1968-2008: OUR TIME FOR CHANGE HAS COME? (Part II)

SPECTACLE '08

LURCHING TOWARDS THE RIGHT?

Obama's strategy of triangulation began in earnest with his June 4, 2008 remarks to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in New York in which he angered many Middle East scholars and activists by going further than any recent presidential candidate, Democrat or Republican, in declaring support for an "undivided" Jerusalem. This seemingly unnecessary pander to the "Israel lobby" (read: neoconservative/Likud alliance) infuriated Arabs committed to making East Jerusalem the capital of a Palestinian state, as well as many supporters who had taken Obama at his word regarding his desire to not just bring the troops home from Iraq, but to actually "change the mindset that got us into war in the first place." While he has since attempted to clarify his remarks to indicate a less hard line position on Jerusalem, it appeared to many critical observers that the Senator's promise to break with the "politics of fear" and promote a more multilateral foreign policy stressing international diplomacy was quickly losing steam. Then Obama announced that he was forgoing his right to receive public funding for the general election, which signaled an apparent back-track from his pledge to help eliminate the undue influence of private campaign contributions (i.e. money from PAC's and "special interests"). It is debatable whether or not his funding decision should really raise alarm bells on the Left, as many progressives accept the argument that Obama's online fundraising apparatus functions at least partially as a parallel public campaign-finance system. It is also arguable that it would be strategically unwise to cede his financial advantage in the general election against a GOP eager to destroy his candidacy. Yet Obama's revised position on the issue of campaign finance is certainly not a demonstration of progressive instincts, nor can it be heartening for those paying attention to what the candidate does rather than what he says.

But the floodgates really seemed to burst open when the Senator announced that he was reneging on a previous decision to withhold support for a bill that would retroactively immunize telecommunications companies charged in civil lawsuits with having participated in the Bush-Cheney administration's dubious "warrantless wiretapping" program. This "flip-flop" on renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was viewed by many progressives as a disastrous capitulation on the part of top Democratic officials including Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. To many in his "netroots" base, Obama's decision to essentially condone illegal spying on U.S. citizens crossed a most unfortunate line. Prominent progressives in the media began expressing outrage with the Senator, for instance MSNBC's Keith Olbermann issued a scathing "Special Comment" on the subject during the June 30 edition of Countdown, while that same day Arianna Huffington posted on her website a "Memo to Obama: Moving to the Middle is for Losers." Impassioned debates and appeals to the candidate are now rattling through the leftwing "blogoshpere" and have even extended into the fringes of the Obama camp, as a collection of his supporters organized a group whose message urging him to "Please Vote No on Telecom Immunity" briefly headlined his official website. However, the Senator voted for the bill while around the same time stating positions on gun-control and Bush's "faith-based initiatives" that have further rankled progressive sensibilities. To her credit, Hillary Clinton voted against the FISA bill, but this of course added insult to injury for those Obama supporters who expected their candidate to take principled stands on such issues.


"OBAMANIA" REVISITED

One way or another, much has changed since the early phases of Obama's campaign driven by youthful enthusiasm. In this sense, those who jumped on the bandwagon as it pulled out of Iowa were bound to be disappointed by the candidate at some point; given the extraordinary level of excitement the campaign generated early on, it was only a matter of time before it came back to reality. Although the punditry raised its expectations for Obama rapidly after Iowa, in reality absolutely no one in the media or the Beltway had initially expected him to emerge from the pack or even be a factor in the race whatsoever. Thus his second-place finish in New Hampshire was a reality-check both for team Obama and the media that had recently become infatuated with this political phenomenon. It was indeed shaping-up to be a long and hard-fought primary campaign, and Obamania really took-off at this point, as the candidate delivered another memorable oration, themed "Yes We Can!," meant to re-inspire supporters: "We know the battle ahead will be long. But always remember that, no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change." Part of this speech subsequently became the basis for a popular internet music video produced by hip hop artist "will.i.am" of the Black Eyed Peas, in which a cast of celebrities take turns singing over Obama's voice as the candidate bellows:

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation: Yes, we can. It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights: Yes, we can. It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness: Yes, we can. It was the call of workers who organized, women who reached for the ballot, a president who chose the moon as our new frontier, and a king who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the promised land: Yes, we can, to justice and equality. Yes, we can, to opportunity and prosperity. Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can repair this world.

