International Law

The Audacity of Mendacity

By Stan

The May Day holiday is now officially over, so it’s back to work for all, even lazy bloggers like myself.

First up, something from U.S. politics that has had me putting on the hat of a naive young idealist of late. Weird position for me to be in, I can tell you that.

In short, I’ve been pissed off lately with all the anti-trade, anti-China political rhetoric coming out of the mouths of the U.S. presidential candidates. Seems like whenever I complain, someone says by way of a defense that that particular candidate doesn’t "mean it," and the rhetoric was simply a tactic to get past the primaries and into the general election. This jaded approach is sad, folks, and it’s bugging me, although I admit at the outset that it is accurate.

A recent speech of Barack Obama’s brought this issue up again for me. If you have been following the U.S. presidential race, you’ll know that Obama has been attacked for the words of his "spiritual advisor" in Chicago, Jeremiah Wright. After Wright said some things that Obama (probably) didn’t support, Obama distanced himself from Wright, who then came back with even more inflammatory rhetoric, along with the opinion that Obama didn’t really believe in the denouncement of Wright, but was doing so as a political tactic. Obama’s response to that:

"At a certain point if what somebody says contradicts what you believe so fundamentally and then he questions whether or not you believe it — in front of the National Press Club — then that’s enough," Obama said, referring to Wright’s suggestion that Obama’s denouncement was what a politician had to say.

That’s quite interesting. So Obama actually cares when someone questions the sincerity of his rhetoric. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a politician say something like that before - kudos to the Senator from Illinois. Really.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if a member of the media were to ask Obama, or Clinton, or McCain, about some of their more nutty pronouncements against China (or more generally free trade) in this context, essentially challenging whether or not they believed in that stuff? If challenged, would they come back like Obama did in the quote above, or would they simply wink and let people know, in a round-about fashion, that deep down, they really didn’t mean it?

Full post as published by China Hearsay on May 04, 2008 (boomark / email).