Oh all right, I admit it - I like Barack Obama too! For months I have been resisting the urge, not because I ever disliked him (who could?), but because I am always instinctively suspicious of bandwagons. But his recent world tour, and reading his book The Audacity of Hope, have certainly impressed me. I'll return in a moment to his book and why I like it.
However, the question the American electorate need to ask themselves is what are they voting for? A President, a commander-in-chief - or a dinner-party companion? If it is the latter, then in my mind there's no competition. Barack Obama is precisely the sort of person I'd like to have dinner with. It could be a formal dinner, or a summer barbecue. Either way, he is intelligent, interesting, has a fascinating background and experience of the world beyond Chicago, and is good-natured and charming. With my interest in the world, and especially Asia, I find his background growing up in Indonesia, the son of a Kenyan father, fascinating. He enriches life and politics. His opponent, John McCain, shares some of those characteristics - his Vietnam war-hero status is well-known - but is not so much a person I'd enjoy spending time with. Whereas Obama would put me at ease, McCain gives me the feeling that I'd be on edge all the time, unsure of whether he'd explode with fury at some ill-judged remark or perceived slight I might make. The stories of McCain's temper are legion. He may well be fascinating and inspiring, but he also seems a bit prickly - not an ideal dinner-party compasion.
But for commander-in-chief?
The contest is a bit closer here, I must admit. There's no doubt that Obama's credibility on the world stage is growing. He is intelligent, thoughtful and has grown in stature. Of course the symbolic messages that would be sent out about electing a black, young, dynamic candidate who opposed the Iraq-war from the start may well be powerful. But in this era of terrorism, despotism, tyranny and conflict, who is better placed to lead the world's most powerful nation? In my view, it is still John McCain. Look back to my post on 5 March - I think the arguments I made then are still valid. For all his charm and freshness, I don't think Obama has the grasp, the gritty steely determination that McCain has and that is required. McCain has a proven track-record on foreign policy - especially on human rights and democracy promotion, on championing liberty, speaking against torture, and clearly understanding the threat of radical Islamism.
However, I believe some of the messages of Obama's The Audacity of Hope need to be heard. It is a book I'd recommend to everyone. Well-written and moving, he calls for a new kind of politics - and that's a vision I share. For example:
What's troubling is the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics - the ease with which we are distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our seeming inability to build a working consensus to tackle any big problem
No matter how wrong-headed I might consider their [Republicans] policies to be ... I still find it possible, in talking to these men and women, to understand their motives and to recognise in them the values I share.
I like what he has to say on terrorism, human rights and foreign policy too:
We know that the battle against international terrorism is at once an armed struggle and a contest of ideas .... and that addressing the problems of global poverty and failed states is vital to our nation's interests rather than just a matter of charity
... There will be times when we must again play the role of the world's reluctant sheriff. This will not change - nor should it.
Ultimately, I believe critics are wrong to think that the world's poor will benefit by rejecting the ideals of free markets and liberal democracy. When human rights activists from various countries come to my office and talk about being jailed or tortured for their beliefs, they are not acting as agents of American power .... Who doubts that, if given the choice, most of the people in North Korea would prefer living in South Korea ...? No person, in any culture, likes to be bullied. No person likes living in fear because his or her ideas are different ... The system of free markets and liberal democracy that now characterises most of the developed world may be flawed .... but that system is constantly subject to change and improvement - and it is precisely in this openness to change that market-based liberal democracies offer people around the world their best chance at a better life.
Disorder breeds disorder .... if moral claims are insufficient for us to act as a continent implodes, there are certainly instrumental reasons why the United States and its allies should care about failed states that don't control their terroritories, can't combat epidemics, and are numbed by civil war and atrocity. It was in such a state of lawlessness that the Taliban took hold of Afghanistan. It was in Sudan, site of today's slow-rolling genocide, that bin Laden set up camp for several years. It's in the misery of some unnamed slum that the next killer virus will emerge.
Even though I am as pro-American as you can get, I am not uncritical of the US. I agree with Obama's criticisms of the US failures - both at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, and in inconsistent foreign policy too:
When we detain suspects indefinitely without trial or ship them off in the dead of night to countries where we know they'll be tortured, we weaken our ability to press for human rights and the rule of law in despotic regimes.
... our record is mixed ... At times, American foreign policy has been farsighted, simultaneously serving our national interests, our ideals, and the interests of other nations. At other times American policies have been misguided ...
He defends America's right to use unilateral military force where necessary, while acknowledging that it is preferabbly to act multi-laterally - read pages 308 and 309. Common sense, surely, and not holding himself a hostage to the UN.
He applauds Reagan's approach to the Cold War - "when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, I had to give the old man his due, even if I never gave him my vote".
I like his personal description of faith - especially on page 207 and 208.
If I had dinner with Barack Obama, I think we would get on very well, find much in common and much to talk about. His values and messages need to be heard. I disagree with him on abortion, though even here he argues his position far more respectfully and thoughtfully than many of the shrill liberal-left pro-choice people. I disagree with him on Iraq - I personally, albeit reluctantly, supported the act of war, while of course now recognising the many problems in post-war Iraq. But many of Obama's views, as articulated in The Audacity of Hope, I think John McCain shares - and I personally think McCain is better placed to deliver. What McCain should do now is pick Condoleezza Rice (whose biography, Twice As Good I read just after reading Obama's book) as his running mate. She is the only person in American politics who can compete with Obama on charm, glamour and the historic, and inspiring, challenge of breaking from America's racist past - she and McCain would be a dream-team.
