Obama and his team of rivals, proving that blue is the new black.

Though you probably figured it out already, I cast my presidential vote for Barack Obama. I didn’t get too caught up in the hype, but was mainly voting for a.) a change in the demeanor of politics in general (a man who doesn’t answer debate questions with soundbites wins? Whoda thunk it?) and b.) a “change” in our nation’s approach to foreign policy.

Well, it looks like I can chalk that second one up to buyer’s remorse.

Don’t get me wrong: I think Obama’s temperament and (seeming) interest in reasoned discourse instead of steadfast ideology is going to serve us much better than McCain’s hard-nosed, “We must always WIN” attitude. But based on Obama’s newly named foreign policy team, I think that (where foreign policy is concerned) we were sold a decidedly false bill of goods. Consider:

Robert Gates, current secretary of defense, who will stick around, despite his earlier saying that he probably wouldn’t.

From the New York Times:

Mr. Obama’s best political cover may come from Mr. Gates, the former Central Intelligence Agency director and veteran of the cold war, who just months ago said it was “hard to imagine any circumstance” in which he would stay in his post at the Pentagon. Now he will do exactly that.

A year ago, to studied silence from the Bush White House, Mr. Gates began giving a series of speeches about the limits of military power in wars in which no military victory is possible. He made popular the statistic, quoted by Mr. Obama, that the United States has more members of military marching bands than foreign service officers.

He also denounced “the gutting of America’s ability to engage, assist and communicate with other parts of the world — the ‘soft power’ which had been so important throughout the cold war.”

Sounds nice, right? But consider this observation from the Huffington Post:

“Secretary Gates is a great choice,” said (Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham), who was reminded that he had once said he feared the day that Barack Obama became commander-in-chief.

Hmmm… Anyway, next is Gen. Jim Jones, a former NATO commander and soon-to-be national security adviser. Graham goes on: 

“Jim Jones, known him for a long time, former NATO commander. He opposed the surge early on, but he’s a four-star general with a lot of national security knowledge.”

McCain’s best friend Graham? A very partisan Republican? Gushing about Obama’s foreign policy picks? Something’s not right… But of course, there’s still the real elephant — or jackass? — in the room, Secretary-of-State-designate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Clinton? The woman who made an ad suggesting she was the only one fit to answer the phone at 3 a.m.? Who said something to the effect of “McCain’s ready, I’m ready, Barack… I dunno”? Whose judgment Obama repeatedly called into question where the Senate’s vote on the Iraq war is concerned? I don’t find myself agreeing too often with avowed atheist and Islamophobe Christopher Hitchens, but his recent Slate column contains a lot of truth:

In matters of foreign policy, it has been proved time and again, the Clintons are devoted to no interest other than their own. A president absolutely has to know of his chief foreign-policy executive that he or she has no other agenda than the one he has set. Who can say with a straight face that this is true of a woman whose personal ambition is without limit; whose second loyalty is to an impeached and disbarred and discredited former president; and who is ready at any moment, and on government time, to take a wheedling call from either of her bulbous brothers? This is also the unscrupulous female who until recently was willing to play the race card on President-elect Obama and (in spite of her own complete want of any foreign-policy qualifications) to ridicule him for lacking what she only knew about by way of sordid backstairs dealing. What may look like wound-healing and magnanimity to some looks like foolhardiness and masochism to me. [bold mine-R]

And I would be remiss if I didn’t point your attention to The American Conservative’s Daniel Larison, (spinning off of a post by Philip Klein in The American Spectator, which is also worth reading):

So one of two things happened. Either Clinton has embraced Obama’s vision for fundamental change, or Obama has succumbed to “conventional Washington thinking.” —Philip Klein

Not to be a broken record, but of course it is the latter. Well, except that he didn’t “succumb”–he embraces the conventional thinking, just as he does wherever he goes. As his political universe has changed and expanded, the conventional thinking he has had to embrace changed as well. This is what his friends and admirers call pragmatism, and it is a function of the temperament that Obamacons invoke when pressed to explain their support. This has been reasonably clear for at least the past several months. When running against conventional Washington thinking suited him as an outsider and challenger candidate, he did that. Now that he is firmly ensconced in Washington, conventional Washington thinking will be all right. This isn’t an accusation or even that much of a complaint–I have given up complaining about Obama’s conventional ways. At this point, it is merely a description. As I said immediately after his election:

If you have a high opinion of the Washington establishment and bipartisan consensus politics, Obama’s election should come as a relief. If you believe, as I do, that most of our policy failures stretching back beyond the last eight years are the product of a failed establishment and a bankrupt consensus, an Obama administration represents the perpetuation of a system that is fundamentally broken.

Most people in the broad “middle” seem to be relieved by Obama’s moves in the last few weeks, so I have to conclude that they don’t have much of a problem with conventional Washington thinking, either. The majority is not just getting the government they deserve, but apparently it is also the government they want. When it fails them, as it is going to do, I don’t want to hear them complaining about the problems of the status quo. [bold mine-R]

Well, well… the lustre of “Obama for Change!” was bound to wear off — it seems that it’s wearing off sooner rather than later. But if you’d like to relive the glory days of the campaign, when everything seemed possible, fear not! As I found out from an Obama campaign email (yes, campaign … One would think that a billion dollars later they could quit sending these things out to every American who ever visited their website), you can, with your own personal sterling silver Obama keychain! (To drive, presumably, your new GM Bailout Coupe right off the lot.)

