I do not have much time to write anything in-depth. However, I think that Vox-Nova (or at least, myself) should be on the record regarding Obama’s speech last night on Vietnam Iraq Afghanistan.
If I had the time, I would carefully show excerpts from his speech that range from unwise, untrue, to utterly stupid—and perhaps dishonest. For those of us who didn’t like George Bush’s war rhetoric: this speech was cut from the same imperial cloth.
Those who mistook Obama’s stance against Iraq as some kind of principled objection to the larger cancer of war are proven wrong with these words. Obama seems to have a war, and he owned it last night.
The question becomes: Why?
The reply to that question, for me, is simple: This is not about the war. It is about re-election.
There is a great deal of political precedent for this (see: JKF and LBJ on Vietnam). But, more than that, it shows a deep, dark truth about politics: political action has become a matter of electoral survival and is peddled as realism or vulgar pragmatism.
This is not Obama’s War. That is to say, Obama is not an anti- or pro- war candidate—neither was George Bush.
This is Obama’s Re-Election. Obama, like most of those who went before him (with, perhaps, a few notable exceptions, maybe G. Ford?), is a pro-re-election candidate. Then, he will likely become a pro-get-rich-giving-speeches-and-selling-books candidate.
This is not change we can believe in. Pray for real, good change. Pray for peace.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In