James Kirchick, assistant editor at NRO opines in the Weakly Standard of the Democrat’s Popularity Fetish.

The gist of his argument resolves to Obama’s positions on Free Trade.

America is the world’s marketplace. By proxy, it is also the world’s employer. Yet in China, Wal*Mart is viewed as an upscale brand, its products beyond the reach of most Chinese. American goods have not lost their cachet of quality and superior workmanship. The American employee is still the best value for money. Of course some low-skill jobs will move overseas, but in the race for the bottom, the world is finding out that skilled labor is not a fungible commodity.

As a consultant who has lived half his life overseas, this comes as no surprise to me. An American is resourceful, innovative and does not require hand-holding. Faced with a problem, he does not go limp at his workstation: he complains, he patches things up, he shows initiative. The American worker gets things done. Especially in my industry, software, I have yet to see the benefits of offshore operations. I now specialize to failure: re-architecting failed offshore software projects pays my mortgage and has for the last two decades. I once watched six failed servlet-based projects arrive simultaneously from India, dead on arrival.

It cannot be otherwise. Until India and China have a robust market for their own software and consulting services, they will be mere emulators. This is not to say India and China are incapable of innovation: they are, after all, human beings and we are tool makers as a species. Unfortunately, at present time, neither the Indian nor the Chinese societies are producing the innovations one sees in the American society. Surrounding every major American university is a cluster of start-up businesses, usually staffed with foreign-born graduates. A few do return to their countries of origin, but the sum of vectors is still in America’s favor. It is my considered opinion Africans are the most significant new source of talent entering American society, the brain drain from that benighted continent is truly astonishing.

Barack Obama is not quite the idiot naïf Kirchick would paint him. What does it matter if Obama meets assorted Grand Panjandrums and Nabobs and Presidents-for-life? The powers of the President are centered on the Bully Pulpit, itself a wonderful little phrase.

Excuse an old man an etymological digression at this point: bully has not always meant a tormentor of the weak. The pejorative sense of the word arises from a pimp’s sinister protective affection for his whores. The word is Dutch, boel, a brother, a friend, a companion, from the Germanic root Buhle, lover. The Greek for this would be φίλον, the love of brothers and companions, and was a common expression of solidarity in the American Civil War era to say “Bully!” as a word of encouragement and praise. The phrase Bully Pulpit is from Theodore Roosevelt, who described the presidency as “such a bully pulpit to preach from”.

Yes, what America chiefly needs from its leadership is a bit more of the Bully Pulpit. Cajoling, encouraging, befriending, these are not verbs one associates with recent American presidents, but they are useful tools for any leader. When the Republicans scoff at Barack Obama’s popularity, especially in terms of his popularity overseas, it is mere envy. George W Bush had no such charms, though his father had the ability to summon up allies from many quarters. It was a great pity Bush 41 was burdened with a self-effacing modesty inherited from his New England stock, for I rather admired the man for his sense of purpose and duty. On his watch, America recovered from the colossal drunken toot of Reagan’s excesses. Bush 41 is, without a doubt, America’s most misunderstood president. Obama has a similar sense of duty and purpose, and if he is young, he comes from good stock as well. I am struck with the similarity of all of America’s better presidents: they come to the job bearing the reputation of being patricians and hothouse flowers. Beware of electing someone who styles himself the Common Man with whom You’d Like to Have a Beer. POTUS is an extraordinary job best filled by extraordinary people.

NAFTA is merely a framework for trade. It is surprisingly flexible: it’s not going to be repealed under an Obama administration. I see no reason we should sign trade deals with any country unwilling to provide basic worker protections, human rights and a living wage. Is this really too much to ask of a trading partner? If Kirchick is so exercised about unions and free trade, why not just go whole hog and embrace the whole wretched totalitarian lifestyle? Why doesn’t he just move to a free-trade paradise like China with no free press, where gay rights are non-existent and union organizers are murdered outright? There is nothing quite as repellent as a gay person who believes we should not expect and demand basic human rights reforms in countries where we do business.

It was not the Conservatives who fought for civil rights, but we Liberals, and I will point my bony old finger at the whole lot of you and damn you outright for your glib hypocrisy in these matters. Perhaps it is because you, like the Chinese themselves, have no such expectations of any government. Well content that others must suffer for your personal comforts, benefiting from the Liberal struggles for rights you now enjoy, you believe Free Markets will cure all ills. Avert your eyes from the human rights abuses, pretend they do not exist. What matter is cheap, abundant and shoddy goods on our shelves, that, and wretched software screwing up what little American business remains on our shores.