If there are six days until the election, it must be time for a ginned-up phony controversy.  The phony controversy derives from the story about the L.A. Times‘ Khalidi tape combined with the confident foreign policy pronouncements of Joe the Plumber Geopolitical Strategist that voting for Obama is voting for the “death of Israel.” …

For those of you who have wisely been ignoring the final days of the campaign, here is the story about the tape: back in 2003 when Khalidi was about to leave Chicago to fill Edward Said’s post at Columbia after Said had passed on, there was a farewell party attended by Obama, and there was a video record of it that was leaked to the L.A. Times that the newspaper first reported on in April.  This party and Obama’s attendance at it have been more or less common knowledge to anyone who has spent much time following Obama’s career, and the party and the relationship between Obama and Khalidi have been made out to be meaningful evidence that Obama harbors some pro-Palestinian attitudes because of things he said at this party about Khalidi. …

Now some are claiming that the tape purportedly has a record of Obama saying things not just about Khalidi, but about Israel and Palestine as well, but as far as I can tell this is just more baseless rumormongering.  It seems that the only reason why anyone suspects that there is something “damaging” (i.e., something not reflexively “pro-Israel”) on the tape is that the Times won’t release it because of an agreement it made with its source(s), but if the Times were to break its agreement with the source(s) and release the tape it would then presumably be accused of violating ethical standards in order to vindicate its preferred candidate. This is a very odd case of a newspaper being accused of “suppressing” evidence after having published a report on the very thing it is supposedly suppressing.  Had it acquired the tape and never reported on it, that would be one thing, but it did just the opposite.  What is most bizarre about all of this is that from everything we do know about what Obama said, his remarks about Khalidi clearly implied that he didn’t agree with his colleague, which is why in classic Obama fashion he applauded Khalidi for challenging him and making him face his own biases. …

Perhaps Joe the Plumber can return to worrying about incipient socialism and leave foreign policy to others. [bold mine-R]

Larison says (and you should really click here and read the whole thing):

When someone at a restaurant asked Palin a question about Pakistan that generated some controversy because it seemed to contradict McCain’s previous statement at the debate, the McCain campaign dubbed it “gotcha journalism” and right away when Gibson stumped Palin with his Bush Doctrine question there was a great hue and cry about the “gotcha” nature of this question.  Apparently the questions on her reading habits and Court rulings has also been defined as a “gotcha” question by Palin supporters, even though it is as certain as the sun rising that journalists will ask nominees their views on judicial philosophy and Court rulings … In other words, the “gotcha” is no longer an ambush — it can include any question to which the candidate really should have an answer. …

When this year’s rulings came down, the presidential nominees either volunteered their opinions on the rulings or they were asked about them.  McCain denounced Boumediene and endorsed Heller. Obama supported both, which caused him some trouble because he had said that he thought the D.C. gun ban was constitutional …  If Ifill asks these questions tonight, is she playing “gotcha” or trying to gain information and a window into the candidate’s reasoning and understanding of the relevant policies?  This might be worth sorting out in advance so that we’ll know which flubbed answers to ignore and which ones are important.  If all questions are now “gotcha,” maybe we can just skip watching the debate and go have a drink. [bolds mine-R]

2.) Speaking of Gwen Ifill…

This is the argument: The moderator of tonight’s debate, a woman who is known throughout Washington for being a fair interviewer (and far from tabloid-esque, as with the more partisan likes of MSNBC or Fox News), is writing a book about “politics in the age of Obama.” She is black.

This has been translated into “she’s a member of the liberal media and is writing a book about politics in the age of Obama.”

This is the intellectually dishonest bomb-throwing that otherwise engaged people like myself simply detest, no matter which side of the aisle is throwing it. First, a book about the changing fortunes of black politicians is a far cry from a book “about” Obama or (as some have called it) “PRO-Obama” — she hasn’t event written the chapter about Obama yet. Secondly, do we think Bob Woodward would be a bad moderator? He’s written books about politicians, and all of them have been tough, hard-nosed — and ultimately fair. (There’s a reason President Bush keeps sitting down with the man, even though his books on the Bush White House have provided plenty of embarrassment.)

This is how it stands: Those who begin whining about “unfairness” are usually doing it because they know they’re losing (see previous post on the landslide that now seems imminent)… when Sean Hannity et al brought the Jeremiah Wright story to the forefront, Obama never claimed the story wasn’t credible because it was being reported by a right-leaning news organization; the story was true and so the questions were justified. He tried to spin it, sure, but not by beating up on the press. I’m guessing that’s because he knew he was winning then, and he surely knows he’s winning now.

This once looked presumptuous... now it's looking like a pretty sure bet.

Despite how close the presidential race has been (yes, past tense, you’ll see why in a moment), for months I’ve been predicting a Obama victory, quite often with the words “I don’t see how the guy can lose.” I know, I know… Racism still exists, sure, and plenty of people still buy the notion that Republicans are the only people who can manage the military. But it’s just seemed, to me, a stretch that Americans by and large are going to vote for a man who’s so old and so utterly Washington (despite his somewhat plausible increasingly hollow claims to the contrary) when they have a chance to vote for another whose image, at least, is diametrically opposite of the lowest-approval-ratings-since-the-Nixon-era President Bush. Intellectual instead of bumbling? Check. Digests information instead of relying on an empty gut? Check. Fresh-faced and full of vigor instead of grey-haired and increasingly harried? Check.

So far, however, I’ve been mostly in the wilderness on this. So imagine my surprise to find that Daniel Larison over at The American Conservative — a man who’s voting Baldwin, no less, and has very little nice to say about Obama — has predicted the same today.

Now that it is becoming increasingly clear that McCain is going to lose in a blowout (and here I must acknowledge that I never imagined this would happen and assumed the electorate would remain evenly divided), what will be the aftermath within the GOP?

(His answer, by the way, is worth reading in full.)

Doom and gloom, say you McCainiacs reading this? I’m sorry to have to tell you this… well, I’ll just let today’s electoral count from Politico tell the tale:

(See also The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder, “ObamaPollSplosion: He Breaks 50 Everywhere”)