Courage Makes A Majority

Tonight’s debate was a great tribute to both candidates. Their civility towards each other and their willingness to discuss the issues instead of attack each other was a win for both of them.  I walk away from the debate feeling more comfortable about the prospects of the presidency should Hillary win the nominations.

However, I really, truly believe, that, given his performance tonight, Barack Obama is the best candidate for President.  There are two reasons for that.  First, the easy one: Iraq.  Barack made a very compelling point on the issue of Iraq.  He is the best candidate to contrast the position versus the Republican candidate, most likely John McCain.  Look at what Obama says after Wolf Blitzer asks him about Iraq.
“It was not just a problem of execution.  I mean, they screwed up the execution of it in all sorts of ways. And I think even Senator McCain has acknowledged that.

The question is: Can we make an argument that this was a conceptually flawed mission, from the start?

And we need better judgment when we decide to send our young men and women into war, that we are making absolutely certain that it is because there is an imminent threat, that American interests are going to be protected, that we have a plan to succeed and to exit, that we are going to train our troops properly and equip them properly and put them on proper rotations and treat them properly when they come home.

And that is an argument that I think we are going to have an easer time making if they can’t turn around and say: But hold on a second; you supported this.  And that’s part of the reason why I think that I would be the strongest nominee on this argument of national security.”

[Emphasis mine]

Bingo.  A large majority of American’s believe that war was a mistake and want out.  Barack Obama can stand there at the podium and say “I was against this war from the beginning, even when it wasn’t politically safe to say so”.  Hillary can not.  Furthermore, everytime she is asked about that vote, she has to go into this long winded explanation of why she wasn’t wrong to vote for it even though now she would be against it.  Like this.

BLITZER: I’m going to let Senator Clinton respond. Senator Clinton, you always say, if you knew then what you know now, you wouldn’t have voted like that. But why can’t you just say right now that that vote was a mistake?

CLINTON: Well, Wolf, I think that if you look at what was going on at the time — and certainly, I did an enormous amount of investigation and due diligence to try to determine what if any threat could flow from the history of Saddam Hussein being both an owner of and a seeker of weapons of mass destruction.

The idea of putting inspectors back in — that was a credible idea. I believe in coercive diplomacy. I think that you try to figure out how to move bad actors in a direction that you prefer in order to avoid more dire consequences.

And if you took it on the face of it and if you took it on the basis of what we hoped would happen with the inspectors going in, that in and of itself was a policy that we’ve used before. We have used the threat of force to try to make somebody change their behavior.

I think what no one could have fully appreciated is how obsessed this president was with this particular mission. And unfortunately, I and others who warned at the time, who said, let the inspectors finish their work, you know, do not wage a preemptive war, use diplomacy, were just talking to a brick wall.

But you know, it’s clear that if I had been president, we would have never diverted our attention from Afghanistan. When I went to Afghanistan the first time and was met by a young soldier from New York, in the 10th Mountain Division who told me that I was being welcomed to the forgotten frontlines in the war against terror, that just, you know, just struck me so forcefully.

We have so many problems that we are going to have to untangle. And it will take everyone — it will take a tremendous amount of effort.

But the one thing I’m convinced of is that, if we go into our campaign against the Republicans with the idea that we are as strong as they are and we are better than they are on national security, that we can put together an effective strategy to go after the terrorists — because that is real, that is something that we cannot ignore at our peril — then we will be able to join the issues of the future.

And I think that’s what Americans are focused on. What are we going to do going forward? Because day after day, what I spend my time working on is trying to help pick up the pieces for families and for injured soldiers, you know, trying to make sure that they get the help that they need, trying to give the resources that are required.

We had to fight to get body armor. You know, George Bush sent people to war without body armor.

Well Hillary, was it a mistake or not?  If Hillary is our nominee, the war becomes a NON-issue for this election.  That is not good for the public discourse or the election.  On this issue alone, it is enough to make me choose Obama.  However, let me go to a different point.  One that was more subtle the mortgage crisis answer.  Here is what Hillary is proposing.

“I think it’s imperative that we approach this mortgage crisis with the seriousness that it is presenting. There are 95,000 homes in foreclosure in California right now. I want a moratorium on foreclosures for 90 days so we can try to work out keeping people in their homes instead of having them lose their homes, and I want to freeze interest rates for five years.”

On the surface, it is a very intriguing and probably popular policy suggestion.  But Obama digs a little deeper into the issue on his response.

“On the mortgage crisis, again, we both believe that this is a critical problem. It’s a huge problem in California and all across the country. And we agree that we have to keep people in their homes.  I have put forward a $10 billion home foreclosure prevention fund that would help to bridge the lender and the borrower so that people can stay in their homes.

I have not signed on to the notion of an interest rates freeze, and the reason is not because we need to protect the banks. The problem is, is that if we have such a freeze, mortgage interest rates will go up across the board and you will have a lot of people who are currently trying to get mortgages who will actually have more of a difficult time.  So, some of the people that we want to protect could end up being hurt by such a plan.”

I hadn’t thought about it that way, but he is right.  By freezing current ARMs for the next five years, banks will increase the cost of new loans to cover the lost interest on the frozen ARMs.  That hurts new buyers.  Come to think of it, since the great majority of mortgages are movable.  If you sell your house and by a new one, you end up paying more on the new mortgage than you would have had the ARM rates not been frozen.  As Barack says, this ends up hurting some of the people you are trying to protect.

That’s all for now.  YES WE CAN!