A Compelling Statement for Obama

Just this morning I spoke with a friend who was complaining that he has supposedly intelligent friends who still say that they will vote McCain/Palin tomorrow. He is dumbfounded as to how anyone could in effect vote for 4 more years of the Bush/Cheney regime. In my view, the reasons for such a mindset boils down to being selfish about what one might pay in taxes or the best interests of the country, latent racism, ignorance, or religious fanaticism. Personally, I do not understand it. Apparently these people do not want to admit what the last 8 years of Bush/Cheney and a GOP controlled Congress have wrought. Andrew Sullivan has a passionate endorsement of Barack Obama which is worth a read. This election will in many ways determine whether or not the soul of the nation is reclaimed from the party of torture, hate, hubris driven wars, intolerance and fiscal irresponsibility. Here are some highlights from his endorsement:

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These mistakes were compounded - and in large part created - by what I believe will one day be seen as the core event of the last eight years: the collapse of constitutional order and the rule of law fomented in a mixture of hubris and laziness by the president himself. It is now indisputable that the president and vice-president of the United States engineered a de facto coup against the constitution after 9/11, declaring themselves above any law, any treaty, and any basic moral norm in their misguided mission to rid the world of evil.

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Cheney and Bush, unlike any presidency in American history, have dangerously pushed constitutional government to the brink of collapse. . . . They did not merely act in the immediate wake of an emergency to protect American citizens swiftly. . . . they claimed the right to seize anyone - anyone, citizen or not - they deemed an "enemy combatant," to hold them indefinitely with no due process and to torture them until they became incoherent, broken, brutalized shells of human beings, if they survived at all. They did this to the guilty and they did this to the innocent. But they also had no way of reliably knowing which was which and who was who.

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They seized countless individuals with no trials and no hearings. They tortured dozens to death. They subjected many more to some of the worst psychological torture techniques devised by Communist totalitarians and the worst physical suffering devised by the Gestapo. They crossed lines no American president had ever crossed before. They withdrew the US from the Geneva Conventions - and did so secretly.

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They single-handedly devastated America's reputation for human rights and the rule of law in the minds of the vast majority of people in other Western democracies, let alone the developing world, let alone the millions of Muslims across the Middle East who now suspect that America is not really better than their own thugocracies. . . . No economic mismanagement can compare with this attack on the basic institutions of our democracy and the constitution. No incompetence in conducting an occupation can be deemed comparable with this level of criminality and indecency.

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This is the depth of the predicament the United States is in. The Islamist threat remains; but the Constitution is in deep disrepair, the military stretched to breaking point, the national debt doubled, and America's reputation in terrible shape.

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[W]hen push came to shove, even McCain acquiesced to the legalization of America's use of the very same torture techniques once used against him. And in this campaign, we have seen how no Republican candidate can escape the logic of bigotry, fanaticism and xenophobia that now grips and motivates the Republican party base. We have also learned, much more importantly, that McCain would appoint Justices to the Supreme Court who would acquiesce to and constitutionally entrench the dictatorial presidency that Bush-Cheney believe in as loyally as Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia.

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If I were to give one reason why I believe electing Barack Obama is essential tomorrow, it would be an end to this dark, lawless period in American constitutional government.

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The truth is: we are in a war for the future of human civilization. We are fighting for a world in which destructive technology need not collide with fierce religious fundamentalism to annihilate us all; for a world in which dialogue across cultures and religions and regions (even within America) is essential if we are to survive. . . . . I fear and believe we have given away far too much - and that, while this loss is permanent, it can nonetheless be mitigated by a new start, a new direction, a new statement that the America the world once knew and loved is back.

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But there is something about his [Obama's] rise that is also supremely American, a reminder of why so many of us love this country so passionately and are filled with such grief at what has been done to it and in its name. I endorse Barack Obama because I will not give up on America, because I believe in America, and in her constitution and decency and character and strength. And the world needs that America now as much as it ever has.