Fortune Favors the Bold

“Fortune favors the brave.”

--Virgil--

“When you meet your antagonist, do everything in a mild and agreeable manner. Let your courage be as keen, but at the same time as polished, as your sword.”

--Richard Brinsley Sheridan--

“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”

--Mark Twain--

Most of the media has seized upon the recent bickering between the Clinton and Obama campaigns to help generate ratings. The truth is that the recent bickering is tailor made for increased interest by the public because it seemed to involve hot buttons topics like race and gender. However, in my opinion, the media has not taken the time to really analyze the true reasons behind the attack that started the recent barbs that have been flying back and forth between the Clinton and Obama camps. Before I go any further I feel obliged to restate that I am a Barack Obama supporter so although I believe I have been objective in my analysis, it is more than possible that there is some bias in it. Judge the message first before turning to the messenger.

The attacks between the two camps are not about race. The attacks are not about gender. They are about votes. The recent attacks are about an inconvenient reality that the Clinton camp has in regards to the battle for votes with Barack Obama.

Senator Clinton can not call Senator Obama out directly on his opposition to the Iraq War without exposing her own dirt. How so? I will explain. Much of the current bickering started with Bill Clinton’s mischaracterization of Senator Obama’s opposition to the Iraq War. The Clinton’s argue that Senator Obama has been inconsistent in his opposition to the Iraq War by not openly criticizing the 2004 Democratic Nominees during the presidential race, and that he voted for funding for the war after our young men and women were already deployed into harms way. It is a specious argument, but that is not the point. The point is that if the Clintons really wanted to criticize Senator Obama they could have asserted that it took no political courage for him to have opposed the Iraq War since he was a state senator from the Hyde Park neighborhood on the Southside of Chicago, where there was a huge opposition to the war. However, even that argument is debatable since Senator Obama still took a great risk because he was getting ready to run for the United States Senate at the time so if the war would have gone well, that could have killed his U.S. Senate aspirations before they got started.

The Clintons are very shrewd politicians that know how to pick and choose the best arguments for their campaigns. It is a reason why they did not go the political courage route. Choosing that argument presented the greatest risk of having it smack right back in Senator Clinton’s face because her vote for the war in 2002 was not so much an issue of lack of judgment as much as it was an issue of lack of political courage. It is hard to believe that Senator Clinton was not smart enough to know the inherit risks of overthrowing a regime. What did Colin Powell say? “You break it. You buy it.” Her vote was not about Iraq. It was not about weapons of mass destruction. It was about the 2008 presidential election. It was about not having the courage to say no to a very popular President and political party that was labeling anyone that opposed them as either weak or traitors. It was about courage or the lack there of.

Now the Clintons are attempting to have their cake and eat it to. Senator Clinton claims thirty-five years of experience, although she has only eight years of elected experience. She is also in a position where she can not come out directly and claim credit for the successes of her husband’s administration because then she would also have to take the failures as well as the embarrassments. During her interview on Meet the Press this Sunday, Senator Clinton referenced political battles that she was involved in while her Husband was in office, but when asked about the embarrassing issues regarding the last minute pardons that her husband issued, she quickly claimed no prior knowledge of that. That took a lot of audacity to claim the good while trying to ignore the bad all with a straight face. She could have used some of that audacity in 2002.

Comments

[CMonster]

I think most disturbing is the lack of hope expressed my many African Americans who believe they will be wasting their vote by supporting Barack Obama.

While some of these same "sans l'espoirs" believe they should not simply vote for someone because he is black ironically believe they should NOT vote because he is black.

This may be self hatred at its purest. Because voters in the heartland and hinterland of America may discriminate against a candidate of color, they say, it makes no sense to nominate a democratic candidate that would only lose due to lack of support from rednecks.

I believe Mr. Obama's base of support is broader than the African American electorate. However I don't believe he can win without it.

It seems strange to me that the only thing keeping Mr. Obama from a strong run to be the nation's first black president may be black people themselves.

[tim]

My only disagreement with your argument concerning Mr. Obama's Iraq stance is that he continued to fund the war. That seems to have been a purely political calculation. I say that because Kucinich (I know that just butchered the mans name) was in the the U.S. Senate, voted against the resolution to authorize force, and was consistant in his opposition by not voting for one single bill to pay for the war. To me that is truly being against the war.

[avgbrother]

Tim,

Thank you for your comment, but I must disagree with you. Congressman Kucinich (sp) was not in the senate. He was in the house of representatives. Also, voting for funding for the war is not vote to invade. It was a vote to make sure the troops had what they need to survive. It was looking out for the troops. If the funding was stopped once the troops were already in harms way, then Obama or any member of congress, would have been playing a game of "chicken" with the lives and health of regular old men and women in the armed services in order to prove a point or score political points.

Any person that values the lives of regular old folks (that is who is in the armed forces) would never stop the funding for the war because that could leave a lot of soldiers out there to be slaughtered. There is no inconsistency to oppose the war but vote for funding of the war after the troops have been sent into harms way.

Bill Clinton is smart enough to know the difference but that did not stop him from distorting Obama's record in order to score political points. Innocent people should not have to die in order for a politician to appear to be consistent or principled.