Joe Gandelman writes that Senator Obama’s response to “appeasement” charges shows us it ain’t 2004 any more.
Obama turned the proverbial lemon (being attacked by Bush and being put on the defensive and having to answer) into lemonade (going after Bush by rattling off specific criticisms, using humor and sarcasm and tethering McCain tightly to Bush one after McCain made a major speech in which the Arizona Senator tried to inch himself away from the most unpopular President in modern polling history).
The biggest change, however, is that Obama seems unafraid to engage in foreign policy debates with Republicans. Chris Cillizza:
In elections past, Democrats have sought to avoid an extended fight with Republicans over foreign policy, preferring to instead fight on the more familiar — and friendly — ground of domestic issues like health care and the economy.
The 2004 election may well have signaled a sea change in that strategy, as Bush effectively turned the election into a referendum on the threat of terrorism and the importance of national security as Democrats were unable to mount an effective response. …
… It marks a remarkable change in tactics that speaks to just how much the political landscape has shifted since 2004. McCain and Republicans are certain to work to frame the national security/foreign policy debate in their favor, but Obama’s initial response is a sign that they may have to adjust their tactics in the runup to the November election.
If you watch much MSNBC, you are sure to catch Pat Buchanan saying the GOP will turn Obama into McGovern. (Forget 2004; Pat thinks it’s still 1972.) The “Democrats are soft on national security” is a bluff the Right has pulled since the post World War II era. About the only presidential candidate who successfully called them on it was John Kennedy, who countered the Right’s bogus charge with an equally bogus “missile gap” claim.
I’m calling it a “bluff” because, if you think about it, the GOP’s actual record on national security issues since the post World War II era really isn’t any more glorious than the Dems’. Dem and GOP presidents alike have had some successes and some blunders. The Republican advantage on national security issues is based more on chest-thumping and tree-peeing than on their record.
And the fact is that the Bush Administration finally, and stupidly, has revealed their hand. By now it is blatantly obvious to all but 27 percent — Bush bitter enders — that the Bushies have no bleeping clue what they are doing regarding foreign policy. And although plenty of Republican candidates are moving away from Bush now, GOP politicians stood with Bush so solidly for so long that The Smirk is the face of Republican national security policy. Bush is to the GOP what the Doughboy is to Pillsbury.
So, Republican smear machine — bring it on.
See also E.J. Dionne, “Brand on the Run.”
“Tree-peeing,” that’s one of your best, Maha. A prof of mine once explained the custom of women tending the hearth while men went off to (do something else, anything else) as a practice which developed when it became clear that men pee on fires – in fact, to see one is to pee on one. Since keeping fires going was vital to life, leaving men to tend them seemed counter-productive.
Bush, the GOP “doughboy,” is even better than Bush, the GOP bubble-boy – which I think you once called him.
maha,
I live in Fayetteville, NC, the home of Fort Bragg.
And, let me tell you, even the military people I meet are sick of this mis-Administration.
Republican “National Security!?!”
HAH!!!
We’re trout-fishin’ in the pirhana pool of the Middle-East. And have been for over 50+ uears.
But Cheney is going to make his money – no matter what. So is Bush. They have Halliburton steel-wader’s to prevent their private part’s from being eaten whole, unlike the the US economy….
Summoning, The Hague…
The Hague!
Please respond!!!
I think this is the most critical area where we are going to be very, very happy to have Obama as our candidate. He and his foreign policy team have taken real steps towards finally, finally articulating a new liberal vision for post-9/11 foreign policy. Unlike Clinton, he’s going to be able to use that to provide a clear contrast the the GOP approach, and just hammer away at them for the blunders of the past 8 years and more. And he can do it systematically, in terms of making it clear that their whole worldview is the problem, not just incompetence and problems of execution. I’m overjoyed to see us finally able to go after them on this stuff and state our own case clearly and unashamedly, and to have a Democrat saying what should have been obvious all along; that we welcome that argument because we’re confident we can win it. This is gonna be fun
End the Republican party.
Peeing in a tree is how a male dog marks territory. In this case a Bush peeing on a Bush seems redund and repatative. But in the Bush/Republican mantra, it seems like as the remaining militaty superpower they feel entitled to pee on any shrub in the world and claim they have domain. It is that arrogance that has irritated world leaders and diminished us throughout the world.
The righties I know have a ‘historical’ perspective that is a bit warped. They are compelled to cite the intent of the founding fathers (who in their view held a collective view more unified than the Borg). But if you read the original writings, though the views were diverse, a LOT of them did NOT want a standing national army. At all. Only state militias, who might serve together if it served both the individual states & national interests. Any student of the Civil War can tell you that this was the militaty tradition.
Now, I am getting off topic (sorry, Barbara; don’t delete me yet) but I have a point. How do these advocates of a fixed, rigid inflexible constitution which is the reflecion of the intent of the founding fathers explan the philosophy of an Amercian empire enforced globally through military might, which is a modern reflection of the British empire we revolted against in 1776?
This is just my opinion, but if the founding fathers could see the mess we are in today, and go back in time, they would rewrite the Constitution so one man could NOT take us to war as Bush did.