What We'd Like to Hear The New York Times | Editorial
Thursday 06 March 2008
Like so many of the other supposedly decisive moments in this
campaign - the New Hamp****re
primary and Super Tuesday spring to mind - Tuesday night's showdown in
Texas and Ohio once again
failed to resolve the Democratic presidential nominating contest. That
does not trouble us. It
means, at least, that the absurd front-loading of the primary season did
not do what we feared:
deprive the majority of Democratic voters of the chance to be heard.
And it means that there is still a chance to take this campaign and
elevate it, finally, to
a serious debate about major issues. That is what American voters deserve.
And that is what
Democrats must do if they hope to break the Republican grip on the White
House.
After eight damaging and divisive years, there is certainly a lot
that needs to be debated
starting with President Bush's disastrous war, his tax cuts for the rich,
regulatory
incompetence and neglect and unrelenting assaults on civil rights, civil
liberties and the
balance of powers in government.
In other words, something quite different than the schoolyard shoving
contest we've
witnessed over the last few weeks between Senators Barack Obama and
Hillary Rodham Clinton, and
their increasingly out-of-control "surrogates." Mrs. Clinton's camp
continues to be responsible
for most of the nastiness we've seen this primary season, and there were
signs that they were
drawing the wrong lesson from Tuesday's vote: that "red phone" ads and
hardball tactics will win
the day. Mr. Obama's team increasingly acts as though this exercise in
democracy should be a
coronation, and Mrs. Clinton should bow out of the room.
For Democrats, changing this dynamic is all the more urgent because
Senator John McCain has
now won the Republican nomination, and he visited the White House on
Wednesday to collect the
dubious blessing of Mr. Bush's endorsement. Mr. McCain is now free to
enjoy the food fight
knowing that whoever wins the Democratic nomination will be weakened. He
can now hone his attack
for the fall.
Democrats have certainly registered their interest in this election.
The turnout has set
new records all over the country, and both Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton have
collected votes on a
scale usually reserved for the winner of the nomination.
The quality of this contest has not reflected that interest or the
candidates' intellect.
Instead of a serious debate about trade, Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton have
engaged in a depressing
fit of pandering to voters in economically troubled Ohio. They tripped
over each other in
ru****ng to attack the 14-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement
rather than offering
voters honest answers about what government can and should do to help them
adapt to
globalization's challenges.
Instead of talking soberly about how to lead the United States out of
the war in Iraq, Mrs.
Clinton has been trying to scare Americans with ringing red phones and
dark suggestions that Mr.
Obama won't be able to keep America's children safe. Mr. Obama has
belittled Mrs. Clinton's
considerable experience, as first lady and as a senator, suggesting -
wrongly - that her 2002
vote for the Iraq force resolution makes her incapable of now ending the
war. The plain truth is
that neither has been tested as a leader in a national crisis, which puts
them in the same
company as virtually every other presidential candidate in history,
including Mr. McCain.
Even if their differences on Iraq are negligible, Mr. Obama and Mrs.
Clinton should still
debate the issue, explaining how they plan to bring American troops home
and contain the chaos.
Iraq has receded for now, but it will be an im****tant issue this fall in
the competition against
Mr. McCain, who offers not the slightest change from President Bush's
tragically failed policies.
Instead of talking seriously about reforming health care, each side
has run attack ads
distorting the other's proposals. There has been some discussion about
taxes, the home-mortgage
crisis and the slowing economy - but mostly when the candidates are asked
about these issues
during debates.
The election seems stuck where it has been for months. Mrs. Clinton's
distinctly more
negative campaign has left her open to bad memories of her husband's
administration. Mr. Obama's
notions of transformational change are as airy and unformed as they were
when he first began
using them.
Meanwhile, the candidates are spending obscene amounts of money. Now
that he's the champion
money-raiser, Mr. Obama has backed away from his proposal to run the
general election on public
funds. He should take up that pledge again - now.
Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain owe the American public far more
transparency than they have
given. Mrs. Clinton has not released her income tax returns or made public
the donors to her
husband's library and foundation. Mr. McCain is withholding medical
records that Americans need
to read before they are asked to vote for a 71-year-old man with a spotty
medical history.
It's unclear how the Democratic campaign will end. But that's fine.
Nearly a third of the
50 states have yet to hold a nominating contest. Before they do, we'd like
to hear fewer
character attacks and a lot more discussion of the nation's many problems
after nearly eight
years of failed Republican rule. That is the Democrats' comparative
advantage. They should start
to use it now.
