This is the conservative soul?

Andrew Sullivan writes that Ron Paul “seems a little more comfortable with a president Obama than a president McCain” based on, among other things, Obama’s “integrity of the Constitution” (except on the Second Amendment – on the rest, we lack any evidence of reliability) and “walking back the doctrines of pre-emptive war.” *

In reality, we never know what a president will do. That’s why trust is such an important election issue. But Sullivan’s hyper-fawning over Obama has never been about policy, it’s about the power of personality and perception. And his take bears no resemblance to the political philosophy of skepticism he wrote about in his book.

“I don’t think you have to agree with Obama on many things to want him to succeed,” writes Sullivan, echoing his past writing on the topic. Well, why in hell not? In the end it should be about policy, shouldn’t it? Obama, outside of foreign policy, believes in the expansion of government control: higher taxation, attack on profit, draconian controls on energy, socialized health care, etc … why would a conservative of any flavor want Obama to succeed? (The best a classic liberal or libertarian can hope for in this election, in my humble opinion, is gridlock government.)

In any event, I thought those thick-headed Americans who voted for candidates they could envision themselves having a beer with exposed a deeply unsophisticated electorate. That’s how we got Bush. After 9/11, we listened to Dear Leader, because we trusted him, and found ourselves on our present disastrous course– or so the story goes.

Supporting Obama based solely on his messianic allure is just as simplistic. Obama’s (untapped and unproven) transformational power to bring folks together hasn’t panned out, anyway. Fact is, as it stands now, Obama can’t even bring his own party together. He doesn’t deserve such adoration. No politician does.

On this topic, everyone would benefit from Gene Healy’s superb “Cult of the Presidency.” This kind of veneration for a candidate, Bush or Obama or anyone else, just doesn’t strike me as something from the “conservative soul.”

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* … unless, it makes sense for Obama.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama issued a pointed warning yesterday to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying that as president he would be prepared to order U.S. troops into that country unilaterally if it failed to act on its own against Islamic extremists.

I realize this Obama quote is from last year, but a unilateral invasion of a sovereign nation which has fallen short of our expectations in the War on Terror seems as adventurous and irresponsible as anything in the Bush Doctrine. Surely Saddam’s sins were as dreadful as Musharraf’s? Is harboring terrorists enough of reason for an invasion? Or only certain terrorists? What about the unforeseen consequences of such an invasion? Imagine all the anger it will generate on the Muslim street? A new tool for terrorist recruitment and so on … Why don’t these issues apply? We may believe bin Laden is holed up in Pakistan but, for all I know, he’s in Somalia or Sudan or Sacramento.

Old news, I know. But, looking back at it now, I think it illustrates the problem with the perception of Obama vs. the reality of Obama — and the complexity of the world. He’d be just another president who would have to deal with the Middle East. It’s going to be ugly. It always is.