The Geek Goes Off Message--Sort Of

Today the Geek read a post by a blogger for SFGate. (Sorry, the Geek lost the link, but as a button-pusher he is a fine tuba player.) The post well and truly rankled the usually easy going Geek.

In the estimate of the SFGate dude, the US and the world stand on the cusp of a genuinely world-historical moment. By this the writer meant the forthcoming election. Suffice it to aver that whatever the reasons may be, they have little if anything in common with Dr Martin Luther King's demand that Americans judge a man not by the color of his skin, but the content of his character.

It is true that the election of a man with a half African genome may serve to convince many Americans that the days of racism and exclusion are behind us. It is even more true that such is not the case. The celebration of the forthcoming world-historical moment is based on myth, not reality. Worse, it is a pernicious form of racism--giving a man a free pass on his character, ability, policies and proposed programs because of the color of his skin (and perhaps the charm of his smile)

The Geek will leave aside any commentary on the probable course of domestic policies under an Obama administration, particularly one backed by a solidly Democratic Congress much as he may fear the looming tidal wave of Progressive interventionism and the concomitant establishment of a run-by-the-experts "Nanny State." After all, the Geek's real area of interest and experience is foreign and national security affairs.

The bloviating Joe Biden, whose career as a "foreign policy expert" in the senate the Geek has watched with much mirth, was right when he opined that a President Obama would be tested in the first months or year in office. While contemporary public opinion polls may show that Obama is much loved outside the US and that many around the world expect that there will be vast changes in the relation between the US and other countries, there are more than a few sharp, able and sinister men waiting with long knives in hand to "test" the newby at the White House.

Even experienced and very able presidents have been tested, not by sinister design but by the normal course of world affairs. FDR was tested by the rise of expansive and aggressive Nazism. He knew he was being tested. He knew perfectly well that the Nazis represented a threat to core American strategic interests. Still, there was nothing he could do to ward the growth of the threat or even its breaking over the map of Europe with seismic force.

Harry Truman, another vastly experienced man, infinitely more experienced and able than either Senator Obama or Senator Biden, was caught flatfooted by the North Korean invasion of the south in June 1950. However, Truman's strength of character, well of experience and coterie of very able advisers allowed for the quick, effective and, in the short-term, very unpopular decision to go to war under the auspices of the United Nations.

Mr Truman's "police action" was widely condemned by the Republicans of the day. The war was unpopular--more unpopular than the Vietnam War during the worst days following Tet. It was decried as a "no-win" war, an endless war without point and without favorable result.

The long term view shows Truman was right. The war was "no-win" but, more importantly, it was the war that we did not lose. The outcome of the war established a paradigm useful today: the accomplishment of the minimum strategic goal of "not-losing."

When General Eisenhower defeated the loved one of American academics and liberals, Governor Stevenson of Illinois, those on the Left predicted horrors beyond count. The reality was different. Ike's military experience gave him both the moral authority at home and the stature overseas to take advantage of the death of Stalin and (with the accidental assistance of the South Korean government) end the Korean War.

Beyond that Ike's knowledge and ability allowed his administration to forge the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction which made the Cold War years stable (most of the time). Ike was tested in Southeast Asia and the Mideast and passed the tests not with an "A" perhaps but with at least a C+.

JFK, who in comparison with Obama was quite experienced, was tested multiple times. He failed the following: The Vienna Summit, The Bay of Pigs, the war in Laos, the war in Vietnam, the Hawk missile sale to Israel. If the Soviets had not proven more responsible than the jocks of the Kennedy administration, the world would still be recovering from the very narrowly averted nuclear exchange.

Flashing forward a few years, the Geek asks, "Do you remember the vastly inexperienced one time nuclear engineer turned Georgia governor and then president?"

You got it! Jimmy Carter. He was tested. As by the coming of the Iranian Revolution. He failed. Failed badly. Sure, the Shah was a less than lovable guy. His regime did violate human rights. But, is the aftermath, the mullahocracy an improvement?

Then there was the policy wonk from Little Rock (or Hope, if you prefer his boyhood home.) He was tested too. He failed. But, foreign policy was not his thing. You might recall that he was bigger on such matters as after dark basketball, school uniforms and Monica Lewinsky. Enough said.

The blogger in SFGate wrote one thing with which the Geek agrees completely. He characterised the past eight years of Bush/Cheney/neocon ninny regime as a "fetid swamp." It has been just that--at best. The current administration was tested and failed.

It failed because of ideology and willful ignorance. The failure of the current administration has been severely negative on the US and the world.

Senator Obama has no experience. He has little noticeable positive character. He does have much ambition. He possesses much capacity at building and playing to the myth of American racism and its bright shadow, inclusiveness.

Also the Senator embodies a great body of ideology. The Geek is impressed by the degree to which Obama is a True Believer in the Western European Left Democratic Socialist world view and political agenda.

The deadly combination of a miserable deficiency in character and experience and a hyper-abundance of ideology assures that when the long knives of test are drawn and sharpened, they will plunge deeply into the senator turned president--and the United States.

That may constitute world-historical moment. But, it won't be one to celebrate.