Letters to the Editor

• @ RC

  [Read the article: Looking past Pennsylvania]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  I actually agree with your assessment that he was lying and pandering, rather than the second option I presented. Therefore the negligence issue is moot. And, I did not say he was negligent. I said it showed poor judgment. But since we agree that Obama basically supports his pastor's views and was just pandering in his speech for political expediency, then it is understandable that he would choose to raise his children with these views as well.

  I think you're missing my point a little, which is that things are complex and with this issue, I'm not sure it's helpful to reduce it to "agree" or "disagree" or "support" or "reject." So much depends on context. And it's possible to agree and support on the one hand and yet not agree and support on the other. It's called ambivalence and imo, it's extremely healthy and shows a level of intellectual maturity I want in a president.

  On the other hand, perhaps you might accept, without agreeing, the fact that some might find his agreement with these views troubling. And some might find his lack of honesty troubling as well.

  Sure, I can accept this. And I find the lack of honesty troubling too, but then, I do recognize that Obama is still a politician. I don't demand perfection from him.

  They're former terrorists, if that makes a difference to you.

  It might make a difference if they expressed regret for what they did. But they haven't.

  Fair enough.

  There's no connection here, unless your argument is that Obama is attracted to terrorists and just as he's attracted to Ayers, so too is he likely to get cozy with Bin Laden because these are the kinds of people he digs. You're not arguing that, are you?

  I didn't say he was "attracted" to terrorists. I said he seemed to be "casual" about it.

  I think I said "attracted" because you said that he sought out support from Ayers, not just that he was casual about him. I take your point, though.

  I know we disagree about this. You have expressed in other posts your disdain for those who are "fearful" of terrorism. I, on the other hand, live in New York City and lost friends in the WTC. For me terrorism is not a threat, it is a reality. And NYC remains the number 1 target.

  I am deeply, deeply sorry for you losses. Sincerely.

  I was born in NY myself, and grew up in Yonkers and have worked in the World Trade Center myself, and so has my wife and so has my mother, so I appreciate the immediacy of the situation. Fortunately, I did not lose anyone but spent a couple weeks expecting to hear of an old friend or acquaintance having been lost, so I do have an appreciation of the reality of the situation. I still have family and friends there and still spend a fair amount of time there, though I don't live there any longer.

  I still maintain that fear is not a healthy or productive response, and believe in the core of my soul that it's an insidious, destructive force that we should give free rein to, but I understand if you really are afraid and I apologize for making light of that fear.

  On an individual level I can sympathize with it, but on a political level I can't accept it, if that makes any sense.

  Sort of like, if someone were to slay my family (like Dukakis), I would want to see them killed, but that doesn't mean that therefore the law should make provision for them to be killed. I consider the desire for vengeance (like giving in to fear) to be baser impulses that civilization and government exist to temper, not to amplify.

  That's my own philosophical conviction, it's where I'm coming from.

  And btw, lest we lose sight of what I think is the real question at stake here, even if we grant your points that Obama has exercised poor judgment in the examples you put forth, we still have to demonstrate that those decisions are somehow predictive of the decisions he'll make as president, right?

  Very little, if anything, that happens in past is "predictive" of what will happen in the future (as our stock brokers constantly remind us). But we have to make judgments based on something. One of the problems with Obama is his thin record of performance. If he had some substantial legislative accomplishments, for example, perhaps there would be a better context for his prior associations. But we have what we have.

  Fair enough. You and I look for different predictors. Nothing wrong with that. I understand yours. For me, the predictors are more about how he responds to challenges, how intellectually honest he is, how comfortable he is with nuance and ambivalence, how much empathy he displays, what kind of temperament he has, etc. Character, I guess would be the term often used for this sort of thing.

  That's just us having different sets of criteria. I think they both have merit, but ultimately depend on what you're looking for in a president.

  And, btw, just for full disclosure, I am not a liberal, I am a moderate/centrist democrat. Labels tend to be inaccurate and confining, but I'm just using the labels as a point of reference.

  Yeah, for my part, I'm not a Democrat, but something like a Green/independent. I'm very far to the left, which is one reason Obama wasn't my first choice.

  Oh, one last thing before I go (and thank you for the civil exchange), can you articulate exactly what it is about Obama and terrorism that troubles you? I'm still not getting a concrete sense of the concern. You say his attitude towards Ayers is casual, but that doesn't really say much about why his attitude towards global terrorism would likewise be casual.

  I'm just not quite getting this part of your argument.

  Permalink Friday, April 25, 2008 08:35 PM