foreign policy

The Russian government’s incompetent attack against John McCain has handed him a great weapon against Obama.  The attack makes clear that the Kremlin wants Obama to win the election but the open support of a nation busy doing this is hardly going help a candidate who’s already fighting a reputation for dictator-coddling.  John McCain’s statement on the crisis was excellent, but there’s a lot more his campaign can do.

The McCain campaign and the RNC should directly tie Obama to the Russians.  The message: “Russia wants Obama to win because they know he’ll be a weak President.”  

McCain couldn’t have said this without the Russian attacks against him, but their on the record implicit endorsement of Obama gives him full license to seize the message.  The McCain campaign has been starting to tiptoe around this already, but they should hit Obama at full force for standing by while an American ally is invaded.

Gary Hart, former presidential candidate and Democrat senator from Colorado, penned a thought-provoking op-ed in the NYT today on the subject of the political pendulum swinging and a shift towards a "cycle of reform." He observes that "the character of the next Republican Party will result from an intraparty debate that has yet to begin and might occupy a decade or more." Fortunately, this blog is starting that debate, and I'm hopeful it won't be a decade before we execute a vision.

He also correctly observes that the Democrats "have yet to produce a coherent ideological framework." He tells Barack Obama to include three things within a new framework:

"National security requires a new, expanded, post-cold-war definition. America must transition from a consumer economy to a producing one. And the moral obligations of our stewardship of the planet must become paramount."

Guess what? John McCain, the new standard-bearer of the Republican Party, not only embodies those principles. He has a history of fighting for these principles. Unlike Obama, McCain understands that we are in a war where borders don't exist and our enemies don't carry the flag of a country. Unlike Obama's onerous tax increase proposals and protectionist policies, McCain's economic policies increase productivity and opportunity at home while opening our country to the world. Unlike Obama, McCain has a long history of fighting for environmental protection and conservation, balanced with responsible development.

BOTTOM LINE: Hart ends by saying that "the next cycle of American history is as yet unframed." The Democrats' lack of a new framework gives Republicans a great opportunity to have John McCain execute a "cycle of reform" in the right direction. Will we get it together in the next four months? Thoughts?

Obama's campaign keeps on givin':

Obama's 'Key' Foreign Policy Adviser:  “Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security.”

Richard Danzig, who served as Navy Secretary under President Clinton and is tipped to become National Security Adviser in an Obama White House, told a major foreign policy conference in Washington that the future of US strategy in the war on terrorism should follow a lesson from the pages of Winnie the Pooh, which can be shortened to: if it is causing you too much pain, try something else.

Mr Danzig told the Centre for New American Security: “Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security.”

He spelt out how American troops, spies and anti-terrorist officials could learn key lessons by understanding the desire of terrorists to emulate superheroes like Luke Skywalker, and the lust for violence of violent football fans.

 

http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWViNzMxZTBhYzg4Y2NlZDc3MGI4NzUyYWMxNmY4MGU

Unfortunately, Susan Rice's statement regarding the Kennedy Khrushchev meeting, "Thank God he did because if he hadn't we would have not been able to resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis" is completely false. In fact historians agree that this meeting fueled the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The Weekly Standand, in detailing the Kennedy Khrushchev meeting, quotes NYT columnist James Reston who interviewed President Kennedy right after his meeting with Khrushchev,

"Reston reported that Kennedy said just enough for Reston to conclude that Khrushchev "had studied the events of the Bay of Pigs" and that he had "decided that he was dealing with an inexperienced young leader who could be intimidated and blackmailed." Kennedy said to Reston that Khrushchev had "just beat [the] hell out of me" and that he had presented Kennedy with a terrible problem: "If he thinks I'm inexperienced and have no guts, until we remove those ideas we won't get anywhere with him. So we have to act."

Kennedy responded to the meeting with a congressional request for a dramatic increase in defense spending, and a significant increase in the size of the military. Khrushchev responded to Kennedy's actions with above ground nuclear testing and erecting the Berlin Wall. The tensions between the US and Soviet Union dramatically increased due to the Kennedy Khrushchev meeting; the Cuban Missile Crisis followed.

Susan Rice's statement is simply false. There is no historical record of the Kennedy Khrushchev meeting being at all helpful in resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis and actually the exact opposite true that an inexperienced leader was bullied into an arms race.

'Obama Advisor Susan Rice's Major Historical/Foreign Policy Error' first published at Purple People Vote