[Peace-discuss] Who's got change? (II)

[C. G. Estabrook]

The WSJ recognizes today (below) that Obama, not McCain, is the leading
candidate for Bush's Third Term.  Some of the Journal's particulars are
debatable, but it's surely correct to stress Bush-Obama continuity.
(Cf. similar continuity in Reagan-Clinton and Thatcher-Blair.)
	
It'll be interesting to see if McCain will be bold enough (or desperate enough)
to "triangulate" away and run as the "peace" candidate against Obama-Bush.
	
Obama of course is already aligned with that faction within the Bush
administration (where the only real foreign policy debate in the US is going on)
who want more war in AfPak. (He said he wanted to expand the military, send US
soldiers from Iraq to Afghanistan, bomb "militants" in Pakistan without regard
for the Pakistani government, attack Iran if they look like getting a nuclear
weapon, etc.)  Obama has indicated that as president he'd retain SOD Gates and
Generalissimo Petraeus.
	
After all, the history of the last hundred years in the US is that Democrat
presidents preside over war and expansion and Republican presidents, peace and
recession.  The recession seems to be underway, and the Republican candidate's
historic role awaits McCain.  Will he be clever enough to take it? --CGE

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	Wall Street Journal
	July 2, 2008
	Bush's Third Term

We're beginning to understand why Barack Obama keeps protesting so vigorously
against the prospect of "George Bush's third term." Maybe he's worried that
someone will notice that he's the candidate who's running for it.

Most Presidential candidates adapt their message after they win their party
nomination, but Mr. Obama isn't merely "running to the center." He's fleeing
from many of his primary positions so markedly and so rapidly that he's
embracing a sizable chunk of President Bush's policy. Who would have thought
that a Democrat would rehabilitate the much-maligned Bush agenda?

Take the surveillance of foreign terrorists. Last October, while running with
the Democratic pack, the Illinois Senator vowed to "support a filibuster of any
bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies" that
assisted in such eavesdropping after 9/11. As recently as February, still
running as the liberal favorite against Hillary Clinton, he was one of 29
Democrats who voted against allowing a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee
reform of surveillance rules even to come to the floor.

Two weeks ago, however, the House passed a bill that is essentially the same as
that Senate version, and Mr. Obama now says he supports it. Apparently legal
immunity for the telcos is vital for U.S. national security, just as Mr. Bush
has claimed. Apparently, too, the legislation isn't an attempt by Dick Cheney to
gut the Constitution. Perhaps it is dawning on Mr. Obama that, if he does become
President, he'll be responsible for preventing any new terrorist attack. So now
he's happy to throw the New York Times under the bus.

Next up for Mr. Obama's political blessing will be Mr. Bush's Iraq policy. Only
weeks ago, the Democrat was calling for an immediate and rapid U.S. withdrawal.
When General David Petraeus first testified about the surge in September 2007,
Mr. Obama was dismissive and skeptical. But with the surge having worked wonders
in Iraq, this week Mr. Obama went out of his way to defend General Petraeus
against MoveOn.org's attacks in 2007 that he was "General Betray Us." Perhaps he
had a late epiphany.

Look for Mr. Obama to use his forthcoming visit to Iraq as an excuse to drop
those withdrawal plans faster than he can say Jeremiah Wright "was not the
person that I met 20 years ago." The Senator will learn – as John McCain has
been saying – that withdrawal would squander the gains from the surge, set back
Iraqi political progress, and weaken America's strategic position against Iran.
Our guess is that he'll spin this switcheroo as some kind of conditional
commitment, saying he'll stay in Iraq as long as Iraqis are making progress on
political reconciliation, and so on. As things improve in Iraq, this would be
Mr. Bush's policy too.

Mr. Obama has also made ostentatious leaps toward Mr. Bush on domestic issues.
While he once bid for labor support by pledging a unilateral rewrite of Nafta,
the Democrat now says he favors free trade as long as it works for "everybody."
His economic aide, Austan Goolsbee, has been liberated from the five-month
purdah he endured for telling Canadians that Mr. Obama's protectionism was
merely campaign rhetoric. Now that Mr. Obama is in a general election, he can't
scare the business community too much.

Back in the day, the first-term Senator also voted against the Supreme Court
nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito. But last week he agreed with their
majority opinion in the Heller gun rights case, and with their dissent against
the liberal majority's ruling to ban the death penalty for rape. Mr. Obama seems
to appreciate that getting pegged as a cultural lefty is deadly for national
Democrats – at least until November.

This week the great Democratic hope even endorsed spending more money on
faith-based charities. Apparently, this core plank of Mr. Bush's "compassionate
conservatism" is not the assault on church-state separation that the ACLU and
liberals have long claimed. And yesterday, Mr. Obama's campaign unveiled an ad
asserting his support for welfare reform that "slashed the rolls by 80 percent."
Never mind that Mr. Obama has declared multiple times that he opposed the
landmark 1996 welfare reform.

* * *

All of which prompts a couple of thoughts. The first is that Mr. Obama doesn't
seem to think American political sentiment has moved as far left as most of the
media claim. Another is that the next President, whether Democrat or Republican,
is going to embrace much of Mr. Bush's foreign and antiterror policy whether he
admits it or not. Think Eisenhower endorsing Truman's Cold War architecture.

Most important is the matter of Mr. Obama's political character – and how honest
he is being about what he truly believes. His voting record in the Senate and in
Illinois, as well as his primary positions, would make him the most liberal
Presidential candidate since George McGovern in 1972. But he clearly doesn't
want voters to believe that in November. He's still the Obama Americans don't know.

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