Get ready for Clinton and her supporters to pounce: an article in the conservative New York Sun has a confidential paper from an Obama adviser recommending that American troops stay in Iraq until at least 2010 (emphasis mine):
The paper, obtained by The New York Sun, was written by Colin Kahl for the center-left Center for a New American Security. In "Stay on Success: A Policy of Conditional Engagement," Mr. Kahl writes that through negotiations with the Iraqi government "the U.S. should aim to transition to a sustainable over-watch posture (of perhaps 60,000–80,000 forces) by the end of 2010 (although the specific timelines should be the byproduct of negotiations and conditions on the ground)."
Mr. Kahl is the day-to-day coordinator of the Obama campaign’s working group on Iraq.
Guess what? I'm not shaken. And neither should any of you. In fact, I'm quite satisfied with the voice of dissent within the Obama campaign. More to follow after this paragraph.
This is not the first time that a surrogate for the campaign has opposed the public line that Obama has stated, that military forces should leave Iraq at a rate of one or two brigades per month until all forces are out within sixteen months. Samantha Power got crushed for "monster" remark not so long ago, but the media also couldn't help but focus their attention on her remarks to the BBC that the Obama administration's Iraq policy would also depend partially on the advice of the commanders.
I suspect that Hillary's supporters, however, are more than willing to jump on this latest press leak and proclaim that Obama is disingenuous. Not a man of his word. A liar. And party to the endless deaths of American lives in a war which we had no reason to start.
But let's take a step back and look from within the very article that seeks to damage Obama's credibility. Says one Mr. Kahl, the author of the leaked memo:
We have experts and scholars with a range of views and Barack appreciates this range of views. They are in think tanks and like me they write in their own voice, they are people who do their independent scholarship. Barack Obama cannot be held accountable for what we all write...
That in itself isn't convincing enough to sway Hillary supporters, nor should it. But we've known all along what Obama himself has said about what an Obama administration would look like:
"I think I'm very good at teasing out what the issues are from people who are smarter than me, and synthesising their arguments," [Obama] said in an interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal. His senior economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, confirms that. "He likes to bring in three or four people who disagree with each other. Then he'll have them debate while he quizzes them." During a spat with Clinton in Las Vegas, Obama said, "I want to gather up talent from everywhere."
Contrast that with the current administration we've got. One of the most intellectually-uncurious Presidents surrounded by a band of sycophantic advisers who are intent on shielding him inside of an airtight bubble, in which the only information he receives are through DVDs of day-old newscasts.
It's also hypocritical to call out a candidate for something an adviser says, especially when the other camp is doing it. I don't even have to cite Ferraro; I'll take Harold Ickes at his word that his role in punishing Florida and Michigan need not be consistent with his role as Hillary's campaign adviser in terms of whether or not should stay on as her surrogate. So Hillary and Ickes disagree on the one issue of seating the two renegade states. Fine.
Isn't that the way it should be? People within an operation who can disagree but are willing to unite together once a decision is made? It's only because those things on which we disagree pale in comparison to those things on which we agree. That's Obama's MO from the beginning:
Obama emphasized a need for a change of "tone" in politics. He's maintained, he said, strong relationships with Republicans in his legislative career because he "didn't consider them bad people just because they disagree with me."
When asked what it means when politicians talk about a divided United States, Obama said people will always gravitate to philosophies similar to their own.
"What I've found as I traveled across the country is that our commonalities are a lot more important than our differences," he said.
So then why doesn't Obama just give in and unite under Hillary's flag? Why does what I said in a previous diary not conflict with the tone of unity among all differing perspectives? Because we still have an argument that needs to be fought out. This primary season isn't over until one or the other relents. Only then is unity possible.
But unity is always possible in the end, even among people who disagree. None of us, as Democrats, should want a White House that exists in a groupthink. Before Hillary's supporters jump on this latest news, they should think about what it would be like to have their candidate in the White House, surrounded by people who do nothing but agree with her. See what happens then.
So there's dissent in my guy's campaign. I'm fine with that.