Sen. Obama's Iraq Pretzel

The Obama Campaign announced today that their candidate will be delivering a “major” address on Iraq tomorrow in Washington. This comes on the heels of Sen. Obama’s op-ed in the New York Times on Iraq today, or more appropriately, on his new and improved Iraq Plan 2.0.

In this piece he conspicuously neglects a few little pieces of truth which are a bit inconvenient to him and his claims of heightened judgment. He opens:

The call by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for a timetable for the removal of American troops from Iraq presents an enormous opportunity. We should seize this moment to begin the phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated, and that is needed for long-term success in Iraq and the security interests of the United States.

It is true that he has long called for a retreat – euphemistically labeled a “phased redeployment” – from Iraq, but that is not something he ought to go around pounding his chest over, for it demonstrates his poor judgment since – at least – January ‘07. That was the month when President Bush announced his surge of forces, a decision which – for the record – Sen McCain had been calling for since American forces set foot on Iraqi sand. Then, as now, Sen. Obama went on the record and boldly made the following black and white argument:

I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse. I think it takes pressure off the Iraqis to arrive at the sort of political accommodation that every observer believes is the ultimate solution to the problems we face there. So I am going to actively oppose the president’s proposal…. I think he is wrong, and I think the American people believe he’s wrong.

To his ultimate chagrin however, events (or what Machiavelli called fortuna) would not stand by Sen. Obama. The surge was and has been an unqualified success. That he did not have the judgment to see that this was possible and that he failed to either recognize or acknowledge the surge’s dramatic effect subsequently is something he would like us all to forget, and is something he neglects entirely in his piece. Specifically, in touting his long-held plan of “phased redeployment” he does not mention the policy – which he opposed and consistently preached would fail – that has made it even remotely possible for us to leave Iraq without it being an unmitigated disaster in every conceivable way to do so.

He will never admit it, but as Peter Wehner writes, “It is because President Bush endorsed a counterinsurgency plan which Senator Obama fiercely opposed that we are in a position to both withdraw additional combat troops and prevail in Iraq.” Nor will he admit that it was because Sen. McCain took such a personal and momentous role in seeing that Congress supported – or at least did not thwart – the successful implementation of that surge that Sen. Obama can claim the recalibrated position on Iraq he does today.

Sen. Obama continues in his NYT opinion that “I believed it was a grave mistake to allow ourselves to be distracted from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban by invading a country that posed no imminent threat and had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.”

Even if we accept that going into Iraq initially distracted us from our fight against al-Qaeda, that still does not absolve the fact that Sen. Obama recklessly called for American retreat from Iraq after it became the central front in the war on terror. In other words, it may not have been so originally, but the fact is indisputable that Iraq is now the central front – as al Qaeda itself has said – and has been since the end of initial combat there.

Sen. Obama also declares that as president he will “give the military a new mission: ending this war.”

Of course, ending the war has been the goal of everyone on every side of this issue since it was an issue, the disagreement being over the prudent and most effective way of ending the war, not actually whether to end it.

Sen. Obama determined that we ought to get out yesterday, consequences be damned. He sought nothing but ending the war for that sake alone, either neglecting to consider the adverse ramifications that would come as certainly as gravity or callously disregarding them.

Sen. McCain took the opposite tact. He determined that anything less than ending the war in victory would entail costs far more than this country could bear. So he doubled the bet and lobbied for increased force levels which then secured the country and put a strong foot up the collective ass of al Qaeda. As a result, the United States is now courting victory and it is possible for Sen. Obama to advance the one half of his plan that never would have been made possible by the other.

*****

At this point Sen. Obama’s pretzel is complete. After all these months and even years of tearing Sen. McCain to shreds over his judgment on Iraq, he has slowly walked over and taken a position right next to him, secretly adopting the Republican’s positions while still criticizing him every bit as vociferously as before. He has begun to admit – or his surrogates have – that circumstances might render his plans inoperable and has even pledged to consult with commanders on the ground before making any definitive and ill-advised decisions. Ultimately, his “phased redeployment” – now that victory in Iraq is all but achieved – probably isn’t that much different from the process of redeployment currently in operation.

Essentially, Sen. Obama is now the beneficiary of Sen. McCain’s judgement and statesmanship. He scored his political points assaulting Sen. McCain on Iraq and can now enjoy the fruits of those very same policies as a candidate in the general.

