I Want a Leader
Posted on July 3, 2008, by Hanna Ingber Win, under Immigration, International, Politics.
Barack Obama can find time in his schedule to have two press conferences on his timeline for withdrawing combat troops from Iraq - in one day. Couldn’t he fit in one press conference - say in one month - in which he discusses his plan for Iraqi reconstruction, humanitarian aid and refugee resettlement?
The chair of the campaign’s immigration policy group, Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, insisted to me that the senator is deeply committed to helping the almost five million Iraqis displaced by the war. He said Obama feels that the United States has a responsibility to these people.
So where’s the press conference?
Leadership is about bringing up sticky, uncomfortable issues. It’s about taking a stand when others want to hide under a blanket. A president with true leadership can force the American people to grapple with the difficult questions - like what the hell are we going to do about this massive humanitarian and security crisis that the war we started created - and get them to rally around an issue simply because it’s the right thing to do.
We’ve been in this war for five years. Debating how quickly we remove combat troops is the easy part. Figuring out what happens once we leave is the real challenge. And it would be nice if the candidates took 30 minutes out of their months of campaigning to tell us what they plan to do.
(P.S. Sorry, I can’t tell you how committed John McCain is to Iraqis displaced by the war. His campaign won’t return my phone calls or emails.)