Armed with a renewed sense of purpose as well as a new slogan, team Obama reignited a wave of energetic advocacy by demonstrating to (would-be) followers that the Illinois Senator was a different kind of politician who sought not only to win the White House, but to also build (or lead?) a movement--"powered by change and supporters like you," as advertised by the campaign website. While no doubt inspired by belief in their candidate's eloquently delivered message of hope, many Obamaniacs (especially those on the Left) were clearly becoming swept away in a "cult of personality" emerging around this multiracial "son of the sixties" poised to be the youngest President since John F. Kennedy. And just as JFK's daughter Caroline and her uncle Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) publicly bestowed upon Obama the legacy of their "Camelot" political dynasty, excitement surrounding the youthful and handsome presidential candidate paralleled the elder Kennedy brothers' status as both a political and cultural icon/"sex-symbol." Therefore while the sixties had its "Kennedy Girls," the "Obama Girl"craze began in June 2007--before the primary season started--and spiraled into a YouTube sensation as the candidate's fortunes skyrocketed along with his popularity. Some on the Left projected their personal aspirations into their vision of Obama, whose image thus grew into that of a "hip hop generation" rock-star just as much as it came to symbolize the desire among many for a post-Bush/Cheney political savior able to rekindle the promise of the sixties (whatever that was exactly). But not everybody necessarily thinks of Obama as the Bob Marley of presidential candidates--or, if they do, it isn't necessarily meant as a compliment.


RIGHTWING REACTION

His position as an essentially "empty vessel" has thus also fueled a substantial amount of ardent anti-Obama sentiment ranging from his far Left critics to hard core Clinton supporters, on the one hand, and on the other hand encompassing a phalanx of rightwing detractors many of whom engage in explicitly racist attacks. Thus beyond dealing with those who present quite rational and thoughtful opposition to what is known of his policies--as well as facing a certain backlash against the sycophantic nature of some Obamaniacs--the candidate has been forced to confront a unique and powerful "smear campaign" designed almost entirely around the three Arabic names he inherited from his father, who was born into a Muslim family; that Obama lived and attended grade school briefly in Indonesia as a child has only added fuel to the fire. FOX News producers, for instance, continuously "miss-spell" the candidate's last name on screen, replacing the "b" with an "s" in order to draw a visceral connection between Obama and Osama bin Laden. Some on-air personalities, meanwhile, relish in mentioning the candidate's middle name hoping to incite those viewers who harbor a patriotic hatred of former Iraqi dictator (and most recent "bogeyman" for U.S. power) Saddam Hussein.

It would be too painful and is unnecessary to recall the litany of sound-bytes and images produced to convey the idea that Obama is at worst a "secret Muslim"/terrorist sympathizer, and at best an anti-American Christian, coming from a church with fiery preachers in dashikis expounding "black liberation theology" while excoriating "whitey" and Uncle Sam. The media fiasco surrounding the Obama family's longtime pastor and friend Rev. Jeremiah Wright was a highly visible manifestation of fears, both genuine and manufactured, over the Senator's skin color combined with rumor-fed uncertainties about his religious background. Recently FOX's E.D. Hill wondered aloud on-camera if the quotidian hand gesture exchanged between Barack and his wife Michelle Obama prior to the candidate's June 3 speech in St. Paul may have been a "terrorist fist jab." While Hill's comments arguably brought the Right's anti-Obama smear campaign to a new level of inanity, the just-released July 21 edition of the New Yorker magazine features a cover-page cartoon (titled "The politics of fear") satirizing the ridiculousness of such tactics. Unfortunately for Obama and his liberal constituents who form most of the New Yorker's readership, the image lacks just enough context so as to be exploited by the very attack-machine it is obviously lampooning. Rather than demonstrating why such satire is inappropriate during an election, as some have suggested, the outcry surrounding this political commentary demonstrates the volatile combination of differences--under the particular geopolitical and cultural circumstances of the so-called "global war on terror"--that are contained within Obama's multi-ethnic background. Not only is there a sad reality that some voters will simply not vote for a black candidate, even if he is half-white, it is equally true that in the post-9/11 climate of drastically heightened Islamo-phobia, even the perception of being Muslim creates suspicion and fear among what are often described as "low-information voters" like the one out of ten people who wrongly believe (or perhaps are just keen to tell pollsters) that Obama is Muslim.

