To John McCain: Beware What You Wish For Obama

July 25, 2008 
Category: Analyses & Opinions

John McCain must have committed his most costly mistake of the presidential campaign.

His most costly mistake is not that he has flip-flopped more substantially, and on more substantial issues, than Barack Obama. On that front, the scores are easily settled. For instance:

Obama is often accused as having flip-flopped on campaign financing because he chose to opt out of public financing. In reality, Barack Obama, by using his myriads of Internet donors, is in fact using public financing of a more direct type: the people are donating money directly to him as opposed to via the tax-financed system that is managed by the federal government. This is not a flip-flop: it is, in actuality, the enthronement of the real definition of “public” campaign financing: people are giving to him, freely and directly. The critiques of this move are either too ideologically driven to understand this, or do not know their English.

Obama was also accused of flip-flopping on his desire to meet with rogue leaders without pre-conditions, simply because he adjusted his language by using the word “preparations” to qualify the nature of the process that would lead to such meetings. This is probably the dumbest accusation anyone could ever levy on any candidate for the presidency of the United States. Either American politicking has grown so mechanistic that both the politicians and their voters have become utterly unintelligent, or someone is so disingenuous that he or she is incapable of visualizing what seems to be an obvious paradigm: one simply has a hard time imagining a Barack Obama president of the United States (or John McCain for that matter) waking up one morning, grabbing his red phone to call “his ol’ pal” Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and telling him that he will be stopping by in 8 hours for a morning cup of tea in their favorite Teheran spot. This is obviously a very puerile assumption, and it can only work with people with no brains in the cranium. Of course, there are going to be “preparations.” There is simply no way in the world a president of the United States is going to meet with another president on such serious issues as terrorism and nuclear weapons without “preparations.” And so, when Barack Obama talks about “preparations”, there is really no change in the substance of his stance, as there can be “preparations” for a summit between the two men even in the absence of “preconditions.” This is because “preconditions” relate to the very substance of the issues that are being discussed and/or negotiated, whereas “preparations” include not only the technical and security aspects of the meeting, but also the very laying of the preliminary groundwork that must be done by diplomats at all levels to prepare the themes and issues to be discussed and/or negotiated. In other words, there is no flip-flop when Obama says he remains ready to meet with rogue leaders without “preconditions” while, however, insisting on the necessary preparatory, therefore diplomatic, steps. This is very different from a George Bush or a John McCain who simply refuses to meet with such leaders, let alone “talk” with such regimes (although it seems Bush has recently deserted McCain on this front by beginning to “talk” with the rogue regime of Iran which, not so long ago, was part of the “no-talky” list).

Many of the alleged Obama “flip-flops” are therefore not real flip-flops. They are simply adjustments in language around the same central cores. For instance, Obama has not changed his basic goal of withdrawing troops from Iraq within 16 months of becoming president of the USA.  What he has said is that he would, within the confines of this goal, be willing to be flexible with respect to the mechanics of the withdrawal (rate of withdrawal, amount of monthly troop reduction, phased redeployment, etc.). His willingness to “refine” his withdrawal plan based on the realities on the ground is therefore not a flip-flop on substance; it is a mere adjustment that is well in line with his notion of withdrawing from Iraq responsibly and safely. His recent statement in Israel that he will meet “with the appropriate Iranian leaders at a time and place of [his] choosing – if and only if – it can advance the interests of the United States” is not necessarily a contradiction in philosophy. His stated philosophical stance remains that America should not be afraid to talk with its enemies and that he will be using both carrots and sticks with rogue regimes, in a way that can advance American interests around the world.

The same goes for his purported support of the gun laws recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, laws that he is said to have opposed previously. But those who have followed Obama and listened to his opinion on this point will remember that Obama has always had an ambiguous position that, on the one hand, recognized the right of Americans to bear arms, but, on the other, recognized the rights of local governments and communities to seek ways of improving the security of their streets. The question, for him, then, has always been a question of balancing the inalienable rights of individuals and the rights communities. He therefore greeted the Supreme Court’s decision as a welcomed clarification on an issue that has often dogged many Americans, and lauded the Supreme Court for finally providing the long-awaited guidance that would allow for a better understanding of what local communities and governments could and could not do when it came to the issue of gun ownership in America.

The only real, and therefore substantial, change in Obama’s stated goals that can qualify as a flip-flop would have to do with his “wiretap vote,” which offered legal immunity to telephone companies that cooperated with Bush’s program of warrantless wiretapping (the notorious FISA bill). He had previously opposed the idea and vowed to vote against it.

Compare the mere adjustments made by Obama to the real flip-flops committed by John McCain:

John McCain now opposes his own immigration plan after he not only personally promoted it, but also after he voted for it (first he promoted the bill and, therefore, voted for it, then he voted against his himself and his bill). He was a vociferous, and even fierce, opponent of the Bush tax cut, yet now is fully for it. He had been a long-time opponent of offshore drilling and had, in the past, made substantial arguments as to why this was a terrible idea for America, yet now, he is for it. John McCain had always been a staunch opponent of torture and had called for the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention center; he recently slammed the U.S. Supreme Court for agreeing with him of the issue of torture and the need to allow the detainees of the center the right to defend themselves in a court of law. Worst, after arrogantly and unapologetically equating withdrawal from Iraq with “defeat”, and proposing staying in there for 100 years if need be, McCain is now suggesting he might withdraw the troops from Iraq even faster than  Barack Obama.

Those are not simple adjustments in the same vein as those made by Obama. They are substantial flip-flops (among many others). In the area of flip-flops, therefore, McCain is already “Mr. Flipfloppa” (as my Nigerian friends like to say).

But, as I suggested at the beginning of this piece, these flip-flops of McCain’s (and the litany of gaffes that have accompanied them, such as McCain not even knowing that Iraq and Pakistan do not share a common border) are nothing compared to the mother of all mistakes McCain has made, a mistake that he may regret for the rest of his life: that of having defied, challenged and, ultimately, forced Obama to prove his foreign policy credentials by going to visit Iraq. Obama was, obviously, forced to oblige, but in so doing, hit John McCain upside the head with Thor’s hammer. John McCain sowed and wished for an Obama stumble at the hands of U.S. allies around the world. He reaped an Obama triumph instead. 200.000 Germans (and counting) later, and a no-gaffe trip in Iraq (combined with a Maliki “treason” that basically validated Obama’s 16-month withdrawal plan), Afghanistan, Jordan, West Bank, and Israel a few days before, Barack Obama has now triumphantly emerged not only as a potential world leader, but also as a worldwide favorite over McCain. As McCain vainly gasped for media and popular attention back home, he began sounding like a desperate candidate who is now ready to say anything to win. All he might end up achieving, in the end, is flip-flop his way to the most devastating defeat of any Republican candidate.

Beware what you wish for Barack Obama next, John McCain…

 

Dr. Daniel Mengara
The author is an Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Montclair State University (New Jersey). He is also the leader of Bongo Doit Partir (Bongo Must Go), a movement of expatriated Gabonese citizens opposed and seeking an end to the 40-year-old dictatorial regime of Omar Bongo in Gabon.

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