Some Talking Points

by Carol Adamson, member of Democrats Abroad Sweden

Some Talking Points when People Tell You:
“Obama’s platform is non-existent!”
“Obama has no foreign policy experience.”
“But we know nothing about Barack Obama.”

As many people know, Senator Obama has published two books. In the first, written long before he entered politics, he analyzes his own coming of age as the son of a white mother and a black father. This book provides insight not only to the way he reflects and resolves problems, but the ethical framework in which he has tried to live his life. In the second, which he wrote after he entered politics, he tells us more about his family, but most importantly about his common sense approach to defining and solving the problems that plague the United States.

Go to Barack Obama’s home page (www.barackobama.com) and you can read about the issues he thinks must be addressed, as well as some of the ways he would approach them with a view to solving them. These are the issues that ought to be in the public debate right now. People who think Obama’s ideas aren’t clear, or people who disagree with his premises, can engage in dialog with Senator Obama. As the dialog unfolds, new ways of thinking emerge, and good solutions will be suggested. The premise for all discussion, after all, is to find the best solutions possible for America’s problems. This dialog is underway among the scholars and public officials and ordinary people who have joined the Obama campaign, but Republicans and Independents must engage as well.

Constructive dialog is, at this point in time, missing in the campaign.

Then there is the platitude that Senator Obama has no foreign policy experience. Could it be that he learned something as an International Relations major at one of our finest universities, Columbia University in New York? He transferred there from Occidental College in California, where he was active in the campus anti-Apartheid movement. Surely his interest in South African Apartheid and his studies at Columbia would have opened his mind to some of the realities of the world as well as methods employed over the years to deal with them. His understanding of regional politics showed in his early opposition to the impending invasion of Iraq. In the US Senate he participated in efforts to contain the spread of nuclear fuels, an acute problem that arose after the break-up of the Soviet Union. These are just two salient examples.

Today CNN posted a video in which a Republican official insisted that Senator Obama was inexperienced because he has never been a military commander, nor has he had executive experience. There was a time when Generals were viewed as questionable candidates for President. (Despite this, General Eisenhower did fine.) Military qualifications, per se, have never been important for the office of President. In my view, Barack Obama was lucky to escape the personal and direct horrors of war. This is because of his age group and the national policy of an all-volunteer military. Some returning officers understand that war and everything it entails is horrible. Senator Obama, despite his not having served, has understood this, and has said he would not, as Commander in Chief, squander the lives of men and women in a misconceived war.

Barack Obama as a teacher of Constitutional Law knows the duties and limitations of the Executive Branch. He has shown true leadership and curiosity.

What amazes me most about Barack Obama is what he did when he graduated from Harvard Law School. Being elected President of the Harvard Law Review opens wonderful opportunities at high pay. Such opportunities would be enticing to, I expect, just about everyone in that position.

Instead he followed the path of service.

Barack Obama chose to return to Chicago to continue to facilitate the wellbeing of people on the city’s poverty-afflicted South Side.

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