alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

June 13, 2008

WaPo Op-Eders for McCain

by AltHippo @ 12:26 pm. Filed under 2008 Elections

A few days ago I saw this Robert Samuelson op-ed in the Washington Post-it-note. Allegedly, Samuelson is non-partisan. This wikipedia article, for instance, mentions that he’s so concerned about the possibility of becoming partisan that he doesn’t vote. Looking at the details of his op-ed, I have to believe that it would be okay if he went ahead and voted right-wing hack.

For instance, take these paragraphs:

Start with Barack Obama. Even those who disagree with him ought to feel pride in his impending nomination because it continues America’s racial reconciliation and atonement for slavery. But symbolism can’t substitute for policy, and any feel-good fallout from electing Obama would soon fade. He’d have to earn popular support, and this would be made harder by a problem of his own making: He’d have to disavow much of his campaign rhetoric. The reason is that his campaign is itself a contradiction.

On the one hand, he projects himself as the great conciliator. He uses the metaphor of his race to argue that he is uniquely suited to bridge differences between liberals and conservatives, young and old, rich and poor — to craft a new centrist politics. On the other hand, his actual agenda is highly partisan and undermines many of his stated goals. He wants to stimulate economic growth, but his hostility toward trade agreements threatens export-led growth (which is now beginning). He advocates greater energy independence but pretends this can occur without more domestic drilling for oil and natural gas.

This plays into a narrative initiated by the Clinton campaign, and no doubt will be used by McCain: Obama is a phony, an empty suit. Samuelson argues this by saying that Obama is such a phony that he promises to govern from neither right or left, while a little digging shows that he’s such a hippy that he intends to undo all the peace and prosperity that Bush’s trade and energy policies have created.

For instance, Samuelson says he is hostile to trade agreements. Economists for Obama has a different take:

Obama will fight for a trade policy that opens up foreign markets to support good American jobs. He will use trade agreements to spread good labor and environmental standards around the world and stand firm against agreements like the Central American Free Trade Agreement that fail to live up to those important benchmarks. Obama will also pressure the World Trade Organization to enforce trade agreements and stop countries from continuing unfair government subsidies to foreign exporters and nontariff barriers on U.S. exports.

If by hostility to trade agreements, Samuelson means that Obama is hostile to trade agreements that screw over the US labor force, then yes, Obama is guilty as charged.

Regarding energy independence, Samuelson says that Obama is pretending that we can get there without increased US drilling. After reviewing this speech by Obama, I’d say that Samuelson is confusing the word ” pretends” with “has facts that show that”:

The President’s energy proposal would reduce our oil imports by 4.5 million barrels per day by 2025. Not only can we do better than that, we must do better than that if we hope to make a real dent in our oil dependency. With technology we have on the shelves right now and fuels we can grow right here in America, by 2025 we can reduce our oil imports by over 7.5. million barrels per day - an amount greater than all the oil we are expected to import from the entire Middle East.

We can do this by focusing on two things: the cars we drive and the fuels we use.

The unfortunate truth is that any kind of meaningful energy conservation has been put on hold since at least 1995, the last time CAFE standards increased, and in many cases since the Carter administration.

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