Zakaria: Obama is pushing to change the parameters of the country's comfort zone. That's leadership

[babylonsister]

WORLD VIEW
Fareed Zakaria
The Case for Barack Obama

Obama is pushing to change the parameters of the country's comfort zone. That's leadership.

Published Oct 18, 2008
From the magazine issue dated Oct 27, 2008



It has become fashionable to lament the state of presidential politics and decry the tenor of campaigns. But in fact, this election has been a pleasant surprise. In the last debate, as the candidates discussed their respective health-care plans in some detail, the danger was that the Ameri-can people would be turned off not by negativity but by boredom.

Compare this election to the one in 1988—when the Pledge of Allegiance, Willie Horton, flag factories and Belgian endives dominated the campaign. Or contrast the relatively brief appearance of William Ayers with the barrage of Swift-Boat attacks on John Kerry. Some of this is because the American people have clearly tired of slash-and-burn campaigns. But much of it is because the two candidates are men of decency and honor.

John McCain is brave, and this courage has manifested itself not simply in the prisons of Vietnam. Over the past two decades he has broken with his party and president on global warming, campaign finance, government spending and the use of torture. He has chosen, for the most part, to forgo the racial coding that the Republican Party had used for decades in its campaigns. But despite these tremendous strengths, as a candidate for president in 2008, he is the wrong man for the wrong job at the wrong time.

To watch McCain address the current economic crisis is to see a man out of step with his time. His responses have been a recitation of old slogans—cut taxes, limit the government, cut spending—that are largely irrelevant to today's problems. Does anyone really believe that tackling earmarks will get credit markets functioning? In some ways, McCain's intellectual fatigue reflects the exhaustion of the ideological revolution begun by Reagan and Thatcher. The country needs fresh thinking that is ready to accept new facts and new ideas. It's a new world out there.

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http://www.newsweek.com/id/164498?tid=relatedcl

[texpatriot2004]

1. I agree. He is leading. If the leaders will lead the people will

follow.

[Hope And Change]

2. I like this line by Fareed Zakaria: "It's a new world out there." K & R!

[Demit]

3. All the pundits feel compelled to mention McCain's 'decency and honor'.

It's so pro forma, though, especially in light of the last few weeks. I get the feeling they know he's very fragile on the subject, they feel protective, but it's a little embarrassing, and they want him to go away thinking his decency and honor are still intact. Like he's Norma Desmond and they're telling him he's just as beautiful as he ever was. Fine, McNorma, it was the pictures that got small. Now go away so we can have generational change.

[Juche]

4. Sweet

I like the end of Zakaria's article:

I admit to a personal interest. I have a 9-year-old son named Omar. I firmly believe that he will be able to do absolutely anything he wants in this country when he grows up. But I admit that I will feel more confident about his future if a man named Barack Obama became president of the United States.

[babylonsister]

5. I hear you, Juche. Obama's winning this will make such a difference

for so may people, both here and abroad. And Powell's endorsement today, talking about the Muslim soldier, was icing on the cake.