I am not a protectionist: I am a Liberal, and I believe Obama represents my positions. If you want to see the terminus of complete Free Trade, move to any banana republic. There a handful of rich people own everything, but they live behind three meter walls topped by electrified razor wire. They fear kidnapping above all things. Their children have bodyguards to go to school in the morning. Free Trade has not brought human rights reforms or improvements or even wage increases to the ordinary Guatemalan worker. But Free Trade has paid for a lot of nice condos in Miami, where the factory owners go to while away their idle hours and spend their money. Insofar as Free Trade brings benefits to both sides of the equation, I am all for it. I do not see those benefits in those countries where the jobs are exported. What I do see is wage slavery and economic serfdom. This I have seen with my own eyes.

Kirchick puts words in our mouths, putting his hand up our backsides like so many puppets, wiggling our jaws, having us say “McCain is a cranky nationalist who views the world down the barrel of a gun!” First, McCain isn’t a nationalist. I shall never forget his advocacy for repealing the embargo of Vietnam. It’s also untrue to say the Republican Party views the world down the barrel of a gun. First, Dick Cheney can’t sight down his shotgun barrel to save his life or anyone else’s life, as his hunting friends will attest. But in fairness, and with considerable contempt for the authors and sponsors of this war in Iraq, it is equally true to say the Republicans lack the will to fight and win this war, as they lacked the will to win in Vietnam. Is war not terrible enough that we should fight it with half-o-this and none-o-that, and screw our troops out of benefits and badly needed supplies?

Why has this war gone on so long? These people have not read Sun Tzu: there is no prolonged war from which anyone has benefited. The cruelest and stupidest part of this war has been the vast enrichment of contractors like Blackwater who poach the best and brightest and bravest from the ranks of our elite soldiery. These camp followers are not under military command. They are hated by the Iraqis. Nothing is done to rein in these roguish condottieri, and why? They are controlled by the Secretary of State.

More to the point: the Republicans have stood around with their thumbs up their asses while the Taliban reforms just over the border in Pakistan. The best we can do is send over the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to deliver a Stern Lecture to Generalissimo Musharraf. Obama promises to take the war to the enemy, a far saner policy than whining about negotiating with tinhorn despots. James Kirchick is already on record in this article saying we should negotiate free trade deals with these same despots.

Barack Obama represents the best aspects of the United States. Unlike other countries, here a person can reinvent himself. Here, opportunity beckons. Insofar as the rest of the world has not followed our example, it cannot hope to achieve parity with us. That example includes many intangibles beyond mere Free Trade. Other countries have aspects of our society, but none have them all. Our Constitution contained little that was new, except the Establishment Clause and the First Amendment. Here, we are free to believe as our consciences dictate and say what we wish. From these two freedoms emanate our greatness as a people and a nation. Other countries have followed our example: we are still greatly admired in the world. Obama represents hope, and yes, hope is what people feel before anything has yet happened. But America has lost patience with the fearful half-measures of the Republican Party, its reliance on the faded and threadbare vision of McCain, an elderly man who by his own admission has never used a computer. Of course John McCain is a better man than George W Bush, but that is the purest damnation by faint praise anyone can be given.

The planet does require a measure of healing, Kirchick. Much of healing resolves to compassion and the intangibles of care. It is more than medicine and surgery, more than technology, more than the rough dutch uncle-ing we have come to expect from the Republican Party. Americans have been in retreat and decline for decades now, watching good jobs disappear to countries where workers lack rights and safe working conditions, where children smear glue onto the soles of shoes with their bare hands.

Even during the era of slavery in the South, the seller of slaves was viewed as the most despicable man in the city. Free Trade does not mean we must tolerate the oppression of our fellow human beings, especially children. This is not even sound Conservative thinking, Kirchick. A Conservative stands for the rights of man, and fiercely defends the individual from the predations of intrusive government. I know of no honest Conservative who believes the poor deserve our pity. They all say, to a man, that the poor man wants to work, derives dignity from work, and must never endure the condescending drivel of those who would pat him on the head and give him a handout. That said, how can you defend giving that person’s job to a country where workers are maltreated and human rights are nonexistent? Of this you have nothing to say, but you are already sure Obama cannot heal the planet. To be sure, Obama cannot solve all the world’s problems, but he can change opinions about American government, both here and abroad.

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