Major Andrew Olmsted,, a.k.a. G'Kar (UPDATE)

I'm dead, but if you're reading this, you're not, so take a moment to enjoy that happy fact.

-- from Andy Olmsted's last message to Obsidian Wings as "G'Kar", posted by hilzoy by prior arrangement. Olmsted died yesterday in Iraq. By way of explaining the spare commentary here, Olmsted asks in his message that "no one try to use my death to further their political purposes." He also writes:

...while you're free to think whatever you like about my life and death, if you think I wasted my life, I'll tell you you're wrong. We're all going to die of something. I died doing a job I loved. When your time comes, I hope you are as fortunate as I was.

I'm upset -- odd, really, since I didn't know him. Of course, I intend to honor his wish at this site, though anyone should comment as they please. To learn more about him, have a look at his work at Obsidian Wings, and at his own andrewolmsted.com site. Major Olmsted also maintained the blog "From the Front Lines" for the Rocky Mountain News.

For a flavor of how he thought about things, here's his own August 2002 "The Case Against Attacking Iraq" -- with an update that he wasn't convinced by it himself. Olmsted later explained/asked:

If Hussein were able to develop nuclear weapons and it turned out he were not a rational actor as we understand the term, the result would be the atomic destruction of at least one American or Israeli city. Are we prepared to take that risk? I'm not.

Sounds familiar; I confess I'm not familiar enough with his writing to know how or whether he ever modified that view in view of the nonexistent WMD and WMD programs, and in view of growing doubts about the probity and rationality of our own leadership.

I extend my sincere condolences to his family, his friends, his unit in Iraq, and his readers and online friends at Obsidian Wings and around the Internet (especially hilzoy, Gary Farber, and Jim Henley).


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UPDATE, 1/7: New York Times article by Brian Stelter; "In Memoriam" by Jim Henley; Remembering Andy Olmsted by hilzoy, who relays from his unit that "Major Olmsted died while attempting to get the enemy to surrender so we would not have to kill them." Another man, Captain Thomas Casey, was killed trying to save Olmsted.
UPDATE, 1/8: How To Help (hilzoy, "Obsidian Wings") gives the address for a fund for Capt. Casey's children -- Capt. Thomas Casey Children’s fund, P.O. Box 1306, Chester, CA 96020; hilzoy also gathers press and blog links to Olmsted's message. Blog links are sorted by "more than just a link" and "just a link". posted by Thomas Nephew at 6:00:00 PM -- |  

 
Obama's biggest "Lieberman" of all
Yesterday, Steve Benen evaluated the charge that Barack Obama uses so-called "right wing memes" -- Social Security in crisis and so forth. Benen had the amusing idea of grading Obama with a score measured in "Liebermans" -- "5 Liebermans for the most annoying use of conservative frames, 1 Lieberman for the least annoying."

Benen's measure was even better than he acknowledged -- because he missed one of the biggest "Liebermans" of all on the audacious one's scorecard: Obama's endorsement of Lieberman in the bitterly contested 2006 Connecticut Democratic primary with Ned Lamont. According to the March 31, 2006 Boston Globe, Obama told a Jefferson and Jackson Dinner gathering in Hartford, Connecticut:

The fact of the matter is, I know some in the party have differences with Joe. I'm going to go ahead and say it ... I am absolutely certain Connecticut is going to have the good sense to send Joe Lieberman back to the U.S. Senate so he can continue to serve on our behalf," he said.

This wasn't when Lamont's challenge was off the radar screen, either; the report says that "legions" of both Lieberman and Lamont supporters attended the dinner, and that Obama called Lieberman's shrunken stature among Democrats "the elephant in the room."

Like Benen, I think it's reasonable to shrug off one or the other or even several of the items he mentioned, even if I'd grade Obama a little tougher than Benen did on some of them (especially the business about the SEIU 527 ads being the work of a "special interest" akin to any other). But like Digby, I think the political pattern Obama is making is relatively clear: at least his rhetoric is calculated "sistah souljah"-ing of the Democratic base, in a bid for the alleged center. And the Lieberman endorsement in the heat of a primary campaign suggests this tendency goes farther than rhetoric.

It wasn't an isolated event, either. Obama also gave his support in the 2006 primary season to the centrist Democrat (and eventual general election loser) Tammy Duckworth in the IL-6 campaign over the prior nominee, Christine Cegelis -- who nearly won the primary anyway, and who had won 44% of the vote against Henry Hyde in the far tougher 2004 election. Obama explained his intervention to David Sirota with a laconic "There are going to be strategic questions about who do I think is best equipped to win the general elections."

OK, but then there are also going to be strategic questions for the rest of us about who we think is best equipped to make those judgments. (The voters of Connecticut and Illinois, perhaps?) At any rate. what business it was of Obama's -- who had earlier professed an aversion to "kingmaker" status -- to be be tipping the scales in primary elections? Most to the point of tonight's Democratic caucuses, do we want a Democratic presidential nominee whose idea of political wisdom was to tip those scales against progressives like Cegelis or Lamont?

There's a lot that's good about Obama -- see the prior post for his views on executive power, for example. But there's something very annoying about endorsing someone like Lieberman, too. Sirota's "The Nation" article is a skeptical but fair profile of Obama in 2006, and it's worth dusting off. Sirota wrote:

Obama is ... not opposed to structural changes at all. However, he appears to be interested in fighting only for those changes that fit within the existing boundaries of what’s considered mainstream in Washington, instead of using his platform to redefine those boundaries. [...]

Obama’s deference to these boundaries was hammered home to me when our discussion touched on the late Senator Paul Wellstone. Obama said the progressive champion was “magnificent.” He also gently but dismissively labeled Wellstone as merely a “gadfly,” in a tone laced with contempt for the senator who, for instance, almost single-handedly prevented passage of the bankruptcy bill for years over the objections of both parties. ... I understood why Beltway publications and think tanks have heaped praise on Obama and want him to run for President. It’s because he has shown a rare ability to mix charisma and deference to the establishment. [...]

Obama will often be a reliable liberal vote, and he can give one hell of a speech. But we should believe him when he downplays our expectations.

I suspect reservations like these are too late and too insubstantial for many Obama supporters. I had a discussion with a dear relative over the holidays about Obama, in particular about his Social Security in crisis talk. As we reviewed my post about it, my relative argued that Obama was caught off guard by the National Journal and Meet the Press interviews involved, that other Democrats were simply looking for reasons to oppose Obama, and that Social Security may well need fixing, even if he usually defers to Paul Krugman on such issues.

In other words, he wasn't changing his mind. What if, he said, you find someday that Social Security is on the rocks -- won't you regret not supporting Obama now? At the time I said I thought there were far more pressing problems on our to-do list right now: Medicare, health care, Iraq. But now I wish I'd remembered the Lieberman endorsement and said what "if" you find a so-called Democratic weasel like Joe Lieberman in the Senate -- or worse, in an Obama administration? How will you feel then? It's a measure of my own forgetfulness -- and Obama's political skills -- that I didn't.


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NOTES: Benen item via eRobin ("fact-esque"). Digby ("hullabaloo") post "Partisan Soljahs" was from 12/10/07.
EDIT, 1/3: Links documenting Lieberman's weaselhood added.
EDIT, 1/4: Link to prior post added.
UPDATE, 1/10: Ned Lamont endorses Obama. (Lieberman still in U.S. Senate.) posted by Thomas Nephew at 2:35:00 PM -- |