Accomplishments
I think it’s very clear that John McCain is very bad at making speeches and that Barack Obama is very good at making speeches. Also, you should know that McCain is the candidate Obama was hoping to run against. The contrast in age and vigor is clear. (Of course, McCain’s partisans will add that the contrast in experience is also clear. Yet it’s important to remember that McCain has relatively little executive experience in civilian life.) But I just want to highlight one line I noticed in Obama’s speech.
I honor, we honor the service of John McCain, and I respect his many accomplishments, even if he chooses to deny mine.
I have to wonder, what exactly is Obama referring to when he suggests that McCain is denying Obama’s accomplishments? My sense is that McCain generally offers a pretty generous assessments of Obama’s many impressive qualities. As to Obama’s accomplishments, are there any in particular that McCain ought to highlight? I realize that this sounds like I’m poking fun, but I’m genuinely curious. I have a few thoughts.
(1) McCain could recognize that Obama was right to oppose the Iraq War. But of course McCain believes that invading Iraq was the right thing to do given what we knew at the time, and making a judgment call on this hardly seems like a distinctive accomplishment along the lines of McCain’s military service. For one thing, Obama was hardly a voice in the wilderness. And he risked relatively little by taking the stand he did given the political coloration of his State Senate district, and the fact that at the time it seemed more plausible that he’d be the next mayor of Chicago than that he’d be the next president of the United States.
(2) McCain could also highlight Obama’s sterling academic credentials, and the fact that Obama majored in international relations as an undergraduate. But one worries that this could be misconstrued as a veiled barb.
(3) McCain could recognize Obama’s political prowess and his rhetorical gifts. But of course he does this very often.
(4) And finally, McCain could recognize that Obama is the transformative figure that America badly needs during this fateful historical moment. This could be interpreted as an accomplishment, i.e., Obama has dedicated his public life to making himself as transformative as possible, and his determination is finally paying off. The trouble is that McCain, as Obama’s political rival, of course is going to be skeptical about this one.
So I have to wonder: what exactly are the Obama accomplishments McCain is denying?
P.S.- In light of a new comment, I’ll add another possibility.
(5) McCain could recognize Obama’s accomplishments as a community organizer and state senator. The trouble is, it is difficult to find reliable metrics. Is it an accomplish simply to work as an organizer, or to get elected to the State Senate? Or should we evaluate whether the community in question is more organized, and whether the end to which it was organized proved fruitful. We have reason to believe that Obama was a leader in the State Senate, and that he helped advance key legislation. But of course it would seem odd for McCain to praise him for having done so, as this is far more true of many less distinguished public officials.
You know you’re one of the most talented masters of irony in the blogosphere, right?
(I realize this comment could also be construed as ironic, but it’s not. Promise.)
— PEG · Jun 4, 07:36 AM · #
I had assumed that line was recalling last week’s G.I. Bill kerfuffle. As I recall, Obama’s team released a memo highlighting McCain’s failure to vote for Webb’s G.I. Bill, and McCain responded with:
“I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did”
In which case, there is a fifth: McCain could recognize Obama’s service as a community organizer and public servant. But that’s just a guess.
— sam · Jun 4, 07:56 AM · #
He quit smoking.
— Dave · Jun 4, 05:46 PM · #
McCain has said something to the effect that Obama has never worked bipartisanly, has not accomplished anything legislatively beyond speechifying. Obama wants credit for the things he has accomplished in Illinois and Washington: police interrogation reform; ethics reform; nuclear proliferation with sam Nunn; etc. Obama is fighting back against the trope that he is all fluff and no substance.
— nathan · Jun 4, 07:37 PM · #
McCain said that Obama was nominated by “pundits and party elders”. It sounds a little bit like he’s denying that Obama’s biggest accomplishment is not legitimate.
— josh · Jun 5, 01:53 AM · #
To echo Josh’s comment, McCain went a decent way down the road to calling Obama an illegitimate nominee and any kind of positive comment he made in the green screen speech last night about Obama was almost immediately followed by a dripping with condescension attack on, well, almost anything….the “young man has bought into so many failed ideas” (ironic given McCain’s support for the war…with age comes wisdom, right? and Obama is a grown ass man…I don’t care how old McCain is, it’s not like Obama is some jr. high kid) or the bit about Obama never being willing to “risk criticism from his supporters” (show me other mainstream black leaders that go into black churches and tell the congregations to reconsider their homophobia).
— Mike P · Jun 5, 05:07 AM · #