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Compare and Contrast

Feb 13th, 2008 at 10:12 am by Susie

Eriposte from The Left Coaster on why s/he thinks Hillary Clinton is actually the most progressive candidate.

Posted in Politics As Usual

14 Responses to “Compare and Contrast”

on 13 Feb 2008 at 10:28 am1Susie

Classic. You didn’t even read it - you just know that yours is the Only True Faith and Rev. Moon - sorry, Sen. Obama - is Our Only True Leader.

Here’s a challenge for you: Explain to me what, in your mind, “progressive” means. I wonder why it’s so different than mine.
on 13 Feb 2008 at 11:51 am2Chris

I loved this bit:“There is reasonable doubt as to whether Sen. Obama would have voted against the 2002 Iraq resolution if he had been in the U.S. Senate at the time.” Would that I could pull such delights directly from of my ass for public consumption. Let me give it a try. I admit that some of Clinton’s policy positions are objectively ever so slightly less shitty than Obama’s, but that’s just not enough. I’m certainly not a Moonie, but the good reverend has my support and the only reason I have for that is that he couldn’t and didn’t vote for Authorization to use Force in Iraq. Clinton, Edwards, Biden and Todd all voted for that shit. Didn’t Edwards actually cosponsor it? Awesome! Anyway, people who voted for the Authorization to use Force in Iraq have shown such poor judgement that they should be put on some sort of self injury precaution, have their shoelaces confiscated, the forks and knives removed from their homes and be forced to eat only mushy food with large plastic spoons so they can’t hurt themselves or anyone else. They certainly shouldn’t be President. Stupid? Evil? Both? Fuck if I know, but seriously, fuck the lot of ‘em. If the good reverend comes out looking like roses because he didn’t have the chance to prove himself stupid and/or evil, those are the breaks.
on 13 Feb 2008 at 11:56 am3snuzy mandrake

i have no comment on most of the left coaster’s analysis. as i’ve said before, i think both obama and clinton are strong candidates and that both are unfairly and misleadingly trashed both inside and outside the blogosphere (like susie’s comment #2 above. c’mon susie, the “cultist” thing is totally unfair and seeing you repeat it just makes me want to dismiss you as another irrational obama-hater)

what’s interesting about the left coaster’s analysis is that it completely ignores the main difference between obama’s and clinton’s iran policy: obama is willing to engage in direct negotiations with iran without precondition whereas clinton wants to continue bush’s policy of refusing to talk with them. personally, i think that’s a major difference and it (along with obama’s opposition to the war from the beginning which i’ll talk about below)is a major reason why i think obama is better than clinton. i think it’s odd that if the left coaster is arguing that there is no discernable difference between their positions, s/he would ignore the major argument they have over iran.

and as for the iraq war, i also find the left coaster’s position that “there is reasonable doubt that obama would have voted against the 2002 iraq resolution if he were in the senate” to be an incredibly weak argument, for two reasons:

first, there is a huge difference between voting to fund a war that has already happened and voting to go to war in the first place. they are, simply different issues. there is no logical contradiction between being against an initial invasion and then funding the soldiers who are fighting the war several years into it. and yet that is essentially TLC’s entire basis for “reasonable doubt”

second, more importantly, TLC has the issue about the iraq vote and what it means exactly backwards. look, iraq has already been invaded. that’s happened. you can’t unring a bell. and the next president won’t have to decide whether to invade iraq again under the same conditions there were in 2003. that’s not why the iraq war vote is important.

the reason it’s important is because it gives us a peek at the judgment of the candidates: what would they have done in 2003 if they were sitting in the oval office? would they have make the biggest foreign policy blunder in modern history as george bush did or would they have done something different?

the impetus for the iraq war came completely from the president. it wouldn’t have happened if the bush administration hadn’t wanted the war. so the question is, would president obama or president clinton have pushed for war with iraq?

the answer with regards to obama is “no”, he clearly explained why he thought it was stupid at the time. and the answer with regards to clinton is “i don’t know.” we don’t know because we don’t know if her pro-war vote was because either (a) she actually wanted war with iraq or (b) if the vote was just her caving into political pressure.

if it’s (a) it means she would have been like george bush and actually was pro war. if it was (b), it means that she was not like george bush, she just was a craven politician at the time that i wish she weren’t.

