Last night the presumptive presidential candidates took the stage at the Saddleback church in Lake Forest, California. The appearance was billed as an open forum, where the senators would be given a chance to express their views on faith, as well as a number of secular issues. Both men answered many of the same questions, and the differences in both ideology and approach between Senators Obama and McCain have become abundantly clear.
When Barack Obama appears publicly, one gets the sense that he is actually thinking about his answer before he replies, and his response often takes into account more than one of the many facets inherent in complicated issues. For example, even though he is admittedly pro-choice, Obama is without a doubt more committed to stemming the flood of abortions through a focus on bipartisan efforts to address the root of the problem: unwanted pregnancies. Women (particularly young woman) are not getting abortions “because they can”, they are getting abortions because they do not want to be mothers. Banning abortion outright will serve to do little more than drive desperate people to desperate, risky behavior. It will do NOTHING to reduce unwanted pregnancy and flies in face of logic and reason.
John McCain, on the other hand, tends to speak in short, uncompromising statements that demonstrate very little understanding of the issues and how to go about dealing with them. Abortion should be illegal – period. McCain offers no insight into the complexity of the issue or his plan of action. We get nothing more than an empty, black & white worldview. Similarly, when asked about evil John McCain tells us only that Islamic extremism needs to be “defeated”, and that he will follow Osama Bin Laden to “the gates of Hell”. I’m assuming that he doesn’t literally intend to follow the man to a tangible set of gates that stand at the entrance to a realm beyond our mortal grasp, which leaves us with a silly, empty soundbite. I’d also like to hear McCain define the word defeat, seeing as he claims we defeated communism at a time when we are neighbors with a communist country, we are attending the Olympic games in a communist country, and communism continues to thrive in two places where we fought wars in the last 50 years (Vietnam and North Korea).
In contrast, when asked about evil Barack Obama spoke not only about terrorist regimes, but also about evil on our own streets and in our own homes. Considering that since (and including) the attacks on the World Trade Center I’d have a 40x greater chance of being killed by an American in America than by a terrorist, I’m happy that at least one candidate seems to still care for actual facts. It’s heartening to hear a politician speak about the challenges we face in combating evil at home and abroad, and shocking that people can still trumpet out and out defeat of an idea. It’s strange to now see idealism and pragmatism coming from the same party, while high profile Republicans continue to offer solutions that manage to be both compromised and unrealistic, while showing a lack of foresight beyond the pollsters and ballet boxes.
In closing, I’ll let the politicians own positions speak for themselves:
(The following is heavily paraphrased)
On abortion:
Barack Obama: While admittedly pro-choice, it’s important that we work together in a bipartisan fashion to meaningfully reduce the problem of unwanted pregnancy through education, reform in our adoption system, and a variety of approaches without driving already desperate women to risky and desperate action and making criminals out of our citizens, doctors, and nurses. We can all be proud to see abortion rates decline.
John McCain: Abortion is wrong.
On evil:
Barack Obama: We must confront evil head on, in all of it’s forms. Be it terrorism, violent crime, vicious child abuse, or rampant white collar theft, we have to work together (even if sacrifice is involved) to show those who would see us fall that we are united and strong.
John McCain: I will follow Osama Bin Laden to the gates of hell.
August 17, 2008 at 9:44 pm
That open forum was great and you are completely correct, McCain just recites his memorized answers and Obama thinks and articulates and picks up all the underlying issues when he address each question. Barack Obama does kind of talk like I imagined Lincoln did based on descriptions, I love how they were harassing him about giving them “stump” speeches for answers.
John McCain|Barack Obama, My President