Obama by 1%.

But of particular note is that fact that, among men only, McCain would lead Clinton by 29%. Among women only, Clinton leads by 21%.

That's a full 50 point gender gap.