John McCain’s Obamanian Nothingness
by Dan tdaxp ~ May 15th, 2008
March Schulman of American Future links to a distressing and idiotic speech by John McCain. It is so bad that as can be seen by my initial comment, I was sure it was sarcastic:
I am well aware I cannot make any of these changes alone. The powers of the presidency are rightly checked by the other branches of government, and I will not attempt to acquire powers our founders saw fit to grant Congress. I will exercise my veto if I believe legislation passed by Congress is not in the nation’s best interests, but I will not subvert the purpose of legislation I have signed by making statements that indicate I will enforce only the parts of it I like. I will respect the responsibilities the Constitution and the American people have granted Congress, and will, as I often have in the past, work with anyone of either party to get things done for our country.
..
We cannot again leave our problems for another unluckier generation of Americans to fix after they have become even harder to solve. I’m not interested in partisanship that serves no other purpose than to gain a temporary advantage over our opponents. This mindless, paralyzing rancor must come to an end. We belong to different parties, not different countries. We are rivals for the same power. But we are also compatriots. We are fellow Americans, and that shared distinction means more to me than any other association. I intend to prove myself worthy of the office; of our country; and of your respect. I won’t judge myself by how many elections I’ve won. I won’t spend one hour of my presidency worrying more about my re-election than keeping my promises to the American people. There is a time to campaign, and a time to govern. If I’m elected President, the era of the permanent campaign will end. The era of problem solving will begin. I promise you, from the day I am sworn into office until the last hour of my presidency, I will work with anyone, of either party, to make this country safe, prosperous and proud. And I won’t care who gets the credit.
The only thing as weird as John McCain’s kindergarten political philosophy is that Marc Schulman appears to buy it:
This, my friends, is change I can believe in from a man I believe in. I have long favored Senator McCain; now I’m sure he has my vote.
*sigh*
If there is anything salvageable in McCain’s adoption of Obamianian nothingness is the promise for ultra-cool House of Commons style President’s Questions.
Here here!
May 15th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Dan — With all due respect, please explain why you believe that the contents of my McCain quote are “distressing and idiotic.” While you’re at it, you might tell me what you would have liked him to have said.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:57 am
Marc,
Thanks for the comment.
Either John McCain is purposefully speaking empty nothings or he is not. That is, either these words are meaningless other than in a vague and facile sense, or they describe actual proposals that differentiate him from other candidates.
If the words are meaningless, then it is distressing that he would speak them in an a matter that implies they should be taken seriously, and in a way that cause them to be taken seriously. That is, if he is aware of how little his words imply change from the present political order, I am disappointed he would present them in a way that has then hoodwinked bloggers and commentators. At least Obama sticks to vague verbs (”Change,” “Hope”) and vague nouns (”America,” “Washington”): it’s obvious Obama has nothing to say.
The more frightening possibility is that McCain actually means what he says.
Take just two of the howlers, both of which you highlighted:
I will not subvert the purpose of legislation I have signed by making statements that indicate I will enforce only the parts of it I like.
This appears to be criticism of both signing statements and selective enforcement of the law. It conflates the two issues, but it’s clearly pushing these two buttons. Whether or not McCain makes signing statements matters to me as little as to whether Congressman describe the intent of legislation on the floor of the Congress. Have a blast. But whether or not the laws will be enforced selectively is obvious: of course they will. Congress has issued far more laws than can be enforced by the executive branch. Many of these are simply not executed, or else executed only as part of a larger political program. Any President thus faces the choice of random enforcement of the laws, or selective enforcement of the laws. Given that some are more important than others, I hope he does so selectively!
And a second:
If I’m elected President, the era of the permanent campaign will end. The era of problem solving will begin.
McCain’s tapping into America’s deep distrust of representive democracy. People despise Congress more than they dislike the President because people prefer a technocratic administration over bargaining, and disinterested fiat over compromise. As long as Congress exists as a political body it won’t happen. Even if McCain sends the administration into technocratic kamikaze mode you still have hundreds of Congressmen with their careers behind them and their constituents over them.
My hope is that McCain knows how foolish it would be to take his words at face value, and thus is merely pandering and hoodwinking potential voters.
May 21st, 2008 at 11:02 am
I will not subvert the purpose of legislation I have signed by making statements that indicate I will enforce only the parts of it I like.
I think that what McCain is saying here is that he will not, like President Bush, sign a law and then with his signing statement, subvert the purpose of the law. As an example he may have had in mind the signing statement used by the President on Sen. McCain’s own bill forbidding the US from engaging in the torture of detainees. The President’s signing statement had the effect of essentially voiding the law if the president so decided.
Sen. McCain, I think knows that President’s have used signing statements from time to time to interpret laws. However, he is also fully aware of how much this president exceed his authority to use these statements as a means of not only interpreting provisions of a law, but essentially re-writing and subverting its initial purpose. He also knows how sensitive many legal scholars and members of the other party are to the manner in which this president used them, so in saying this he is signaling a return to the status quo ante, and not a wholesale ban on signing statements.
If I’m elected President, the era of the permanent campaign will end. The era of problem solving will begin.
To me, this seeks to rectify yet another problem with the current administration, which essentially engaged in a 4 yr campaign, upon being elected, to ensure that the president got a second term. That is, he’s not so much talking about the process itself, but signaling that he won’t be like this president who seemed more than willing to use any crisis to his political advantage, sometimes at the expense of what was necessary for the country.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003550503_watch01.html?syndication=rss
May 21st, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Nykrindc,
You have ably argued for the “sweet nothingness” interpretation of McCain’s remark, as opposed to “dangerous idealism” view. Certainly I hope you are right.
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:22 am
Dan,
That may be, but it is still a big change from this administration, which I think was what Marc at AF was getting at.
May 22nd, 2008 at 1:19 pm
NYkrinDC,
In the same way that a Obama running against the Washington way of doing business would be big change, yes.
That is, it’s cheap talk. Can you imagine a Presidential candidate running on a platform of hostility toward Congress and politicized governance? Or, wrt Obama, a President running in favor of the Washington way of doing business?
Of course not.
This is nonsense designed to be eaten up by process-idealists, as opposed to signals of actual intentions.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:29 am
I disagree Dan. As I said, the change McCain is talking about here is from the excesses of this administration. When Obama talks about change, yes, I agree with you he is doing what Bush Jr. and Clinton did before him, being the anti-establishment candidate who will change the way Washington works as an empty promise. The change McCain is talking about is procedural in the sense that he will brings things back to the way they were before the Bush administration’s attempt expand presidential powers to the point of voiding Congress’ own authority.
Again, he is not saying that he will not use singing statements, for example, but rather that he won’t use them in the manner in which the current administration has used them throughout, which has been far different, and more expansive than any other administration previously. If he was saying that he would wholesale never use singing statements, then I would agree with you, because that would be more in line with Obama’s empty promise of change.
May 23rd, 2008 at 4:44 pm
NYkrinDC,
I see you’ve adopted McCain’s bizarre-or-trivial form of rhetoric:
Are you arguing that
(a) Congress has been effectively dissolved, with the Bush administration running the government by fiat (a bizarre claim), or
(b) the Bush Administration has continued the trend in recent decades of asserting executive authority at the expensive of legislative authority (a trivial claim)
It’s really sad that the man I support, John McCain, is lowering political discourse in this way. But perhaps I shouldn’t've been surprised.
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Check out some more McCain goofiness at Barnett’s blog:
http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2008/05/nobody_in_their_right_mind_wou.html