Why I Like Obama

I am very active in an online politics discussion forum at artsandfaith.com Some of the time that I use to spend blogging, I've been spending there talking about the upcoming election. I decided to ought to adapt some of what I've posted there for my blog. I wrote the following in February of 2007, well before he began running for President. I pretty much still agree with everything that I wrote back then.

Like most of the country, I first became aware of Obama when he gave the speech at the Democratic convention. The things that everybody talks about impressed me; his comfort talking about his faith, his eloquence, that he comes across as "authentic." After he was elected, I watched a handful of Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on CSPAN. Almost without exception, he asked the best, most intelligent, most relevant questions. (Maybe his questions seemed that way to me because they were the questions I was wondering about) What made them stand out was that they came across as genuine questions that were asked to help him and the committee better understand the issue - not to score a political point.

At that point I subscribed to his weekly podcast, in which he spends about 8-10 minutes talking about a particular issue the Senate is dealing with that week or a piece of legislation that he will be sponsoring. It will occasionally include recordings of speeches he gives. One that I remember was given at the Council on Foreign Relations about Iraq, probably in the middle of 2005. Although he made it clear that he had been against the invasion in the first place, he talked about American responsibility to the Iraqis now that we were there. He talked about the need for a counter insurgency strategy (like the one that Gen. Petraeus is now trying to implement) back before the civil war became entrenched and when such a strategy had a chance of success. He's been right on the most important issue facing the US over the past several years and the reasons he's been right are just as important to me.


He has surrounded himself with experts like Samantha Powers and he learns from them. I've read interviews with his staff who say that when someone like Powers comes in to give him a briefing on Darfur, within 10 minutes he's digested all that they've said and has asked a half dozen questions that get right to the heart of the matter. Often one or two of the questions will cause the expert to have to consider an issue in a new light and necessitate them going back to do further research. They feel inspired and invigorated by the questions, instead of belittled like Rumsfeld's briefers.


I also respect the story he tells about a letter he received from pro-life doctor during his Senate campaign. The doctor told him that some of the language his campaign was using to describe people who are pro-life was dismissive and offensive. Obama looked at the language and agreed with the letter. He apologized to the writer and changed the language. He did not change his position on abortion, but when he recognized that he was doing something disrespectful towards those he disagreed with, he changed.

He attended Rick Warren's conference on AIDS despite opposition from those on the far right and the far left. Despite disagreeing with most of those attending the conference on the issue of abortion, he did not let that stop him from working together on an issue they did agree upon. He worked with John McCain on ethics reform and Tom Coburn (!) on legislation to bring more transparency to the Federal budget. Even though Obama is most definitely a political liberal, he does not let partisan power games be an obstacle to good policy.

I like his positions on the economy, health care, Iraq, al Qaeda, homeland security, energy, guns, network neutrality, and immigration. It is easy enough to find more info about those things.

I think that restoring America's soft power in the world will be one of the most important tasks of our next president, and Obama would be uniquely suited for that. I agree with President Palmer in 24, Muslim citizens of the US and moderate Muslims throughout the world are our most important allies in the GWOT. Restoring the idea that America stands for freedom, democracy, fairness, and opportunity, and against things like torture, privilege, and bullying might not win over any of the radicals, but it will help to keep Muslims from becoming radicalized and support the moderates in the struggle within Islam. A president with a funny name, brown skin, who has lived in the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, is treated like a rock star in Africa, and opposes torture should have more soft power than most. Of course, none of the those things about his background are in and of themselves qualifications to be President, but are more like the icing on the cake.