A favor for a friend

I wrote this in response to this bit of crazy.

Sure, point by point, why not:

1. Why in the world wouldn't we want to negotiate with other nations? The United States does generally have a policy of negotiations with other countries -- the only country with which we haven't negotiated with for almost 60 years has been Cuba, and that's been bloody stupid.

But more to the point, we really ought to be engaged with Iran, especially since we don't have any divergent interests from them. Maliki meets with the Iranian leadership as often as he meets with us -- we both support the same guy in the country, for pete's sake! The only people who don't want to negotiate with Iran are people who really like war and are afraid negotiations will succeed.

2. Well, this is just daft: "Barack Obama’s Iraq policy will hand al-Qaeda a victory and undercut our entire position in the Middle East, while at the same time put a huge source of oil in the hands of terrorists." If you think the problem in Iraq is because of Al-Qaeda, as opposed to a homegrown civil war in a country rife with ethnic strife, then you really haven't been paying attention.

Obama's position on Iraq has been consistent and is the only sensible and moral position to take: a careful, quick withdrawal of our occupying army is the best course of action for both our countries, but his team will decide the exact timetable after taking stock of the situation in January. Events on the ground change things, so Obama's been careful to not give too precise a promise with this.

Of course, these loons on the right still think we should be in Vietnam, so sensible and moral options are kind of off the table with them.

3. Obama made a mistake in a speech, which his campaign quickly clarified. WTF is the problem here?

The deal is Obama was saying "I don't want Jerusalem partitioned off like Berlin" and that was interpreted as "I support crazy people's notion to drive the Palestinians out of Jerusalem". So the campaign clarified. Why the fuck does an obscure remark about Israel rank as their third highest mark against him, anyhow? It's almost like these people want the foreign policy of the United States determined by the interests of the state of Israel...

4. Eh, the NAFTA thing was a stupid primary pander. Better men have done worse.

As far as Campaign Finance goes, the problem with money in politics isn't the money, it's the favors. And it's hard to see how Obama's going to be in hock to corporate interests when his donor pool is so large and diverse. This is just opportunistic whining from the other side. To be expected, but not granted any credence.

Of course, John McCain is CURRENTLY BREAKING THE LAW. He signed a LEGAL DOCUMENT to abide by spending limits for the primary, and then used those matching funds to secure a loan for his campaign, and to achieve automatic ballot access for the primaries. The only reason he hasn't been busted by the FEC is because they're currently missing a few members. The DNC is suing the McCain campaign over this, so, we'll see.

5. I think Obama's handling of the Wright situation was superb. He gave a moving speech explaining his inner conflicts -- a lot of the basic sentiments contained in his two books, by the way. When Wright decided to go on a press tour that seemed calculated to embarrass his former congregant, then Obama broke from him. Again, anyone following the story closely could see that he acted in good faith with the American people.

Ayers? Please. He lives in the same neighborhood as Obama and they've seen each other once or twice. Why in the world would you think their political views are similar? He's not on the campaign in any capacity.

Or put another way: Do you want to be responsible for everything that I do, given our long association?

6. Terrorism is criminal behavior, not clash-of-civilizations stuff. Or to put it another way: Al-Qaeda is more like the Mafia than the Soviet Union. The Bush administration's behavior isn't making us any safer, the "whack the hornet's nest" theory of international relations is bloody stupid.

Just go read Richard Clarke's book if you actually care about the subject.

7. Also crazy. Just compare the Clinton administration's job record with Bush's.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/job-creation/

Conservatives have some pretty nutty views about the economy that really haven't changed since Hoover.

8. Midwestern Senator supports ethanol. Also, dog bites man.

Ethanol's kinda stupid, but it's not the worst thing in the world. Lowering the gas tax, on the other hand, is really fucking dumb.

I will give them the windfall profits tax one, though. That is a stupid policy! I even wrote a blog post about it: http://mattschmidt.blogspot.com/2008/06/obamas-bad-idea.html

On the other hand, Obama's support for Cap-and-Trade and investments in metro transportation infrastructure are necessary to bring us into the twentieth century. And save the world.

9. Eh, I'm not familiar with the details of that particular bill, but I suspect some sort of strategic voting. In reality, Obama, like every other Democrat to run for President in our lifetime, is a fairly standard pro-choice liberal.

10. National Journal's rankings are a sham. Here's a better ranking system: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/06/liberal-conservative-rankings-done.html