The case for Obama in a fearful world

At the risk of being overrun by Tuesday's presidential debate, I want to devote this column to recapitulating why I think the election of Barack Obama is so important for the United States position in the world. I know some readers will disagree and I respect their views. But these are mine.

Not since the Civil War have the stakes been higher.  A world economic meltdown may impend, bringing problems and hardships not experienced since the Depression that began nearly 80 years ago. What is done in the United States to restore and encourage confidence may well determine our influence in the world for at least the next generation.

Barack Obama could not work miracles, but the philosophy he would bring of timely intervention, of reregulated free enterprise with a broadened governmental role stimulating the creation of jobs and evolving new programs in such essential areas as national health care could empower his leadership in asking cooperation from Congress. I sense that the national mood is with him.

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John McCain is a decent man with some praiseworthy instincts, but he cannot divorce himself from his support of George W. Bush's war in Iraq that has been based on false assumptions and outright falsehoods. He still talks of pushing on to “victory,� instead of the phased withdrawal advocated by Obama, and criticizes Obama's willingness to meet with adversaries in Iran. He advocates change, but promises the appointment of more extreme conservatives to the courts, including the narrowly divided Supreme Court.

McCain's impetuous choice of Sarah Palin has brought new vigor to his campaign, but at a substantial cost. She is smart and glib, but some of her statements recall the comparison of William Jennings Bryan to the Platte River nearly a century ago: “six inches deep but a mile wide at the mouth.� Inevitably she saddles McCain with her belief in creationism, her opposition to a woman's right to choose and her efforts at library censorship. She has no experience in foreign affairs.

Senator Joseph Biden, her Democratic opponent who more than held his own in the debate last week, is broadly experienced in world affairs as well is judiciary matters. He would add strength to Obama in these areas.

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One of my great regrets is that I never voted for Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1940 I was still in the grip of a college-inspired pacifist philosophy and voted for the Socialist candidate, Norman Thomas, because of his anti-militarist stance. In 1944, after two-and-a-half years in the Army I was leery of Roosevelt's precedent-breaking bid for a third term and voted for the Republican nominee, Thomas E. Dewey.

Had I been aware then of the historical background of what I learned later of Roosevelt's position in national and world affairs, I certainly would have voted for him. He was indeed the man of the hour and indeed the man of the times.

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I have this feeling about Obama. He is a bridge between and among races, with an incredibly rich cultural background. The son of a white mother and Kenyan father, he lived in Indonesia, but spent his formative years with his grandparents in Hawaii. From a prestigious multicultural school there, he attended Columbia University, then was the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review. He chose to make a career of community development in Chicago before entering politics, identifying himself as a Christian and joining a Congregational church. He also taught constitutional law. My wife and I met him at a newspaper conference in Illinois a few years ago, when he was still state senator designated to make the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. We were impressed by his magnetism. He handles himself with impressive skill.

In the correctives he would make in domestic affairs I like the renewed emphasis on civil liberties, including respect for treaty obligations and impartial justice.  The hallmarks of the Bush administration have been torture, renditions, politicization of the Department of Justice and the sub rosa interventions of Vice President Cheney in matters ranging from energy policy to the “outingâ€� of a secret CIA operative.

Yet I do not agree with all of Obama's policies. I think he is wrong, for example, in advocating membership in NATO for Ukraine and Georgia. This has been an unnecessary irritant to Russia. It ought to be possible to emphasize American interest in their independence without formally trying to enlist them as allies at a time of touchy relationships. The Bush administration has stirred up the Russians in many needless ways and has stirred the revived cold war atmosphere. As a new president, Obama would have the opportunity to try to talk out differences in an atmosphere of mutual respect.

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What strikes me about Obama is his thoughtfulness and detachment. He is in nobody's pocket, and some of his conclusions might surprise some of his backers. Yet his willingness to sit down with adversaries, as in Iran, could be a significant token of a new approach in world affairs with less emphasis on our status and entitlements as a superpower and more willingness to evolve joint policies with our friends and allies in seeking to remedy some of the world's outstanding ills. This is especially necessary to bring new focus in Afghanistan in meeting the continued threat from al-Qaeda.

At home his election could become an expression of a new search for fairness in our society. To elect a black president, in this instance a man of such unusual gifts and qualities of character, would notably advance the aim of more equality of opportunity. It would say to people everywhere that while race remains a factor in American life, it is no longer the factor, that the poor and dispossessed are a matter of concern to all citizens of all races. Then we could truly begin to build the city on the hill that would make American democracy a renewed beacon to the world.