the fact that obama if he were in the senate at the time might also have been (b) does not bother me at all. when it comes to clinton, i’m not concerned about (b), i’m concerned about (a). the president wasn’t pressured into supporting the war in 2002, he was the one creating the pressure. if clinton or obama were president in 2002 there would have been no concern that either would cave into pressure for the war.

get it? it doesn’t bother me at all that we don’t know what obama would have done if he was in congress in 2002. we do know he would have been better than bush as he would not have created pressure on others for the war. we don’t know that about clinton. that’s where “reasonable doubt” comes into play. because of clinton’s vote there are doubts about her judgment that are not a factor with regards to obama. the left coaster doesn’t seem to understand the real concern, at least not my concern.

and iraq and iran are the two main reasons i like obama better than clinton. they are very close on most other things and i think both will make good presidents.
on 13 Feb 2008 at 12:10 pm4Susie

Snuzy, I don’t know that much about foreign policy. But I did read Joe Wilson’s piece on why he prefers Hillary (and why he was appalled by what Obama said about negotiations without preconditions - apparently to his mind, a real blunder) and if we were going to hold him up as an expert against the war, we should probably listen to his opinion now.
on 13 Feb 2008 at 12:11 pm5Snarki, child of Loki

Perhaps I’m out of touch or old-fashioned, but when I think of “progressive”, it’s primarily in terms of the domestic agenda rather than foreign stuff. Not that I have an opinion on who is more or less progressive.

Actually, while it’s interesting that Obama would talk to Iran without “preconditions”, I think it may be more important to talk without “preconceptions”. There’s ‘way too many unexamined assumptions in US foreign policy which makes for terrible results.

So: still undecided, and probably will be for some time. Perhaps Clinton and Obama should try competing on who can beat up on McCain more.
on 13 Feb 2008 at 12:14 pm6brendancalling

“Clinton, Edwards, Biden and Todd all voted for that shit. Didn’t Edwards actually cosponsor it? Awesome! Anyway, people who voted for the Authorization to use Force in Iraq have shown such poor judgement that they should be put on some sort of self injury precaution, have their shoelaces confiscated, the forks and knives removed from their homes and be forced to eat only mushy food with large plastic spoons so they can’t hurt themselves or anyone else. They certainly shouldn’t be President. Stupid? Evil? Both? Fuck if I know, but seriously, fuck the lot of ‘em. If the good reverend comes out looking like roses because he didn’t have the chance to prove himself stupid and/or evil, those are the breaks.”

What Chris says. And also, when war fever was at high pitch, didn’t Obama give some big ol’ speech opposing the war during his senate campaign? that wasn’t exactly running with the tide was it? And yet he did it anyway. I sure wish Clinton had done that.

Or his recent vote on landmines, versus hers.
I agree with noz as well that the cult language is unnecessary. It’s over-the-top and comes off as unhinged (and believe me, I know from unhinged). But more importantly, Noz’s observations vis Obama’s proposed approach to Iran vs. Clinton’s are spot on: why would anyone in their right mind want to continue the stupid and counterproductive “we don’t talk to our enemies” policy? I can’t get behind that.
on 13 Feb 2008 at 12:29 pm7snuzy mandrake

But I did read Joe Wilson’s piece on why he prefers Hillary (and why he was appalled by what Obama said about negotiations without preconditions - apparently to his mind, a real blunder) and if we were going to hold him up as an expert against the war, we should probably listen to his opinion now.

i simply disagree with joe wilson. he seems to me to be too wedded to 30 years of failed policy with iran.

frankly, i think one of the worst legacies of george bush is that it is considered to be a “blunder” to agree to talk to someone. especially when a policy of not talking has been such a spectacular failure (the same goes for cuba, by the way. another country that obama said he was willing to talk to). it was very disappointing when i saw the reaction against obama when he said it.

and again, i find it weird that the TLC post completely ignored that very real difference between obama and clinton–indeed perhaps one of the few substantive policy differences between the two on iran–especially when the conclusion is that there is “no discernable difference” between the two on that issue

Perhaps I’m out of touch or old-fashioned, but when I think of “progressive”, it’s primarily in terms of the domestic agenda rather than foreign stuff.

yeah, people used to say that politics stopped at the border. but that was before we started invading countries for no good reason and sending people abroad to be tortured. like it or not, those are political issues now.
on 13 Feb 2008 at 1:29 pm8Susie

I’m sorry no one wants to read your blog. But if you keep coming here in an attempt to drum up readers by attacking me, I will continue to delete your comments.
on 13 Feb 2008 at 3:25 pm9Snarki, child of Loki

yeah, people used to say that politics stopped at the border. but that was before we started invading countries for no good reason and sending people abroad to be tortured. like it or not, those are political issues now.

