Barack Obama's Judgment, Patriotism and Experience

You sure can tell it's election year. The pollsters got just about every primary election really wrong yet that's all the talking heads can find to talk about - particularly since Barack won't tell who he is selecting for his Veep Candidate. (I still hope it's a big surprise whose initials are HC and used to be HRC. Wouldn't that screw with all of their minds?)

Anyway, we hear John McCain say he is not questioning Obama's patriotism but he and his campaign keep questioning his patriotism. Well, if any of you believe any of that internet crap floating around, that my dear uncle believes and keeps sending me, I'm not talking to you - you knew before the subject came up that you would not vote for Obama. No, I'm not saying you are a racist - it's just that you have never considered voting for a fellow whose skin is so dark.

Back to the point. I'm not sure anyone believes McCain or the Repugs and there's really no way to prove that Obama is patriotic. I mean, Bush and Cheney wear those little flags on their lapels and ducked service to the country during a war - and look what they've done to the country. So, I think it best to ignore the patriotism crap; it's a stupid claim anyway. Let's look at history and imagine how different people would have handled it.

Let's go back to October, 1962. 14 days that month to be precise. John F. Kennedy was our President. They had argued that Richard Nixon had experience and Kennedy did not during the election. Ah, yes, I date myself - I remember that October and the events that took place. I was living in Southern California and wondered if that would soon become our East Coast. Enter the Cuban Missile Crisis.

We came that month closer than we ever did to an outright nuclear war. President Kennedy drew his advisers close and agonized over the crisis for two weeks. The CIA obtained aerial photographs demonstrating that the Soviet Union was setting up missiles - nuclear ones - in Cuba aimed right at the old US of A. Could'a wiped out a whole lot of our southern states and the east coast.

Now, granted, I don't recall that we were quite at the place where we could each destroy the world ten times over - but in the 1950's John Foster Dulles, Dwight Eisenhower's Secretary of State, used the term "massive retaliation" in describing what the U.S. response would be to a Soviet invasion in Europe. Thus was born the concept of "Mutual Assured Destruction" - MAD - (some say the genesis of "MAD Magazine") - that is to say that both sides were so armed that an attack by one would result in such a massive retaliation by the other that both sides would be, most assuredly, destroyed.

Enter Nikita Khrushchev's plan to set up missiles in Cuba, capable of delivering a horrendous attack upon the U.S. mainland. It was readily known that we could not permit that to stand. President Kennedy met with his advisers and military leaders. What was not known publicly at the time was how hard the military leaders pushed for a nuclear strike against Cuba. They really believed that only such a strike would permit us to survive as a world leader.

Ultimately, President Kennedy called Khrushchev's bluff and imposed a naval blockade preventing any more Soviet ships from transporting weaponry to Cuba and vowing to board and inspect such ships or to sink them if they tried to run the blockade. Khrushchev backed down and withdrew the missiles.

Now, those who didn't like Kennedy will still argue that we got a raw deal out of it. Nonsense. We are still here which demonstrates that President John F. Kennedy, the U.S. Senator with no real world affairs experience, did what I doubt any other President in recent memory could have pulled off. He succeeded because of his keen intellect and judgment. That's what Barack Obama touts when explaining why he believes he would be a good President. Frankly, I agree with him.

What if Lyndon Johnson were President at that time? Well, given that he gave in to military leaders so much in the lead up to and expansion of the Vietnam War, I think we would have initiated that strike on Cuba. I think President Johnson was wise enough that he would have quickly seen what a mistake that was and, before the red phone in the White House melted, would have called Khrushchev and canceled the rest of MAD.

What about President Richard Nixon? Well, he took over the Vietnam War on a promise that he had a secret plan to end it - which was simply a campaign slogan we later learned. So, given his extreme paranoia, it is not likely that Nixon would have surrounded himself with people of the calibre of Kennedy's people. Plus, Nixon would have felt a need to show himself stronger that his predecessor, Dwight Eisenhower, the former President and former General. No, I think we would have had a nuclear exchange with him, too.

How about President Gerald Ford? I liked him. For a Republican, he was not a bad fellow. However, as the only President who was never elected to national office, he was not a particularly strong leader. It's likely Khrushchev would have run roughshod over him and we would be looking for left over nuclear weapons in Cuba today. Maybe some of the drug cartels would own them by now.

This nuclear exchange, by the way, would probably not have destroyed both countries as it would have quickly been stopped by smarter people - it probably would have knocked Florida off of the map and rendered Cuba a big, radioactive rock. It would probably glow brighter than a full moon at night.

President Jimmy Carter. Well, he really had a tough time with the hostages so I think we probably would have just learned to live with Cuban missiles. Who knows where we'd be by now.

President Ronald Reagan. Wow. I mean, he was just an actor. He was acting all 8 years - well, probably only the first 5 or 6. After that, Nancy ran things as Alzheimer's set in with Ronnie. No, likely we'd have heard lots of bravado and all that stuff but I think he would have acquiesced and let them stay in exchange for money for Nicaragua.

What do you think President Daddy Bush would have done? Well, his only ambition in life was to become President. He really didn't know what to do once he got there. I think he would have done a fairly inept job although he would have appealed to the UN and Saudi Arabia to help. I think we'd still be living with a nuclear Cuba right now.

President Bill Clinton, I think, would not have listened to the military leaders. However, the Republicans in Congress would have been screaming "wag the dog" so he would have been hamstrung from taking intelligent action - I think we'd still have weapons aimed at us from Havana.

Now, we have to consider what might have happened if President W were in the White House then. Aside from the fact that he would be lying out on the White House lawn trying to recover from his latest binge or trying to sort out his cocaine addled brain, he’d have been the worst. Let’s pretend that he was the age and condition he has been in for the last few years. In fact, all of these Presidents would have had the same Cabinets with them in 1962 that they actually had in office.

So, let's see, W would have had Condi Rice, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Karl Rove and all the rest. He would have acted like we were still back in the days of cowboys. What would he have done? With him I think it's clear that none of us would exist anymore. When those in Times Square would be celebrating the winding down of the year on New Year's Eve, the only ones there to celebrate would be cockroaches. We’d have had all out nuclear war. Unfortunately, he never would have given any consideration to what would need to be done after the missiles were launched.

Now, fast forward to the current campaign. What if John McCain was President? Well, he said yesterday that he supports a draft so that we can maintain a military large enough to staff all of the various wars he wants to run. With his response to the Georgia thing the other day, I think it's clear that McCain would have handed the reins over to the military leaders who would have run amok launching everything we had. Yup - plenty of bluster and bravado and no one survived but the cockroaches.

What do I think a President Barack Obama would have done? I actually think that he would have dealt with it in much the same way President Kennedy did. He is smart. He is not overly intellectual but he has a good and strong mind - he is really intelligent and has the ability to study and understand all aspects of a problem like that. He thinks and knows what he's thinking about. He understands what he is saying when he says it. I believe he, like Kennedy, would have been able to analyze the pros and cons of every conceivable action and its consequences. I think he would have realized what Kennedy did - we can't go off half-cocked but at the same time we could not back down. We had to be strong without bluster and bravado. Bluster and bravado, in the wrong measure at the wrong time, frankly, can get you killed.

So, let McCain say what he wants. If we faced another crisis like we did in 1962, I want a President who won't throw out a bunch of talking points but, rather, will huddle up in the Situation Room and reason out a proper course of action to take. I'm ready for another President who can go to Berlin to give a speech and bring out a huge crowd who loves him. I'm ready to get back to the days when Americans travel through Europe and are revered for being Americans.

Besides, how funny would it be to have a President B.O.?

Go, Barack.