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Federick Kagan juxtaposes John McCain’s and Barack Obama’s January 2007 proposals concerning their strategies for the future of the Iraq war in this week’s The Weekly Standard.With the use of hindsight, Kagan is able to examine these proposals and make a clear distinction as to which candidate is better qualified for the position of commander-in-chief. The comparison is telling. As Kagan states, “Barack Obama proposed a popular and politically safe route that would have led to an unnecessary and debilitating American defeat at the hands of al Qaeda.”

Also in this week’s issue, Ross Terrill details his firsthand experience with the aftermath of China’s earthquake and its unifying effect on the Chinese people. Rather than government-mandated participation, the Chinese have willingly participated in national events on their own accord—choosing to take part in moments of silence and private fundraising activities. The reaction of the people possibly reflects the democratic progress, or want there of, in the culture and has smudged the line that exists between society and state during this time of rebuilding.

Contributing editor P.J. O’Rourke delves into the political philosophy of Republican Senator John Sununu of New Hampshire. Instead of having a standard platform on his political ideologies, Sununu believes in a simplified philosophy: applying moral principals to the legislative process. The usage of this technique, combined with his ability to focus on his obligations and not his aspirations, makes Sununu a rarity in Washington. “I’m intrigued by the notion that most of our country’s founders were suspicious of anyone who wanted to hold public office, e.g., Aaron Burr,” he says.

Of course, you can log on to weeklystandard.com to read all these stories and more.

ADVANCE COPY

In the new issue of The Weekly Standard:

Andrew Ferguson on Barrack Obama from Hyde Park:

When Barack Obama was briefly embarrassed earlier this year by his association with the onetime bomb-builder and wanna-be bomb-exploder William Ayers, he blamed his neighborhood, sort of. “He’s a guy who lives in my neighborhood,” Obama said with a shrug, as if to say, “Don’t we all have to put up with these cranky old domestic terrorists wandering through the yard?” But of course not every neighborhood does have a onetime Weatherman and his wife, former Weathermoll Bernadine Dorhn, living in it, especially not as twin pillars of the community. Obama’s casual dismissal led people all across America, people who live in all kinds of communities without bombers, to look at each other and say: “Wow, what kind of neighborhood does Barack live in?”

It’s not a trifling question. Like a gabby relative or a crooked business associate, a membership in a restrictive golf club or a long-forgotten bisexual fling, a neighborhood can be a problem for a candidate. Voters often feel that incidentals like these reveal something essential about a potential president. Just as important, political consultants often go to great lengths to make voters feel that way. Recall poor Michael Dukakis, the hapless Democratic presidential nominee in 1988. He lived in the Boston suburb of Brookline—a “progressive” village where the townsfolk congratulate themselves for riding mass transit, eating fibrous bread, holding Winter Festivals in place of Christmas parties, joining committees, attending meetings that last many hours and result in the appointment of more committees, growing organic Chinese vegetables in sideyards, and hanging potted plants in macramé hammocks on the front porch. Brookline was an eddy of American life, a pocket of preci osity set apart from the world tha t most Americans struggle through, and Republican operatives made it a symbol of Dukakis’s disconnection from the common man. Maybe this was a low blow, but the Republicans had a point. Anyone who knew Brookline would not have been surprised to learn that Dukakis, as one of its favorite sons, liked to take books about Swedish land-use planning with him to the beach, thus disqualifying himself from the presidency.

As Republicans felt about Brookline, so Obama supporters feel about Obama’s neighborhood: it’s a measure of the man. “What better way to define what you’re all about than where you choose to live and bring up your family?” said Obama’s friend, neighbor, and campaign adviser John Rogers in USA Today. Obama’s neighborhood, Hyde Park, is on the South Side of Chicago, about seven miles from the Loop. Not counting time spent in college and law school, plus part of a year working for an investment bank in Manhattan, Hyde Park is the only place Barack Obama has lived as an adult. He first moved there in 1984, when he came to Chicago as a community organizer, and he returned after graduating from Harvard Law School. Here he courted his future wife, who grew up in the nearby neighborhood of South Shore, and here his children were born and now attend (private) school. Here, too, is the mansion he bought in 2005, with the proceeds from his two bestselling books, in which he sp eaks fondly of the life he has bui lt here.