May 12, 2008--Losing One's Bearings

The opening salvos of the fall campaign for the presidency have just been fired. And I use this metaphor—salvos—intentionally because they are like how a naval battle begins—with shots across each enemy combatant’s bow.

John McCain, former naval officer, fired the first shot. With his political poodle by his side—that would be Joe Lieberman—he accused Barack Obama of being Hamas’ preferred candidate. He moderated himself though, since he and his wife are both claiming that theirs will be a civil campaign, by not saying that Barack Hussein Obama is that terrorist group’s presidential darling. He graciously left that to others.

Senator Obama was quick to respond with a broadside of his own—saying that the presumptive Republican nominee was “losing his bearings.” (See NY Times article linked below.)

Obama’s use of the term “losing his bearings” unleashed another firestorm. McCain and his camp retorted that Obama was raising the age issue. But McCain was quick to add that that sort of thing is admissible in a political campaign. In fact, so is the relationship between Obama and Reverend Wright. Thus we were off to the races.

Pundits at the news networks were having a wet dream. Not only did they still have Hillary to kick around; but now, even before the dust from last Tuesday‘s primaries could settle (they were making sure as best they could that it never would), they have McCain and Obama biting each other in the neck. And about such good stuff.

The focus of the McCain-Obama coverage was on the age implications of Obama’s comments. Was he so early on pointing out that McCain was losing it? They had almost nothing to say about their exchange about Hamas since both candidates in effect have virtually identical positions—we will not even talk with Hamas until and unless they stop calling for Israel’s annihilation. Not much ratings juice in that part of the story.

But, ironically, they didn’t even get the alleged age attack right. Obama didn’t say that McCain was losing his marbles. Which would have been an assertion that he was beginning to suffer from Alzheimer’s. Losing one’s bearings could even be construed, archly, as a reference to McCain’s naval background since losing one’s bearings means getting lost, going off course, as in a ship tacking in the wrong direction. As indeed McCain had done.

But more heretically, what in fact is so wrong with Hamas having a preferred candidate? If it suggests and then it turns out that Obama is a wimp and would be easier for Hamas to bluff, scare, and defeat, that obviously would not be much of a good thing. But if Hamas means that if Obama were to be elected they could do business with him and thus find a way to make a deal acceptable to all parties, including Israel, that sounds to me like a potentially good outcome.

But I know . . .