We Should Give the Next President Some Time
This post may be a few months early, but I think it is appropriate that we begin thinking of such things now. When January 20, 2009 rolls around, let us remember that whoever is president won’t have had even twenty-four hours on the job. We may think that either Barack Obama or John McCain would make for a terrible or a great leader now, but when one of them enters office in a few months, our praises and criticisms will need to be tempered by the fact that they won’t have that much of a presidential record to show. I ask, regardless of whomever is the next president, that rather than letting our current opinions of them predetermine how we will see their early decisions, we would let their new record speak for itself. Can we give our new leader a chance in their new role before crowning them a success or condemning them as a failure?
Let us continue to debate which candidate would make for the best president. We must ask hard questions of the candidates and their running mates. We must also ask hard questions of each other, challenging our positions with civility and respect. Let us commit to praying that whoever wins would be wise and just.
I think you’re late with that kind of sentiment, though I truly appreciate your effort and good intentions.
This particular campaign had a chance to be really different given the candidates.
What a shame.
Don’t think we’ll see much slack come January.
That particular outcome gets decided far ahead of time when parties decide how they’re going to run the thing and treat the opposition.
At the risk of sounding partisan, I think the Republicans bear most of the responsibility for making this another especially unprincipled and dishonest fist fight about ‘narratives and ideology and religion and culture wars’ at a time when we really especially need something pragmatic and practical.
Just another Lee Atwater http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater inspired campaign. He and his disciples Karl Rove and James Carville and the current McCain team have helped give us this kind of political landscape. It doesn’t have to be that way.
For those of us looking for a different kind of politics, gotta speak up a lot earlier and identify the real problems. Three months early won’t cut it, though again, I appreciate your sentiments.
Comment by Tom — September 23, 2008 @ 9:40 pm
Tom, are you trying to demonstrate Tyler’s point with an example of what not to do? Given that Axelrod has been linked to the character assassination of Sarah Palin, I don’t think you can claim that McCain’s campaign is responsible while giving Obama’s a pass. There is blame enough for both parties, and the un-self-reflective partisan nature of your comment makes your claim to be “looking for a different kind of politics” appear very hollow. As long as Republicans go on dismissing every criticism of them as liberal media bias, and Democrats attribute every criticism of them to Rovian smear tactics, the political landscape will be unable to get beyond the name-calling to the important issues.
Comment by Timbo — September 24, 2008 @ 6:35 am
I’ve written off nearly any hope that this election would offer a different tone than what we have seen for the past twenty years. My request is that for supporters of Barack Obama, if John McCain wins in November, please don’t predetermine that he is a bad president before he swears in. Similarly, for supporters of McCain, if Obama wins in November, please don’t let your position against Obama now predetermine whether you think he is doing a good job if he is comes into office in January. That is to say, I hope we can avoid the posture where we decide beforehand that the next president can’t do anything right.
Tom, I believe I have been speaking up for a much more civil discourse in society and politics for several months, even years. I remind my readers of past posts regarding this matter. During the 2006 election I wrote a post lamenting the propensity and effectiveness of negative campaigning, arguing that we have ourselves mostly to blame for the negative tone in politics since we are not discerning enough and allow negative advertising to sway us more easily. (See also my post on , or my post regarding the Jeremiah Wright controversy for a couple more examples.) This isn’t something new on my blog.
Comment by Tyler Watson — September 24, 2008 @ 9:21 am
Historically, as I understand from commentators remarks over the last few months, the American people do largely come behind a new president and given him the benefit of the doubt. People appear to rally around a new president at least in anticipation that this might work out well for the country. I think this is why the first one hundred days get so much attention.
Comment by Bill Ekhardt — September 24, 2008 @ 11:42 am
Bill, thanks for your point. I think you are accurate that the majority of the public gives the new president some breathing room. As I wrote the post, I had in mind the most entrenched voices.
Comment by Tyler Watson — September 24, 2008 @ 12:17 pm
We must consider also that there may not be a new president on Jan 20. McCain has suspended his campaign, and is asking Obama to do so as well because of the economic crisis. Bush’s directive would enable him to declare martial law and suspend elections. I’m not saying anything here that is aggressive beyond what is possible within the law, merely stating that we may not have the chance to be critical or give the benefit of the doubt to a new person on Jan 20. Something to keep in mind. Delaying the debates would delay all other things potentially, and if the crisis escalates, things will not go on ‘business as usual’.
