Former Reagan Ambassador Kenneth Adelman recently confessed to the New Yorker’s George Packer that he is planning to vote for Obama.
Even normally sober conservative analysts, like my friends at Powerline, have deplored Adelman’s free exercise of his voting rights.
George Packer, himself a great journalist whom I always read and often disagree with, establishes Adelman’s solid conservative credentials:
Ken Adelman is a lifelong conservative Republican. Campaigned for Goldwater, was hired by Rumsfeld at the Office of Economic Opportunity under Nixon, was assistant to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld under Ford, served as Reagan’s director of arms control, and joined the Defense Policy Board for Rumsfeld’s second go-round at the Pentagon, in 2001. Adelman’s friendship with Rumsfeld, Cheney, and their wives goes back to the sixties, and he introduced Cheney to Paul Wolfowitz at a Washington brunch the day Reagan was sworn in.
And so on. This is the full-disclosure paragragh, so you can skip it if you wish. Adelman, who is a friend of mine who I haven’t seen in a few years (I take the boy-definition of friendship: one does not have to see someone recently to consider them a friend), is a solid conservative. During the 2002 Christmas holiday, he invited me to dinner with Paul Wolfowitz. At the dinner, he said he was amazed that the press called him a “neo-con.” “I have always been a conservative,” he said.I traveled with him to Poland, Colorado and dined with him roughly half-a-million times.
Years later, he turned against the war. Much of the press and public shared his view. I think he was wrong, but there has always been a true-blue conservative faction against war. “War is the health of the state,” as one philosopher put it.
Adelman slowly decided that Rumsfeld et al were wrong about the war. It takes a man of principle to decide that his friends of the past four decades are wrong. I strongly disagree with Ken, but I strongly respect him too.
We need a bit more of what Peggy Noonan calls “Patriotric Grace” in this country. I disagree with Noonan on Palin and other things, but I’ve read her book by the same title and think, in its rambling glory, she has a profound point. We need to understand that in America there is a Loyal Opposition, a view with which we are diametically opposed that still loves this land as we do. Indeed, the Left should learn this lesson too.
We need a bit more charity, mercy and love toward those we disagree with, like Adelman. He is raising sensible questions about McCain. He deserves sensible answers. We must not become like the Left, intolerant of even microscopic deviations from the party line. That is Stalinism, not freedom. Let’s listen and debate those we disagree with, especially conservatives like Adelman.
I have known Ken for many years. He has a first-class temperment, which simultaneously can listen to opposing views and hold strong ones of his own. We need more of that in American politics, not less.
Yes, I think he is wrong about Palin. She has many gifts the MSM cannot tolerate and he seems to have been taken in. He may well be right about McCain’s fecklessness during the bailout crisis, but I think, on balance, this failing may not be enough to vote against the Maverick. I plan to (hold my nose) and vote for McCain.
But don’t we want to live in a country in which people of good will are free is disagree? Isn’t the red team-blue team Rollerball mentality part of the problem in American politics?
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14 Comments
1. heather:for me, the problem is that with more and better communications via the ‘net, I am becoming aware that Noonan et al., although supposedly ‘conservative’ really believe that they are much better than the rest of the peasantry, such as moi. They condescend. And they condescend over not over issues of moment (like knowledge and morality), but of issues like style.
Andrew Sullivan revealed all when he sneered at Palin’s “cocktail hostess” appearance.
I will never forgive any of those people. And I regret that, because I have enjoyed their ruminations over the years.
But I know, when they lunch with their ‘friends’, they sneer at me and mine. So, to hell with them.
Oct 21, 2008 - 11:11 am 2. David Thomson:Is Kenneth Adelman a moron with an IQ of 75 and someone who failed to graduate from grade school? Of course not. It is therefore fair to suspect him of moral bankruptcy. Barack Obama is not a pig in the poke. We know for sure that he is the most left-wing major presidential candidate in our nation’s history. His relationships with some very vile people is beyond dispute. Obama will also most assuredly try to destroy our First Amendment rights. He is truly a very dangerous man. No, Adelman does not deserve the benefit of the doubt. We have every right to treat him with contempt.
