Applied Epistemology
The Practice of Knowledge.
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Run, Barack, Run?At the New Republic, Ryan Lizza proves he's a shameless political junkie with his second attempt to draft an unlikely candidate into the 2008 Presidential race in two months. Last time, his suggestion was Al Gore. Since then, Lizza apparently found enough brain cells from 2000 to realize that renominating the Bore would be a political stillbirth with an electorate that barely voted for him when he was the height of his national prominence. Now, Lizza wants Barack Obama to restore the White House to Democratic hands. The essence of Lizza's argument for Obama is the following:
The "very smart political junkie" who conceived this sophistry may be slick enough to fool fellow blowhards Cheney, Rauch, and Lizza, but anyone who knows a smidgen of history can see that the 14-year-rule is bogus. First, two of the alleged examples are flatly false: Taft and Nixon were both vice presidents -- surely a major elective office, and Nixon was VP a full sixteen years before he became President, and was elected to Congress before that. Second, the hedge about "major elective office" is smoke to conceal many of these Presidents' lengthy political resumes: Eisenhower's years at the highest levels of the military, and Taft's, Hoover's and FDR's Cabinet service. Third, TR and Coolidge succeeded to the Presidency. (And Wilson would most likely not have been elected if not for the raucous three-way race of 1912.) Fourth, the fourteen-year yardstick is an arbitrary cutoff to include political veterans Clinton and Reagan. That leaves us with Harding, Carter, and Bush 43 as genuine examples of political novices who became President: and what fine precedents they are! And aside from that sham historical "law", Lizza has next-to-nothing else to say in favor of an Obama '08 ticket: Barack, um, went to the Ukraine recently to build up his foreign policy credentials. Well, well! (The unspoken reasoning is that Obama is a handsome, young, well-spoken black man. But Harding was all of those too, except for the skin color. And the skin color would be as much an obstacle as a boon, especially with the Democrats' goal of attracting wavering Bush voters.) If Obama is to have a shot at the Presidency, he's better off running for Illinois Governor in 2010 to build his portfolio as executive branch material. And by 2016, there will be a lot fewer old-fashioned racists alive to vote against him. |