Comment by N.J.T. — September 24, 2008 @ 2:37 pm
NJT, the likelihood of what you suggest may happen is, in my opinion, so slim it doesn’t warrant much concern. What directive do you have in mind? Delaying a debate wouldn’t push back a federal election. Debates are not Constitutionally mandated events, whereas elections are (Article II). Even if McCain does suspend his campaign, Obama has every right to continue. Both would still be on the ballots in November and McCain would just be shooting himself in the foot. Congress sets the national election day and I cannot imagine the Democrats in the Congressional majority going along with delaying the election.
Comment by Tyler Watson — September 24, 2008 @ 3:15 pm
I am asking everyone to look at a bigger picture. Hypothetical: McCain steps down, Obama steps down, Directive 51 steps up.
Comment by N.J.T. — September 24, 2008 @ 4:04 pm
1. I think the next president would have already made some key decisions by January 20, that it wouldn’t be too unfair to raise some judgments and criticisms shortly after he takes office. Between Nov. 4 and Jan. 20, he will have formed his cabinet, developed some sort of agenda, and perhaps even organize members of his party in congress with vision for the first 100 days. If (for example) McCain were to choose someone like John Bolton to run his foreign policy, I would not need to wait an hour before critiquing his leadership.
2. I think NJT’s hypothesis is so nonsensical that I’ll place a bet on this blog with NJT whether the scenario (or conspiracy) he’s dreamed up would come to pass…
Comment by Eddy E — September 24, 2008 @ 4:24 pm
Rather than wager money (the value of a dollar isn’t worth – - – nor will be worth – - – what it once was. And I am financially hurting right now given that the proposed 700 billion dollar bailout will take over 2 grand out of my pocket), let us rather come up with something of greater value and sacrifice than money. You just called me a conspiracy theorist. (Hurt my feelings). Why don’t we then wager that I don’t bring my conspiracy laden “dreams” around this blog or any other affiliated with it ever again if indeed what I proposed does not come to pass. As an additional facet of the wager, I must, for instance, delete my blog which has several years of important personal material. If on the other hand you lose our bet, you must apologize for being so badly deceived by all of what is going on, refrain from interaction here, and additionally delete yours. Other suggestions?
But let’s dig deeper, because I find bets of the type you propose EddyE just a way of puffing one’s feathers and attempting to engage in intimidation.
So before making any bets, I will ask you, EddyE, a couple questions: 1) Am I correct in assuming that the fact you proposed a bet with me indicates you are not concerned in the slightest with how the reauthorized Patriot Act and Military Commissions Act were used to arrest eight American citizens on charges of ‘conspiracy to riot in furtherance with terrorism’, (i.e., charged as enemy combatants / homegrown terrorists), that Obama and McCain voted for the revised FISA-spy-on-US-Americans bill that nullifies Amendment 4, or that Directive 51 is in place which, if invoked, the President “may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of United States citizens” (Quote source: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/98-505.pdf )? 2) Given the aforementioned, were I to lose the bet everything is fine and dandy?
“We are accelerating our path to a police state. Two major terror strikes and the White House can turn this country into a police state, stampeding, panicking everybody… violating that wise dictum of Benjamin Franklin: ‘Those who value security over liberty deserve neither.’ ”—Nader.
Comment by N.J.T. — September 24, 2008 @ 5:51 pm
As I said, I appreciate your comments Tyler even if I think they may be a little naive in this case. Nobody’s going to get cut slack in January. That political landscape ended a long time ago.
It’s always good to let bygones be bygones, but the reality is that the modern Republican party perfected the kind of vicious and ultra polarizing politics we’re dealing with right now. It would be good to hear some knowledgeable and honest conservatives who know their history—even if they want to move on—acknowledge that fact for once in some public setting. Some are beginning to do so, and certainly Atwater himself seemed to ask for forgiveness at the end of his life for doing such damage to our political system.
I never know how to respond to your comments directed toward me, Timbo. They always seem to be personal put downs. I don’t think Tyler needs an attack dog to defend him. You seem like a bright guy. I’d love to hear your thoughts at more length in the future.
