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Kmiec Endorses Obama

I do not know Doug Kmiec well (if at all; I am not sure we’ve ever actually met), but I have long respected him as a stalwart leader in both the Catholic and conservative legal movements of which I am a part. So Kmiec’s flirtation with Senator Barack Obama’s campaign has puzzled me. See, for example, my earlier posts Garnett on Kmiec on Obama and the Supreme Court and Kmiec on Catholics for Obama.

In light of the direction he has been moving during this campaign season, however, while I was disappointed with his decision to formally endorse Obama in a Slate column over the weekend, I was no longer terribly surprised. What does puzzle me, however, is that Kmiec’s argument is so utterly unpersuasive.

Kmiec opens with the claims that:

I do not know if his earlier life experience is sufficient for the challenges of the presidency that lie ahead. I doubt we know this about any of the men or women we might select. It likely depends upon the serendipity of the events that cannot be foreseen. I do have confidence that the senator will cast his net widely in search of men and women of diverse, open-minded views and of superior intellectual qualities to assist him in the wide range of responsibilities that he must superintend. 

In the first place, Obama out is probably the least qualified—on paper, anyway—candidate for president since, well, George Bush. What is Obama donned that really prepares them to be the leader of the world’s only hyperpower. Where is his diplomatic experience? Where is his military experience? Where is his experience with anything except law reviews, community organizing, and the utterly sordid world of Illinois politics?

In the second, why is Kmiec confident that Obama’s administration will be an intellectually diverse one? It is not exactly as though Obama’s campaign staff is crawling with prominent right of center figures.

Kmiec continues:

As a Republican, I strongly wish to preserve traditional marriage not as a suspicion or denigration of my homosexual friends but as recognition of the significance of the procreative family as a building block of society. As a Republican and as a Catholic, I believe life begins at conception, and it is important for every life to be given sustenance and encouragement. As a Republican, I strongly believe that the Supreme Court of the United States must be fully dedicated to the rule of law and to the employ of a consistent method of interpretation that keeps the court within its limited judicial role. As a Republican, I believe problems are best resolved closest to their source and that we should never arrogate to a higher level of government that which can be more effectively and efficiently resolved below. As a Republican and a constitutional lawyer, I believe religious freedom does not mean religious separation or mindless exclusion from the public square.

In various ways, Sen. Barack Obama and I may disagree on aspects of these important fundamentals, but I am convinced, based upon his public pronouncements and his personal writing, that on each of these questions he is not closed to understanding opposing points of view and, as best as it is humanly possible, he will respect and accommodate them. 

With all due respect to someone I’ve long admired, this passage strikes me as astonishingly specious. Obama’s position on abortion is clear. He is strongly pro-choice. As for judges, the best case scenario is that Obama will nominate people like Stephen Breyer or Ruth Bader Ginsburg, neither of whom have demonstrated much commitment to limited government, a limited role for the judiciary, or preservation of religion in the public square. The worst-case scenario, of course, is that Obama will see Supreme Court appointments as an opportunity to pay off his more radical supporters, such that we end up with people like Harold Koh or Larry Tribe.

Kmiec’s claim that Obama will respect and accommodate right of center views in making judicial appointments is given the lie by Obama’s ”unoriginal and unjust” opposition to the nomination of Leslie Southwick to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, as well as Obama’s opposition to Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Indeed, the Alito nomination, is particularly striking. According to a 2005 press report, Kmiec is “a close friend [of Alito’s] from the days when he and Alito worked together at the Justice Department.” But here’s what Obama had to say about Alito when announcing his intention to vote against Alito’s nomination:

Judge Alito simply does not inspire confidence that he will serve as an independent voice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Finally, and perhaps most puzzlingly, Kmiec endorses Obama even though Kmiec admits that Obama still needs to address radical Islamic terrorism “with the same clarity and honesty with which he is addressed the topic of race in America.” A president has no greater responsibility than the preservation of the security of the United States and of its citizens, yet Kmiec is willing to jump to an Obama endorsement despite acknowledging the need to “await” “more extended thinking upon this vital subject” from Obama. I just don’t get it.

I’m not the only one. Mike Rappaport quotes the opening paragraphs of Kmiec’s column and then writes:

I am not entirely sure what Doug means by all this.  Perhaps it is to imply that Obama will take a high tone and will try not to demonize his political enemies.  I think that is likely, but not all that comforting.  If Doug believes that Obama will not govern as a pretty strong liberal, I would like to know the evidence for that.

Ditto.

Tom Smith:

I can say now that on reflection I find his statement of endorsement baffling and completely unpersuasive.  Kmeic allows that he is a Catholic (has he always been one, or did he convert?) and that marriage and presumably abortion are priority issues to him.  If this is the case, I have no idea why he should support Obama.  ...

I see no reason whatever to expect that Obama would do anything but support strongly the social agenda of the Democratic Party, which is strongly pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage and so on.  So what on earth is he thinking?  Has Obama made some traditional values comments that have escaped my notice?  With all due respect, which my flippant comment below did not convey, if you can’t give good reasons for your actions, the observer’s views tend naturally to the not so good reasons.  I suppose charity requires one extend the benefit of the doubt, but I confess I find it hard to do so in the case of this endorsement.  I would take less umbrage at it if I did not think that if Obama is not a threat to the Republic, he will certainly do until one comes along.

Meanwhile, an Andrew Sullivan reader opines:

He’s the only candidate that has the potential, and an expressed desire, to change the debate and actually face questions like: when should government intervene at all? when it does, how can it be useful and limited? We might not agree with all of Senator Obama’s answers, but he’s the only one that I’ve seen even express an interest in wrestling with the questions.

Even if it’s true that Obama is interested in wrestling with those questions, asking the right questions does you no good if you keep coming up with the wrong answers. Where is the evidence that Obama’s answers to any questions about the role of government and society would remotely resemble those that a limited government conservative would endorse? The undeniable fact that Obama gives great speeches doesn’t change the equally undeniable fact that at the end of the day he is a typical modern liberal in his policy positions.