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Finally, the campaigns of 1793 and 1794 set Clausewitz on the path of
recognizing war as a
political phenomenon. Wars, as everyone knew, were fought for a purpose
that was political,
or at least always had political consequences. Not as readily apparent
was the implication
that followed. If war was meant to achieve a political purpose, everything
that entered into
war — social and economic preparation, strategic planning, the conduct of
operations, the
use of violence on all levels — should be determined by this purpose, or
at least accord
with it. Even though soldiers had to acquire special expertise, and
function in what in some
respects was a separate world, it would be a denial of reality to allow
them to carry on
their bloody work undisturbed until an armistice brought their political
employer back into
the equation. Just as war and its institutions reflected their social
environment, so every
aspect of fighting should be suffused by its political impulse, whether
this impulse was
intense or moderate. The appropriate relation****p between politics and war
occupied
Clausewitz throughout his life, but even his earliest manuscripts and
letters show his
awareness of their interaction.
The ease with which this link — always acknowledged in the abstract —
can be forgotten in
specific cases, and Clausewitz’s insistence that it must never be
overlooked, are
illustrated by his polite rejection toward the end of his life of a
strategic problem set by
the chief of the Prussian General Staff, in which every military detail of
the opposing
sides was spelled out, but no mention made of their political purpose. To
a friend who had
sent him the problem for comment, Clausewitz replied that it was not
possible to draft a
sensible plan of operations without indicating the political condition of
the states
involved, and their relation****p to each other: ‘War is not an independent
phenomenon, but
the continuation of politics by different means. Consequently, the main
lines of every major
strategic plan are largely political in nature, and their political
character increases the
more the plan applies to the entire campaign and to the whole state. A war
plan results
directly from the political conditions of the two warring states, as well
as from their
relations to third powers. A plan of campaign results from the war plan,
and frequently - if
there is only one theater of operations - may even be identical with it.
But the political
element even enters the separate components of a campaign; rarely will it
be without
influence on such major episodes of warfare as a battle, etc. According to
this point of
view, there can be no question of a purely military evaluation of a great
strategic issue,
nor of a purely military scheme to solve it.’
Everyman’s Library, 1993 ISBN: 0679420436 On war /by Clausewitz, Carl
von, 1780-1831.
Knopf, 1993. From the introduction by Peter Paret, Pg7
_____________________________________________________________________
The U-2 is a jet-powered reconnaissance aircraft specially designed to fly
at high altitudes
(i.e., above 70,000 ft [21 km]). It was used during the late 1950s to
overfly the Soviet
Union, China, the Middle East, and Cuba; flights over the Soviet Union,
the primary mission
for which the plane was designed, ended in 1960 when a U-2 flown by CIA
pilot Gary Powers
was shot down over the Soviet Union. This event was a major political
embarrassment for the U.S.
http://www.espionageinfo.com/Te-Uk/U-2-Spy-Plane.html
Soviet Prime Minister Khrushchev's reaction to the overflights which
were discovered
just before a summit conference in Paris with President Eisenhower: "It
was as though the
Americans had deliberately tried to place a time bomb under the meeting" .
. ."How could
they count on us to give them a helping hand if we allowed ourselves to be
spat upon without
so much as a murmur of protest?" The only solution was to demand a formal
public apology
from Eisenhower and a guarantee that no more overflights would take place
. . .
But the apology Khrushchev was looking for would not come. Despite
having trespassed
on the Soviet Union for the past four years with scores of flights by both
U-2's and heavy
bombers, the old general still could not say the words, it was just not in
him. . . A time
bomb had exploded, prematurely ending the summit conference. . .
Back in Wa****ngton, the mood was glum. The Senate Foreign Relations
Committee was
leaning toward holding a closed door investigation into the U-2 incident .
. . In public,
Eisenhower maintained a brave face. He "heartily approved" of the
congressional probe and
would 'of course fully cooperate,' he quickly told anyone who asked. But
in private he was
very troubled. For weeks he had tried to head off the investigation. His
major concern was
that his own personal involvement in the overflights would surface,
especially the May Day
disaster. Equally, he was very worried that details of the dangerous
bomber overflights
would leak out. The massed overflight may in fact, have been one of the
most dangerous
actions ever approved by a president.
pg. 51-55 ~Body of Secrets; Anatomy of the Ultra Secret National Security
Agency
James Bamford
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of
the progress of
human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims,
have been born of
earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating,
all-absorbing, and for the time
being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does
nothing. If there is
no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and
yet depreciate
agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want
rain without
thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its
many waters."
"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may
be both moral and
physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a
demand. It never did
and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to
and you have found
out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon
them, and these will
continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.
The limits of
tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the
light of these
ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North, and held and flogged at the
South so long as
they submit to those devilish outrages, and make no resistance, either
moral or physical.
Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must certainly
pay for all they
get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us,
we must pay for
their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and
if needs be, by our
lives and the lives of others."
http://www.buildingequality.us/Quotes/Frederick_Douglass.htm
Frederick Douglass, 1857
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http://www.politicsusaweb.com/
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