Comment by Tom — September 24, 2008 @ 9:28 pm
Tom, if my responses to you “always seem to be personal put downs,” it could be because your comments often include uncharitable statements that broad brush conservatives and Republicans (e.g., Republicans want to suppress voter turnout among the poor). Perhaps you don’t mean to link every Republican to these horrific actions, but when generalizations are made disproportionately, it certainly seems like you have grievances and preconceptions about conservatives and Republicans that overlook similar faults in progressives and Democrats. Case in point: you write that “the modern Republican party perfected the kind of vicious and ultra polarizing politics we’re dealing with right now.” Certainly, the modern Republican party has engaged in ultra-polarizing politics. I have no problem acknowledging that. But it takes two to tango, and Democrats have also contributed to the political landscape by engaging in vicious ultra-polarizing politics. When Obama supporters complained about Clintonian attacks during the primaries, many on the right simply laughed because it’s the same sort of stuff Republicans have had to deal with since 1992. More recently, the vicious attacks on Sarah Palin show that vitriol has no problem existing on the left as well as on the right. I think Tyler, in writing this post, was trying to call both sides (or none at all) to be charitable to whomever wins, and by jumping at the chance to accuse the Republican party of damaging the current political landscape while at the same time giving the Democratic party a pass, even though they are just as guilty, your comment, Tom, contradicted the very point being made. This is not being Tyler’s attack dog (as if he needed one).
Ultimately, however, none of this is going to matter, as my membership in the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy means that I’ll be making $120,000 a year starting in January. I will, however, visit the rest of you in prison.
Comment by Timbo — September 25, 2008 @ 8:54 am
Prison, but not in the way we usually understand it (detention center…concentration camp! 800 and counting in the US as we … type)
Let’s keep up with this:
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/
An excerpt: “They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.”
What do we need crowd control for, is there a Justin Timberlake concert or something?
Comment by Nathaniel James Thompson — September 25, 2008 @ 11:05 am
“Nobody’s going to get cut slack in January. That political landscape ended a long time ago.”
“For those of us looking for a different kind of politics, gotta speak up a lot earlier and identify the real problems.”
How about we speak up earlier, now, and later? How about we commit ourselves to civil discourse no matter what others say about us? How about we don’t throw others who differ than us under the bus? I don’t expect my blog to reach a ton of readers, but what if all the people who have commented on this post follow its suggestion and implored their friends to do the same?
I understand my suggestions aren’t likely to gain much traction in the general public. I would hope, however, that Christians could commit to not letting the nature of contemporary public discourse determine how we interact with others.
I’m trying to fight cynicism in myself. But you know, exhorting people to ask what they can do for their country rather than asking what they can get from their country was probably naive. As was Lincoln’s idea that we could act “With malice toward none; with charity for all.” Or, going back further, it was probably naive to implore oppressed people to love (and shame) their oppressors by carrying a soldier’s pack an extra mile after they were compelled to carry it one mile.
Comment by Tyler Watson — September 25, 2008 @ 11:38 am
“How about we commit ourselves to civil discourse no matter what others say about us? How about we don’t throw others who differ than us under the bus?”
I appreciate this call. I know I have been less than civil to those who equate conservatism with racism, and Republicanism with Nazism. There is a real temptation to repay slander with slander, and I expect that, were Obama to win, I will be tempted to act toward him in much the same way that partisans acted toward Bush, Cheney, Rice, and Rethuglicans in general. It’s easy to take sides, throwing others under the bus (or into a concentration camp, as it were). Given that the election is going to be yet another close one, I expect one half of the country will be joyful on November 5th, and the other half will be reeling in despair on November 5th. To call for charity now is far from naive: rather, it reflects much wisdom in the face of very stark divisions that could be much worse on January 20th if we don’t prepare ourselves for the other candidate being triumphant, and recognize that for the majority of us, the other guy won’t be as bad for us as we have made it seem during the election cycle.
Comment by Timbo — September 25, 2008 @ 12:54 pm
@Timbo and Tyler.
God bless you guys. Your idealism and the fact that you even follow these things truly encourages me.