Oct 21, 2008 - 12:12 pm 3. Andrew:I can certainly understand a call for more civility but, with all due respect, how can you characterize supporting a liberal Democrat for President over a conservative Republican as a “microscopic deviation from the party line”? Would you describe the Grand Canyon as “a slight depression”?
Oct 21, 2008 - 1:47 pm 4. Florida conservative:Too much inclined to be a believer prehaps, Ken Adelman is now embittered and despondent about the Iraq War, Don Rumsfeld, and the Bush Administration. He has now embraced Obama as the logical opposite. This marks a fool’s course when it comes to this year’s election.
McCain is much flawed and will often disappoint conservatives, but Obama is alarming. He is a hard Leftist who, like Jimmy Carter, will be empowered and spurred on by a similarly inclined Democratic Congress.
They will do their best — and are likely to succeed — in radically and permanently changing the country and diminishing its place in the world. If so, America will suffer a hard fall — which is precisely what they intend.
Ken Adelman does not share that goal, but in preferring Obama, he is endorsing it essential first step. I expect that the invective he now suffers from old friends will be slight in comparison to the reproaches he one day heaps upon himself.
Oct 21, 2008 - 2:02 pm 5. A Peasant:A so called “solid conservative”,who supports a liberal socialist democrat is beyond contempt. How’s that for civility!
Oct 21, 2008 - 3:12 pm 6. James:Sorry Richard, obama and the left don’t love America as we do, they want to tear it down and rebuild it in their image of a socialist utopia. This is the part that I don’t get.
If Mr.Adelman has reservations about McCain’s conservative bonafides, as we all do, he would vote for Alan Keyes, Ron Paul or not vote at all. “Conservatives” who support obama have an personal agenda, they have sold their souls we just don’t know the price.
Oct 21, 2008 - 4:31 pm 7. David Thomson:“Conservatives” who support obama have an personal agenda, they have sold their souls we just don’t know the price.”
They do not possess the right to claim ignorance. These are well educated individuals who are more than able to ascertain the well established truths regarding Obama. I just found this on National Review website:
I have no respect left for Powell. None.”
Mark R. Levin
http://tinyurl.com/6c4t2o
Oct 21, 2008 - 8:13 pm 8. James:My God. Powell has closed his eyes to the obvious truth. He is disgraceful.
Thanks Davis for the info.
Oct 21, 2008 - 8:46 pm 9. morton from vienna:This is yet another victory for Barrack! You people call it socialism just because he wants to give tax refunds to the poor who deserve it the most. Adelman and Powell see that and appreciuate it. Does that mean they are socialist sympathizers if not outright socialists, too?
As Biden said, when Obama wins this historic election, we will definitely be attacked. Let’s elect Obama and take it in a unified manner no matter how impropper the resonse looks as that won’t be a time for pioliticking! Cheers to Adelman and Powell for leaving the dark side and joining the moral side.
Oct 21, 2008 - 10:20 pm 10. James:Mark my words morton from vienna : The last Biden’s (gaffe) speech was telling the base to prepare to swallow some hypocrisy.
Thanks for the warning, Joe !
Oct 21, 2008 - 10:50 pm 11. Ken Nelson:Adelman, Powell, Obama and McCain place their own ambitions and piques ahead of the nations interest.
My problem with him is that he has turned his back on the sweat and blood of soldiers who never gave up AND that he chose to say this publicly during the critical end phase of the election. He could have remained silent. To promote his view is more than changing his mind, it is payback. Why be civil to someone behaving that way?
Oct 22, 2008 - 2:35 pm 12. Gaffe Prices:Sorry, but I cannit see the reciprocity from a Democrat Brand that thinks it was rewarded for careening to the left, when its candidates campaigned on hawkish, Amer-centric positions in 2006. Prissy uber principled “conservatives” poisoned the well, not through feance to a “loyal opposition”, but to the Republican electorate and the opportunity to remain loyal to those principles in that election. We’re paying a price for that, when the Kenneth Adeledmens put their peacock anti-war principle ahead of all other Conservative principled values to sabotage our agenda, in favor of a Democrat majority that thinks it should be rewarded for, lets just call it for what it is, its AntiAmericanism. Hello dick Durtbin (worse than Pol Pot), Pelosi (I’m trying to save the planet!), Reid (the war is lost), Mutha (cold blooded kilers).
