January 24, 2007
Humility and History Posted by Alexander Burns at 10:10 AM EST Amidst the flurry of news surrounding the State of the Union Address and Hillary Clinton’s announcement of her presidential candidacy, I’m going to be unconventional and talk about an event that’s practically ancient history: Barack Obama’s declaration of candidacy last week.
There is much to be said for the young senator from Illinois. He is clearly a shrewd and articulate man. The former editor of the Harvard Law Review and the keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Obama has distinguished himself as an appealing, energetic spokesman for his party and a persuasive advocate for moderate liberalism. Though my sample is limited, it seems to me that he’s generated an amazing degree of enthusiasm among college students. It goes without saying that the media love him. So far, the affection seems to be mutual.
The most significant criticism of this aspiring President, however, is that he is glaringly inexperienced. Serving a few terms in the state legislature before winning his Senate seat in 2004, Obama has spent only two years in the federal government and has done so as a member of the Senate’s minority party. He has little legislation to his name and few credentials on important national issues like foreign relations and national security. He’s no less experienced than some of his chief rivals; John Edwards and Hillary Clinton may be more accomplished politically, but neither has considerable executive experience or better national security bona fides. Still, it seems hard to argue that Obama’s fully qualified to run a country like this one.
All these are strikes against the Obama ’08 campaign, but what really turns me off from the Illinois legislator is not his inexperience or his preening before the camera. It’s the way he and his allies have decided to use history in the interests of his campaign. In response to the argument that Obama is prohibitively inexperienced, some supporters of his have circulated a cute little retort: “He has more experience than Lincoln did in 1860.” Furthermore, Obama has reportedly decided to formally announce his campaign in early February in Lincoln’s hometown of Springfield, Illinois.
It is, of course, factually true that Obama has more experience in public office than Lincoln had before his election as President. It is also true that Obama occupies the Senate seat that Lincoln lost to Stephen Douglas in 1858, so comparisons between Obama and Lincoln are bound to arise (although the same could hardly be said about Lincoln and Obama’s immediate predecessor, Peter Fitzgerald, or Fitzgerald’s predecessor, Carol Moseley Braun). It seems like bad form, though, for a political candidate, particularly one as green as Obama, to draw such shameless comparisons between himself and the sixteenth President. Lincoln was certainly one of the most important and most admirable figures in American history. While Obama might be a promising candidate, he’s hardly earned the right to claim Lincoln’s mantle, and it comes off as awfully arrogant when he and his surrogates try to do so.
I disagree with her about almost everything, but I think Peggy Noonan may have dealt with this kind of behavior best in a column from last year in which she excoriated both Obama and Bill Frist for the preening, self-congratulatory tone of their public speeches. In her column, Noonan notes that Obama hangs a portrait of Lincoln in his office and he says that it “asks [him] questions.” Noonan suggests a question Lincoln might ask Obama: “Barack, why are you such an egomaniac?” Her point, and mine, is that politicians and other public figures ought to have a little more humility before their audiences and before history.
There’s nothing wrong with a politician drawing inspiration from past greatness. There’s nothing wrong with setting out to match a historical figure’s accomplishments. A better model for this, though, might be Lyndon Johnson, who hoped to enact such sweeping social reforms as to make Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal footnotes to his own chapter in history. Obviously Johnson failed, but at least he tried to pair good works with faith in himself. I wish I could say the same about the top tier of the Democratic presidential field.
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