It still remains to be seen whether his campaign will forcefully tackle the issue of religion in a manner similar to his speech in Philadelphia, "A More Perfect Union," acclaimed by many for thoughtfully and substantively addressing the superficial firestorm generated by media attention to some of his former pastor's remarks. To the extent that Obama spoke publicly about his own background and was able to open space for a more sophisticated national conversation about race, he has yet to take a similar stand with regard to rumors concerning his religious faith. In fact while attempting to disassociate the candidate from false information, team Obama brought itself eerily close to its Islamo-phobic opponents during a June 16 rally in Detroit when campaign volunteers had two women wearing Muslim head-scarves moved so they would not appear behind the candidate--apparently out of concern that such an image might be used as negative PR by those on the Right propagating the "Obama is a secret Muslim" campaign. The Illinois Senator issued a swift apology for the embarrassing incident, and it therefore may be encouraging to some that he has recently gone on-record about the New Yorker cover, saying: "You know, there are wonderful Muslim Americans all across the country who are doing wonderful things...And for this to be used as sort of an insult, or to raise suspicions about me, I think is unfortunate. And it's not what America's all about." Nonetheless, Obama has yet to give this besieged group what it deserves by delivering a ceremonial public address on its behalf, or whatever one imagines he might do to make clear the offensiveness of suggestions that being Muslim is a liability or cause for concern.

All of this points to another powerful dynamic underlying the 2008 presidential election and Obama's role as the candidate of "change." For no matter what he does to reassure the "war party" within the Beltway establishment of his credentials to guide U.S. foreign policy, he will always have skeptics among those neoconservative-influenced "hawks" and other anti-Palestinian forces, in many cases rightwing Jewish-Americans and Christian Zionists, who see Obama's past relations with progressive Arab-Americans as a sign of his true, and now-hidden allegiances. Seen in this light, Obama's rhetorical pandering to the Israel Lobby is part of what has become a standard ritual for mainstream American politicians, but it also has added importance given that he, for instance, was photographed at a Chicago fundraiser breaking bread with the eminent Palestinian intellectual/activist Edward Said. While this would be a badge of honor for many on the Left (and perhaps was at one point for Obama), the neoconservative universe has labeled (slandered) Said as the "terror professor," and the rightwing blogosphere is currently ablaze with such "evidence" of the Illinois Senator's supposed "anti-Israel bias." Said was at Columbia while Obama studied there in the early 1980s, but opponents have drawn a stronger connection between Obama and Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian scholar and activist at the University of Chicago who has apparently had a personal relationship with the Senator in years past, perhaps as part of an intellectual cohort that included former 1960s radical William Ayers.

But it is not so much a concern over the Jewish vote that is driving team Obama towards a strong embrace of Israel. Rather, it is a question of the political and financial rewards that accrue in official Washington to those seen as being a friend of the Jewish state. So just as Obama was forced, in one sense, to permanently dawn a flag-pin after the media consistently questioned his patriotism, the candidate faced overwhelming pressure to jettison--at least for now--whatever perception there may be that he has ever been an advocate of Palestinian rights. This lingering reputation could, ironically, be nothing more than the traces of Obama's early attempts to make his way in Chicago politics by courting that city's relatively large Arab-American population. Now that he faces an election in which he needs the support of the Israel Lobby far more than he needs that of prominent Muslim-Americans, his tune has perhaps changed accordingly. It is also possible that he would, as President, seek to chart a new and better course for solving the Israel-Palestine conflict yet strategically chooses to wait until he's in office before rocking the foreign policy boat.

Either way, Obama's statements concerning the Middle East crisis, like his post-primary rhetoric in general, express a willingness to engage all the traditional games a candidate must play in order to be elected to the Oval Office. At the level of presidential politics, one is undoubtedly faced with pressure to make the right new friends and sell-out the right old friends. If this is indeed what is now occurring with team Obama, it should not really surprise those on the critical (and smartly skeptical) Left, even though it may present a cause for sadness. Yet does this mean that the candidate of "change we can believe" who promises to "turn a new page" and "write and new chapter" is really just a slick snake-oil salesman? Is there perhaps even a sinister conspiracy involving Obama as a front-man for behind-the-scenes political operators (i.e. the Bilderberg Group), or is he in some other way just a pawn in the hands of the power-elite?

If so, does this mean that progressives should rally behind either Ralph Nader (running as an independent) or former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-Georgia) , who on July 12 secured the Green Party nomination? What, then, should the Left make of groups like Progressives for Obama? For that matter, what should such groups make of Obama these days? When he formally accepts the Democratic nomination on August 28--the fortieth anniversary of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech--in front of at least 75,000 people in an open-air stadium in Denver, could the candidate of hope and inspiration reemerge to once again electrify the nation and rekindle excited belief among youth and progressive activists? Will Obama at that moment become the embodiment of King's dream? Or, will the convention be just an elaborate show of pageantry, an expensive spectacle that actually exploits the legacy of the civil rights movement for crass political gain?

And in the meantime, how will worsening economic crisis and festering (perhaps also broadening) wars in the Middle East affect the presidential campaign? Is it the case that the Democrats could almost nominate a stuffed donkey in August and still be virtually guaranteed to reenter the White House on January 20, 2009? Might Bush and Cheney have one final trick up their bloodied sleeves?

Stay tuned...