Comment by Tom — September 25, 2008 @ 7:22 pm
Carrying forward with your humorous closing line (raccoons) of a more recent post bemoaning the current situation, a little interaction with stinginess would have done the country some good. We en masse succumbed to an economic system driven on excess, opposing a long lost idea of frugality and conservatism. Picasso, Frugal Repast (1905): http://www.hammer.ucla.edu/resources/22450/Picasso_1965.28.jpg
We’ve seen an American public that in large part has exponentially become complicit with Cobain’s dictum (and backhanded ironic criticism): “Here we are, now, entertain us.” Interestingly enough, I have a student who keeps up with a lot of the things that bother me about where we are headed, reads Naomi Wolf’s thoughts, even engages Alex Jones because he says anything potentially could convey truth when we have such a corporately owned media intent on espousing the ideologies of those who own both the means and ends. In any event, he likes to say: “draw some of the horizontally challenged wherever you can. Given the coming season of food shortage the sketches may be considered remnants of a lost time when people ate almost for sport.” Picasso, The Old Jew and Boy (1903): http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v254/wjdsr/picasso_old_jew_and_boy.jpg
The problem with trying to uphold a civil discourse is that opposing forces may emotionally (and then eventually intellectually) perceive even civil criticism as an assault on the very statutes upon which one bases his life, or come very close to basing his life. People in our former group have acknowledged that a pro-choice posture is a deal-breaker, and thus such a statement reflects an ideology of which one is basing one’s life. When another comes along and says he does not share that lens and offers support for not, soon emotion between the two discussants can devolve potentially into shouting matches (or all caps). Entropy plays a huge part in all walks of life.
So it becomes an issue of how do we tolerate in a civil manner people who are different than we are? For my part, I have been one who has posed a lot of statements which rarely, if ever, are addressed by people within our old group. The word is ignored, being treated as a leper. At times I’ve wondered if this thread is duplicitous because only one person, EddyE, who probably doesn’t even know he has met me in real life, tried to interact with anything I said…even still, it was only a gesture in the effort to mock. This is not something I offer here to attack anyone personally, but just asking for a deeper dig. We always should be digging deeper. Do we only discuss in a civil manner with people of opposing views we feel are close enough to the mainstream media discourse and talking points, but ignore everyone else?
Many of the things I have posed over the years come from the far left. I search the web for content that a lot of people immediately dismiss, but I always remember that I am searching at a time when YouTube, for example, is a phenomenon where information can exponentially replicate in ways that mechanical reproduction never could. Therefore the policing of it is incredibly difficult (as Google rightfully admits they cannot monitor 13 hours of footage uploaded at every 5 minutes). What that means is if someone has gone out and, for instance, taken footage of a FEMA camp and has documented plastic containers numbering in the thousands that remarkably look like coffins perfectly crafted for incineration, then how do we look at that visual fact conceptually? Do we just ignore it as tin-foil-hat worry-warting? Or do we look at it as highly coincidental that the army and FEMA are poised to “deal with” the aftermath of a huge attack on America, either biological, chemical, or nuclear…and that is where we stop our thoughts? Do we stop there and not wonder why there has been such a proliferation of these camps? Do we forget that the human being has been capable of Aushwitz and Belsen, Heroshima and Nagasaki? Do we forget the price of liberty is eternal vigilence, as our founders begged of us?
...It seems to me that over the landscape of the past 8 years I called the current administration on having the motivation of war with Iraq as being heavily motivated by the persuit of oil. For that, I was called a conspiracy theorist. Now, unfortunately, it is a platform ideology of the right, with both Bush and McCain having said that very thing I was demonized for claiming. ...I have been strongly outspoken against torture, and have long felt that the administration has condoned it given the enormity of photo-documentary evidence of such deplorable acts taking place the past 7 years. Again, I was called a conspiracy theorist, and was asked to place blame on those who did the deeds, not the administration who put the war into place. Yet now we have Rice admitting that many members of the cabinet … well, just watch this clip for yourself and do the further research in any spare time you might have, I’ve rambled enough and have to go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wnn3rieFfq8
Comment by Nathaniel James Thompson — September 26, 2008 @ 11:55 am
Edit: Tyler also interacted with my first post. Apologies for the oversight.
Comment by Nathaniel James Thompson — September 26, 2008 @ 12:09 pm