Via Peter Lawler, Peter Wehner’s forthcoming essay in Commentary about Barack Obama’s evolving stances on the Iraq war is quite illuminating, even for someone who has already been reading his Larison. Money quote:
Unlike his presidential rival John McCain, an early and vocal and truly consistent critic of the Bush administration’s counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq, Obama, as we have seen, was opposed to doing anything about Iraq even when, like everyone else, he believed Saddam Hussein was a menace who was likely armed with weapons of mass destruction; became a supporter of the war after the fact and remained one even as things were going poorly; and morphed into an aggressive opponent again just as the prospects of an American victory began to brighten. If there is a consistency here, it would appear to be the consistency of one consistently divorced from the facts on the ground and, lately, almost hermetically sealed off from even the possibility of good news. In a politician admired for his supposed open-mindedness and his ready willingness to consider new evidence, this is, to say the least, striking.
But perhaps a different kind of consistency is to be discerned in this maze. When Obama opposed the war in 2002, it was clearly in his political interest to do so; according to Dan Shomon, his campaign manager at the time, the key to Obama’s chances in the Democratic race for the Senate nomination lay in his ability to rally the Left to his side. Then, in 2004, when the war was still supported by most Americans, he associated himself with the Bush occupation strategy. In 2005, as Iraq was becoming increasingly unpopular, he temporized by joining those saying we had to reduce but not withdraw our troop presence. By 2006, with the war’s unpopularity deepening, he embraced a policy of full-scale withdrawal.
Even if it is true that was something a bit overblown about the Brendan O’Neill essay in TAC that I discussed at some length here, Wehner’s argument raises questions that are in a way even more disturbing.
Barack Obama is, of course, absolutely entitled to change his mind, and indeed to do so very often, on these sorts of matters. The kind of “consistency” for which Senator McCain is so widely admired can make for absolutely disastrous opinions on matters of policy, and so there is a lot to be said for being willing to break away from the foolishness of one’s past positions. But in doing this, it is essential that, first, one actually admit to those mistakes, and not simply pretend that they never happened, and second, that such changes of heart be motivated by principle rather than mere political expediency. If Wehner is right, then Obama has come up short on both of these counts.
It’s worth remembering, though, that his opponent-to-be might be an even more disturbing case of this kind of self-serving shape-shifting.
Your aim is accurate. The American people, at this time, really want clarity, especially in Washington, D.C. McCain has show consistency, therefore, supporters admire this. Supporters obviously just want straight-forwardness
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