I”m not sure we can assume that he approves of what he did, or advocates such things, even if he has no regrets. My guess is that he views it in the same vein as the Boston Tea Party – a violent protest directed at “things”, not people. Haven’t read his books, but the general impression I get is that he feels the violent bombing route was a mistake, in that it didn’t help end the war sooner, but may have prolonged it. You could say he doesn’t regret the bombings (of buildings, not of people) in and of itself, only in that it was an arrogant and failed tactic. Whatever the case, he no longer advocates such tactics, so we can safely say he’s renounced that approach.

Finally you’re making some sense. The Democrats certainly can lose this election, and certainly Hillary is trying hard to make that possible. But so is the media in general. They seem to love playing gotcha games with Democrats that undermine their patriotism and credibility. The point is, these issues are essentially meaningless to most people, even those who play them up. The notion that Obama is somehow uniquely vulnerable here is simply not true. Any Democrat, any liberal, Hillary included, would be subject to the same kinds of meaningless attacks and gotcha games. It’s certainly a legitimate question to ask which Democrat can defend against these kind of distracting attacks the best. I think Obama can do that, and the last few months have shown how strong he is at warding off the kind of attacks that would have killed off a lesser candidate.

As for him being a “conventional” liberal that depends on the definition. His policy is fairly “conventional” in the mode of Hart-Dukakis-Bill Clinton etc. The first two of those could easily have been elected if they hadn’t either self-destructed or been unable to respond to personal attacks. (Dukakis was leading in the polls until the whole flag-willie-horton-patriotism thing began). If Obama doesn’t self-destruct or fail to respond to personal attacks – and he’s done very well on both counts so far – he will probably win by about the same margin as Bill Clinton. 5-6 points. Better, I think, than Hillary would do.

Of course, he can still lose. Gore found a way to lose in 2000 (or at least let it be so close he allowed it to be stolen from him). So anything’s possible. You are assuming that there actually is some Democratic candidate out there who would be guaranteed to win. Every Democrat is vulnerable simply by virtue of being a Democrat.

What I think you are really looking for is an Obama who is a conservative Republican. You’re not likely to find someone like that in the Democratic party, and forget about even imagining such a thing in the Republican party.

As the immigration debate showed, McCain has the same kind of contempt for Middle Americans that his competitors seem to have, and as I was saying in an earlier post the GOP exploits cultural conservatives with this pretense that they respect and value their way of life and their concerns. None of this is a brief for McCain. I am appalled that the Democrats have apparently wasted one of their best electoral chances in a generation and in the process are jeopardising the antiwar agenda by putting forward a candidate who will, I think, prove to be a very weak general election candidate. The crux of the Bacevich and Raimondo arguments is the idea that Obama can win and therefore discredit the neocons/War Party. If we invest the ‘08 election with the kind of significance that they have, and Obama winds up losing, as I think is quite possible, I foresee years and years’ worth of people bragging that the American people have endorsed the ruinous policies of the modern GOP, when it will have been a fluke of the weakness of the Democratic nominee. The problem is that the Democrats are putting forward someone who could actually lose an election that a Democrat has no business losing in this environment, and every time he plays the part of the conventional liberal he is aiding in his own defeat. As it happens, I think he *is* a conventional liberal, which is why he was never much of an ideal messenger for the antiwar cause.

Ayers stated that by “no regrets” he meant that he didn’t regret his efforts to oppose the Vietnam War, and that “we didn’t do enough” meant that efforts to stop the war were obviously inadequate as it dragged on for a decade.

One would assume that when he said he didn’t regret setting bombs, he meant that, well, he didn’t regret setting bombs.

“In 2001, Ayers published Fugitive Days: A Memoir. Ayers’s interview with the New York Times about his book was published on September 11, 2001, and opens with his statement, “I don’t regret setting bombs, I feel we didn’t do enough.” The interview also includes his reaction (in his book) to Emile De Antonio’s 1976 documentary film about the Weathermen: “He was ‘embarrassed by the arrogance, the solipsism, the absolute certainty that we and we alone knew the way. The rigidity and the narcissism.”[1] Ayers stated that by “no regrets” he meant that he didn’t regret his efforts to oppose the Vietnam War, and that “we didn’t do enough” meant that efforts to stop the war were obviously inadequate as it dragged on for a decade.”

If anyone wants to cite Wright, Ayers or “elitism” as pretexts to oppose Obama, fine. (Of course, there’s nothing wrong with associating with wackjobs like John Hagee.) I’m not trying to put words in your mouth, Dan, but if you’re implying that a vote in November for the quagmire-loving, free-trading co-sponsor of McCain/Kennedy shamnesty will be some great victory for the working class or repeal the 1960s or strike a blow against multiculturalism, I’ve got some Enron stocks to sell you.

As a (reluctant) Obama supporter along the lines of Bacevich and Raimondo, I concede that whatever shot he had at “transforming” politics is pretty much blown to hell at this point. Chalk up another victory for post-1968 Bread & Circus politics — and watch your country circle the drain for yet another four years.

What a terrible president he would be. But so would McCain in different ways.

I feel like I’m watching the Iran-Iraq War with this campaign.

I’d be more impressed with a question about selling clusterbombs to Olmert. Silly me.

…the implication that if you are friendly with somebody you agree with everything they stand for

Okay, then what about the idea that, whether or not you “agree with what they stand for”, you just shouldn’t be “friendly” with known terrorists? Is that thought so hard to understand?

So this kind of game, in which anybody who I know, regardless of how flimsy the relationship is, is somehow – somehow their ideas could be attributed to me – I think the American people are smarter than that. They’re not going to suggest somehow that that is reflective of my views, because it obviously isn’t.

I realize that this is an era of “gotcha politics” where we twist people’s words for fun and profit. But what part of that is hard to understand?

Also, a tenuous connection with Eric Rudolph probably would have helped McCain in his primary fight in some states.