Yeah, but I wouldn’t call the “anti-Iraq/torture/etc” position progressive. I’d call it sane. I don’t disagree that it’s a political issue, and a very important one, my comment was more about terminology than anything else.

It’s just that (IMO) a progressive position is much more coherently focussed on domestic issues. Wasn’t Teddy Roosevelt one of the first “progressives”? Yet with an imperialistic foreign policy. It is, in fact, one of the problems with the modern use of the word “progressive”: it doesn’t mean what it once did.

But neither does liberalism, conservativism (hoo boy), or a bunch of other -isms.

So I think a different term is needed to decribe foreign policy positions. Again, I would prefer sane, in marked contrast to the past 7 years.
on 13 Feb 2008 at 3:41 pm10snuzy mandrake

It’s just that (IMO) a progressive position is much more coherently focussed on domestic issues. Wasn’t Teddy Roosevelt one of the first “progressives”? Yet with an imperialistic foreign policy. It is, in fact, one of the problems with the modern use of the word “progressive”: it doesn’t mean what it once did.

exactly. except that in teddy’s time, foreign policy was definitely part of “progressivism”. teddy saw his imperialism as part of his progressive program. the progressive slant was the white man’s burden of freeing the inferior non-white races of the burden of governing themselves and then putting the people into a sort of remedial cultural educational program. that is, to make their “primitive” culture more like our advanced culture.

all of that seems particularly non-progressive to us these days. indeed, the closest equivalent to teddy roosevelt’s colonialism is bush’s neo-colonialism. just as teddy sought to educate the filipinos about our advanced culture, so is bush talking about teaching the a-rabs about democracy.

of course, words change over time. but i also think it’s stupid to argue about who is a “real progressive” when what exactly progressivism is continues to be so nebulous. instead of labels like “progressive” or “liberal”, i’d rather just worry about whose proposals are better. i really could care less if someone proposes a health care proposal “from the right”. if it will provide universal coverage, it’s alright with me.
on 13 Feb 2008 at 3:57 pm11Susie

That’s just silly, Noz. Who’s going to propose universal health coverage from the RIGHT?

Progressive to me means economic and social justice. That pretty much covers it all, including wars of imperialism.
on 13 Feb 2008 at 4:11 pm12snuzy mandrake

Who’s going to propose universal health coverage from the RIGHT?

probably no one. my point is that if there was a way to deliver a result that is good for the country, i’d be for it even if the solution were labeled “right wing”

i don’t really see myself on any team. i dispise bushism not because it’s “on the right” but because it is filled with bad ideas that are ruining the country (and a couple of other countries as well).

so who gives a shit whether a candidates criticism is “from the right”? i care more whether the substance of their criticism is, in fact, right or wrong.
on 13 Feb 2008 at 4:15 pm13Susie

I don’t believe that’s possible. The right wing has its brand, and they work very hard to protect it. Despite the consequences to their party, they still don’t deviate. So playing the labeling game and allowing them to call something conservative to make them happy 1) WON’T make them happy, because they’ll turn around and screw us anyway, as they’ve proved again and again and again and 2) it will dilute the Democratic brand as a result, making us conservative-lite.

Why vote for lite when you can have the real thing?
on 13 Feb 2008 at 5:35 pm14Chris

Quoth Snuzy, “(a) it means she would have been like george bush and actually was pro war. if it was (b), it means that she was not like george bush, she just was a craven politician at the time that i wish she weren’t…(b) does not bother me at all. when it comes to clinton, i’m not concerned about (b)”

I tend to disagree with this. Option (b) really bothers me. What it means is that, when given the choice to do the stupidest, most destructive possible thing, the Senators in question, knowing it was stupid, did it anyway because of a mind numbingly stupid political calculation. It means, if I recall my recent history, that they essentially voted for a war in order to make that very war not a question in the upcoming 2002 mid term elections and talk about kitchen table issues. Not only was this an example of the worst political thinking in known history, it should be criminal. The lot of them should be hunted down like dogs, put on public trial where school children could mock them and spit on their faces.

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Compare and Contrast

14 Responses to “Compare and Contrast”

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