A possible reason for voting against Obama

I have said from the start that I would only vote for McCain if I became convinced that an Obama presidency would cause grave or existential harm to the U.S. Here is the kind of consideration that could bring me to that point. We know that Obama has no problem having the closest relationships with radical leftists and America haters such as William Ayers (see Investor’s Business Daily’s October 9 editorial on Ayers) and Jeremiah Wright, and that he lies shamelessly about his relationship with them, denying any knowledge of what they are. What this suggests is that Obama as president would bring the U.S. into close alliance with leftist and/or anti-American regimes such as Hugo Chavez’s in Venezuela, Rafael Correa’s in Ecuador, and Johnnie’s in Iran, to the great harm of America. Since the president under the Constitution has the sole direction of foreign relations (with the exception that treaties and ambassadorial appointments require Senate approval), no one could stop a President Obama from (1) engaging in such relations with anti-American regimes and (2) lying shamelessly about the fact that he is doing so.

In fact, there is no reason NOT to believe that Obama would do so. To the contrary, his history of intimate ties with radicals, combined with his audacious lies about those ties, makes it an overwhelmingly likelihood that he would continue the same pattern as president, only on an infinitely vaster and more consequential scale.

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Mark Jaws writes:

I am hearing too much of “Obama will do this” and “Obama will do that.” I just don’t see how he can justify forming a close tie with someone such as Chavez and Johnnie given their anti-democratic tendencies. I think Obama and his handlers will try to sneak as much socialism as possible without rousing too much of a right wing backlash. I am sure the elections of 1994, in which Democrats lost the House and the Senate, will weigh heavily on Obama and his far left advisors.

Sebastian F.writes:

I’m happy to see you’re coming around to endorsing McCain, which is the right thing to do. If one votes in a battleground state, not to vote for McCain out of ideological purity is tantamount to voting for Obama. Obama must be stopped at all costs. The preciousness of the GOP is not worth losing America to a leftist with Marxist and Muslim sympathies and a vicious, ideological and monumentally ignorant wife. If Bush engaged in a kind of foreign policy that most Americans, including many Republicans, rejected, what makes your reader think Obama will not follow suit. Bush’s executive overreach will come back to bite us no matter who is elected. Better a wayward right-liberal than an entrenched leftist. This whole business of it has to get worse before it gets better has no historical precedent. Nations, like living organisms, are permanently damaged by long bouts of illness.

LA replies:

First, it’s not correct to say that I’m “coming around to endorsing McCain.” I’ve seen for the first time a concern about Obama that could possibly compel me to vote for McCain.

Also, I do not subscribe to “it has to get worse before it gets better.” What I’ve expressed many times is the thought that if Obama is elected, it would immediately result in a new and more energetic resistance to the left which would make things better, whereas if McCain is elected it will kill whatever is left of resistance to conservatism and thus make things worse. I reject the leftist idea of deliberately harming or letting harm occur to a country in order to advance one’s own agenda.

Finally, my opposition to voting for McCain has nothing to do with “ideological purity,” but with my view that a McCain presidency would be bad for the country.

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A reader writes:

This is from an interesting post by an Obama supporter at Mother Jones. Obama and his supporters are not only unapologetic about Ayers, they are taunting McCain to ask Obama about Ayers:

Barack Obama: “Well I am surprised that—you know, we’ve been seeing some pretty over the top attacks coming out of the McCain campaign over the last several days—that he wasn’t willing to say it to my face.”

Tom Vilsack: “If John McCain were so concerned about things like Mr. Ayers, why didn’t he just simply turn to Barack Obama and directly confront him?”

Joe Biden: “In my neighborhood, when you’ve got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him.”

I’ve read elsewhere that in the event that McCain brings up Ayers at the debate, Obama will bring up Keating, even though McCain has apologized for his association with Keating.

LA replies:

These are completely fair comments from the Obama team. McCain should put up or shut up. Of course, McCain doesn’t have it in him. He can defy North Vietnamese Communists torturing him. but he can’t defy an American liberal of color. If he tried to do it, it would so bend him out of shape that, like his opposition to the King holiday, he would would end up apologizing for being so divisive and insensitive.

James P. writes:

“I’ve read elsewhere that in the event that McCain brings up Ayers at the debate, Obama will bring up Keating, even though McCain has apologized for his association with Keating.”

McCain should be happy if Obama brings up Keating—that’s a real political loser of a comparison. McCain can say, “As you know, I was exonerated of wrongdoing in the Keating scandal. When I associated with Keating, he was an honest businessman to the best of my knowledge. When you associated with Ayers, you knew he was an unrepentant terrorist. I invite every American to reflect on which is the more odious association.”

LA replies:

That answer is 15 IQ points too high for John S. McCain!

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 10, 2008 08:30 AM | Send