Accordingly, I would submit that Sen. Obama ought to thank Sen. McCain, at least when no one is looking. If it weren’t for him he might have had to actually answer for the consequences of his proposals, or would at least have to spend time finding some other way to blame Sen. McCain for the mess in Iraq that in reality his own policies prescripted.

Don’t worry, Sen. Obama; words need not be spoken. On behalf of Sen. McCain and all those who opposed your reckless positions – you’re welcome. Enjoy the pretzel.

Preserve the Electoral College

The Electoral College has come under increasing siege in recent years, to the point now that there is an effort – touched upon in these pages a few days ago by Scott Lehigh – to undermine it through the national popular vote interstate agreement. The Washington State Senate has already passed a version of this accord once and it will undoubtedly come into consideration once again when the legislative session begins early next year. Washingtonians as well as all Americans should be on their guard, for a national popular vote will fail to yield the benefits its proponents promise.

In describing the Electoral College as "that most antiquated of arrangements," Mr. Lehigh blithely ignores the real benefits it confers upon our democracy. It compels candidates to adopt moderate approaches and to build truly national coalitions of voters, thereby discouraging political extremism from either the right or left.

Further, trading the Electoral College for a national popular vote would bring about a smaller – not broader – national campaign. Only required to get the most popular votes, the major candidates would need only to retreat to the major metropolitan areas and/or into their biggest bases of support to engage in dueling contests of running up the score. Without the allure of electoral votes, they would have no incentive to visit and address the concerns and interests of the middling to minimally populated states that do receive attention now, such as Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Missouri, New Hampshire and, yes, Washington.

The Electoral College also serves as a bulwark against corruption and electoral fraud. In a close presidential election decided by popular vote, fraud in one major metropolitan area could be enough to swing the election one way or another. That this is a real possibility only increases the incentive – and thus the likelihood – for someone to engage in such an effort in the right circumstances.

Under the current system though, voter fraud can be isolated to one state without it necessarily swinging the entire election. The threat of corruption is still real, but the Electoral College goes a long way in reducing it.

Mr. Lehigh also misses the point when he bemoans the fact that so many states are currently ignored to the benefit of a select few "battleground states." As Tara Ross has pointed out, the reason these states don’t receive the attention more closely-contested ones do is because they "already feel that one of the two presidential candidates represents their interests fairly well."

Ultimately, even though there is nothing technically illegal or unconstitutional about the national popular vote effort, it is a (borrowing Mr. Lehigh’s term) "clever" short-cut in changing the Constitution without actually going through the process of amending it and winning the national debate doing so would require. In other words, it has the same drawbacks as a national popular vote, which is reason enough for us to preserve a system that has always given us the benefit of truly national and moderate presidential elections and presidents.

Simply put, the Electoral College is good for American democracy and we should keep it.

Davis v. FEC

Follow and support the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform (McCain-Feingold) too much and you might begin to think we live in some strange vortex where the Constitution and its First Amendment do not really mean what they say. Disabusing this notion if and where it exists (in this case at least), the Court held in Davis v. FEC that §§319(a) and (b) violate the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. In his opinion for the Court, Justice Alito wrote that, "the unprecedented step of imposing different contribution and coordinated party expenditure limits on candidates vying for the same seat is antithetical to the First Amendment" and the "argument that a candidate’s speech may be restricted in order to ‘level electoral opportunities’ has ominous implications because it would permit Congress to arrogate the voters’ authority to evaluate the strengths of candidates competing for office."

Justice Alito and the Court are correct and their conclusion is the only one reconcilable with the text of the First Amendment, which mandates that "Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech." The language is pretty explicit, and it certainly does not say (as it would have to for this provision to be Constitutionally permissible) that "Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, except when Congress determines that doing so will help level the playing field between competing candidates for Congress."

Hoping to preserve its prerogative to regulate political speech, the government argued that the provision is justified "because it ameliorates the deleterious effects that result from the tight limits that federal election law places on individual campaign contributions and coordinated party expenditures." However that is neither here nor there. The First Amendment says without exception that Congress shall not abridge the freedom of speech period, irrespective of the putative salutary effects and benefits of doing so. As Justice Alito pointed out, by penalizing an individual’s unfettered exercise of his right to free speech the government therebyn abridges it.

Noble intentions do not justify violating the text of the First Amendment. The Constitution does in fact actually mean what it says.