The staff of DeliberatelyConsidered.com would like to join others around the world in remembrance of the losses suffered on September 11, 2001 and its aftermath.
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I was planning to post today about the new peace talks between Israel and Palestine using the perspective of the politics of small things. But this will have to wait for another day. Barack Obama gave a speech on Labor Day that requires attention. It was a very strong partisan address, a forceful support of the labor movement on labor’s day, a clear proclamation of his position on the pressing issue of the day, the state of the economy, and on the strategy necessary to fix it. The Storyline
Obama is now drawing a clear line between those who support his policies and those who have been an obstacle to the change that at least Obama and his supporters believe in. He sought to draw the contrast between his administrations accomplishments and achievements, and his opposition. It was often an entertaining exercise, clearly meant to increase the level of passionate support for his overall project and to address the immediate task at hand, winning, or at least not losing badly in the upcoming elections. The Declaration Obama’s most telling declaration, biting in its critical thrust, revealing in its positive direction: “When we passed a bill earlier this summer to help states save jobs — the jobs of hundreds of thousands of teachers and nurses and police officers and firefighters that were about to be laid off, they said no. (Applause.) . . . Read more: Back in the Ring 
This post is the third in a series. Read Part One and Part Two. “The Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on the End of Combat Operations in Iraq,” of August 31, 2010, was a speech by the head of state, addressed to a nation, about a momentous event. The President had a responsibility to deliver the speech, and the Oval office was the place to deliver it. The President had things to say that went beyond partisanship, as I tried to show yesterday. He was applying his political philosophy to the task at hand, something he first did in his anti-war speech in 2002. He fully presented his general position in his Nobel Laureate Acceptance Speech, most directly basing it on “just war theory.” (see Michael Walzer’s book, Just and Unjust Wars) Sometime in the near future, I hope to post more on that, but today, after the last two posts on Obama on Iraq, we move from the consideration of the relationship between context and text, to the text of the speech itself. The Speech beyond Cynicism
He opens by revealing the logic of the entire speech: “Tonight, I’d like to talk to you about the end of our combat mission in Iraq, the ongoing security challenges we face, and the need to rebuild our nation here at home,” and he then develops and applies the logic. We should note how clearly the speech develops the themes that were the basis of his anti war speech and how it is addressed to a broader audience, not only those who were against the war, but also those who favored it. About Iraq, Obama is careful. He focuses on the service and sacrifice of the American military, the defeat “of a regime that terrorized its people” and “the chance for a better future for Iraq,” and underscores that he is delivering on the promise, which he made as a candidate and which was officially agreed upon with the Iraqis, of American withdrawal from the war. His language is subdued. He notes accomplishments and dangers. He . . . Read more: From the Head of State: a Call to Action This post is the second in a series. Read the first part here.
The Partisan Interpretations From his partisan opposition, the criticism was strong. <<Obama should have declared victory,>> Senator John McCain and his interviewer Sean Hannity, agreed. (video) He should have given President Bush full credit for the victory. He should have apologized for his opposition to the surge. Lindsey Graham concurred and was particularly critical that Obama did not acknowledge the terrorists’ defeat and the need to extend our momentum in Afghanistan. (video) The emphasis on withdrawal instead of victory was the fundamental problem with the President’s speech. “It’s not about when we leave in Afghanistan. It’s about what we leave behind.” Charles Krauthammer, in the instant analysis following the speech on Fox News, observed that the speech was “both flat and odd.” Flat, because it did not celebrate the victory, but rather emphasized the withdrawal almost as a lamentation. Odd, because of the way he linked his topics, from Iraq to Afghanistan to, most disturbing for Krauthammer, tacking on an “economic pep talk.” There should have been a coherent speech about our missions abroad. Instead there was a speech by a man who is only interested in his domestic agenda. (video) And from his partisan supporters there was also serious criticism, mirroring the rage on the right. <<Obama should have declared defeat,>> Frank . . . Read more: The End of the Iraq War This post is one in a series. This week President Obama gave an important speech in the Oval office announcing the end of combat operations in Iraq. In October 2002, before the war was declared, he distinguished himself as one of the few political leaders to express clear opposition to the Iraq war. There is an important connection between his words and his actions, then, which I will consider in today’s post, and now, which I will consider in following posts. The standard way to account for the connection is through cynical interpretation, explaining the texts of these speeches by referring to their context. Much is lost in such cynical interpretation–here, the two speeches are Deliberately Considered. The Context
The moderation of the speech served his immediate purposes and it later helped his candidacy in the Democratic Presidential Primaries. On this point, David Axelrod, Obama’s chief political consultant, has bemoaned the fact that there was no decent video of the speech. Obama opposed the war, but tried to . . . Read more: Obama on Iraq: Then and Now
The Tea Party Movement is an instance of “the politics of small things”–a version on the right. I am not a supporter of the aims of this movement, as I was of the Dean and the Obama campaigns and the anti-war movement, and earlier of the democratic opposition in the former Soviet bloc. In those instances of “the politics of small things,” I was very much both a participant and an observer. I observed how real alternatives to existing practices were developed in ways that I strongly supported, i.e. the development of the Solidarity Trade Union Movement and Democratic opposition in Poland, the emergence of Barack Obama as President of the United States. But even though I am not so involved or supportive of this new instance of the politics of small things, I recognize it for what it is. People have been meeting each other, sharing opinions, discussing strategies, coordinating tactics and becoming clearly visible to each other and to outside observers. Power has been created in these interactions. This cannot be artificially manufactured. It would not exist unless people willingly and actively took part. The success of this depended upon active participants interacting with others and bringing themselves along. Even if there are powerful forces behind this movement( see Frank Rich’s op-ed and Mayer article), its political power is primarily generated by people acting in concert, as they took part in the Town Hall meetings of the Summer of 2009 and in many other local and statewide movements and campaigns since, and in major demonstrations, such as the one Glenn Beck organized for September 12, 2009 in Washington and now again last weekend at his . . . Read more: The Tea Party Effect |
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