On July 2, Barack Obama sat down for an interview with Military Times. The point was to make inroads into the hearts and minds of American troops who may be skeptical of Obama’s elitist rhetoric and ill-defined war policies. “Precisely because I have not served in uniform, I am somebody who strongly believes I have to earn the trust of men and women in uniform,” he said. Fair enough.
Obama spoke about the care and service the
Military members and their families deserve better pay and benefits, he said, and although money might be hard to find for a generous increase, he supports increasing basic pay to keep up with inflation and private-sector salaries, and he believes housing allowances need to be increased so young service members and their families can afford adequate places to live.
He also wants to spend more to improve veterans’ health care and reduce the wait for a disability claim to be processed.
“I don’t know a higher priority than making sure that the men and women who are putting themselves in harm’s way, day in and day out, are getting decent pay and decent benefits — so that when they return home as veterans, they don’t have to wait six months to get benefits that they’ve earned, that they’re not winding up homeless on the streets, that they’re being screened for post-traumatic stress disorder, that if a spouse is widowed, the benefits are sufficiently generous,” he said. “These are just basic requirements of a grateful nation.”
You would think that for Obama, earning such trust would involve going some distance beyond the vague rhetorical pledges quoted above. And you would be wrong:
Obama said he did not want to be more specific because he did not want to make promises he might not be able to keep. “I think we can do a much better job than we’re doing right now,” he said. But, he added, “I want to be honest: We are going to be in a tight budget situation. We’re not going to be able to do everything all at once.”
That just screams trust, doesn’t it? When is someone going to nail Obama down on specific policy commitments? We are a nation at war and he is a candidate whose campaign rests on criticism of that war. Yet we have no insight into how or if he proposes to change things. We watched him float through the primary on a cloud of hope and change yet we felt certain he’d have to cough up some details in the general election. We are now four months away from November and Barack Obama is unable to outline a plan for what he describes as his highest priority. Obama told Military Times, “I think I have a better sense than he [John McCain] does of where we need to go in the future.” Well, maybe we’ll follow. But could you tell us where first?