Kennethye Adelmans, get out and stay out. 0bamas will capriciously “entangle” us in war just to try and fill the whole in his soul, where a backbone is supposed to be, and compensate his shuddering, dithering ineptitude in the face of the yawning concrete fact that the office has enormous responsibilities.
0bamas is completely unprepared for those responsibilities, because everything has been handed to him just by showing up and being black. In his delusion, he thinks the easy way is the easiest. The best thing that will ever have happened to 0bamas is WHEN HE LOSES. Then he might aquire enough humility to be a credible human being, capable of learning lifes lessons on lifes terms.
Put simply, Adelmans position, his victory is pyrric, or will be, literally.
the first bombing of the World Trade Center in Feb. 1993 provided Abdul Rahman Yasin, the cell leader, to escape to safe haven in Saddams Iraq, in violation of Bush Doctrine. That alone, constituted causus belli for the smashing of that regime and Saddms latent and still functioning WMD production capacity.
Doesn’t the educated, experienced Adelmen, or Loonan, or Powell know that? Its situational ethics to put yourself and your standing above country and principle.Or are they just that far out of touch. In the beltway, doncha know.
Good riddance to bad garbage.
Oct 22, 2008 - 5:04 pm 13. James:Ken,
I watched the video from Stra Tribune about “Those kooky Obama supporters”. I’ts really despicable and disgusting.
“He chose to say this publicly during the critical end phase of the election.”
Yes. That’s exactly what Eagleburger said in FoxNews : http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x75nln_eagleburgers-take_news
Oct 22, 2008 - 5:46 pm 14. vincenzo4:I am a former Democrat, corroborated with every day I made the right decision. I changed because of the 1990s; the concurrent emaciation and an unprecedented near collapse of national security, led by what would be two criminals. One, The failed Presidency whose sexual activity alone would never had granted him a security clearance, who to me is still guilty of criminal malfeasance in office because willful neglect, who like all democrats get a pass and are rarely held accountable; then we nicely forget and repeat the cycle because Hollywoodesque panache makes it feel so good-until there is another bloodletting. They successfully blamed the 1990s on Bush, and he inherited the entire mess.
The reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition of this country was conducted, courtesy of a deliberately dumbed down intelligence community and liberalized immigration laws that have never been enforced. The Democrats protect their own houses better and with more tenacity. This is sedition on a grand scale. There is absolutely no coincidence in the land mines Bush has had to endure, and why the budget is in such a deficit.
I want every weakling who is not up to the fight of their lives, whose memory of the fact that we are at war is conveniently forgotten in every political discussion or whining about the financial crisis, caused by Democrat collusion with big business over racial appeasing, impaled poor people, and caused a worldwide tsunami. And like good little brainwashed Nazis we thrill at Obama. He is a bold faced liar and it is consistent that my former party put this man up to even be considered a President, much less a society that has not asked questions, culminated by an very unsolicited statement “…my Muslim faith…” shows a lack of candor, loyalty, discretion, morals and character. Why is this man even on my television? Then we have this huge knife in Lieberman’s back and a very peculiar general officer who has done the ultimate betrayal yet again to the tune of three figures a year. In his book The Secret History of The Iraq War, Bodansky asserts from experience that when the special operations forces inserted in Western Iraq prior to the attack, Hussein, acting on Russian GRU intercepts, deployed chemical weapons teams to the area to close with and neutralize them. This is after Powell and Bush spoke numerous times before the UN, and well before we entered Baghdad and found the bodies of nine executed scientists and seized 68,000 boxes of Iraqi government documents.
Americans better wake up; this is indeed the eleventh hour. Obama is a man with a mission, the messiah with honey dripping from, his mouth and immediately intends to emaciate the defense budget. For me: Principle is more precious than the home I have never been able to afford, after 30 plus years service; the impoverished childhood I had, and the retirement gutted by the Democratic “oops” that has become the Lusitania of our time. I will NEVER vote Democrat again. But, top all you comfortable, over-educated intellectuals who have never served your country, whose glee is in being accepted because you fling in droves to high-school rebellious chills, I want to you remember these days when the bottom falls out under the glee of Obama. I am quite confident you will miss George Bush to your horror.
Oct 28, 2008 - 2:54 am