Main Course in Need of Side Order
April 3rd, 2008If you think the article I linked to and excerpted from yesterday is damaging to the Clinton campaign, I direct you to this Slate piece about the public education system in Chicago. If you have any interest in education systems in general, it is worth a read for its insight into the unique board system in Chicago. If you are only interested in politics but not necessarily the nuts and bolts of education policy, it is worth a read to gauge Obama. What do I think is the money quote?
The story of Obama’s involvement suggests that on similarly contentious fronts involving national education policy, like the No Child Left Behind Act, he might respond the same way—holding back when powerful interest groups collide, only to support the status quo of local control in the end. The candidate’s Chicago record on education also raises questions about his much-vaunted ability to bring different sides together to find lasting solutions.
That Barack Obama can claim “I can bring different groups together” is fascinating. First of all, Obama has never in fact done so to any real and significant degree, because not sponsoring much legislation, infuriating the Republicans when you offer to work with them on campaign finance and then pull away, and defeating Alan Keyes in a landslide do not make you a uniter, and though he has never “proven” his ability to “bring people together” he is allowed to claim it without much criticism. In fact, countless Obamaniacs love it and believe it, and then make the ridiculous argument that Clinton is the one getting away with hollow claims (about experience). In fact, I think his “lie” is much more egregious. His claim that he can inspire hope and bring people together is a platitude on steroids much akin to Jimmy Carter’s famous pledge to “never lie to you,” and I find it insulting. “I will never lie to you” is the ultimate lie; “I can bring people together” is an inherent falsehood because no one can bring everyone together, no matter how much they try. What does it mean to “bring people together,” anyway? To inspire fifty four percent of the public to vote for you? Only tragedy “unifies” people unequivocally, and that comes during crisis that we should not encourage (like Katrina) or when the masses join at the voting booth to vote against a crank (Goldwater, McGovern, Carter). “Let’s get together” is a bad pick-up line, but I guess it has its niche.
I’m just surprised and disappointed that Democrats of all people would fall for this line. George W. Bush once declared that he was “a uniter, not a divider.” I don’t doubt that he believed or believes that. In 1968, Richard Nixon said, “I saw many signs in this campaign. Some of them were not friendly. Some were very friendly. But the one that touched me the most was — a teenager held up the sign ‘bring us together.’ And that will be the great objective of this administration, at the outset, to bring the American people together.” And he was genuinely interested in it, too. It simply isn’t possible to do what they would have loved to do in a perfect world and what Obama thinks he’s going to do. Obama, and his supporters, should start thinking more about what they would do if elected to govern because it is much more difficult than they might think. Right now, Barack Obama is a main course in desperate need of side orders.