How the foreign-policy flap helps Obama
May 16th, 2008 at 01:18pm Pat Cunningham
Republicans who think the current dust-up over foreign policy somehow damages Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy are whistling past the graveyard. Just the opposite is the case.
Charges that Obama is some kind of Neville Chamberlain soon will go the way of the fiction that he’s a Muslim, too, or that he took his oath of office on the Koran. The same will happen to notions that he’s the Hamas candidate in this election. Most Americans know nothing of Hamas — and the Jewish folks to whom Hamas is more familiar will mostly end up voting for Obama in November anyway.
The real political resonance of this controversy redounds to Obama’s benefit by giving him a huge spotlight in which he can more closely tie John McCain with George W. Bush. That’s EXACTLY WHAT HE DID to a fare-thee-well today in South Dakota. Pray tell, how does that help McCain?
When will Obama’s critics learn that it’s not as easy as it might seem to make him a pariah? The guy has survived the political equivalent of the Perils of Pauline in the past two months, and he’s still favored to be our next president.
Entry Filed under: John McCain, President Bush, Barack Obama
12 Comments Add your own
1. CR | May 16th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Proclaiming that most Americans know nothing of Hamas is ludicrous Pat! Come on! But most common folks will still skip past Obama’s skeletons because they simply won’t take the time to research his past as a bigoted empty-suit politician with terrorist ties anyway. Americans as a whole just don’t take the time to study their candidates that closely anymore. For most (D)’s this election is about putting an African American in the White House, period. Obama could be shown holding hands with Osama Bin Laden at this point and people will still vote for him.
Oh, and George Bush isn’t running for president by the way. If we can’t tie B.O. to Hamas then how can you so flippantly tie McCain to Bu**sh?
Great picture though Pat!
2. Mike Carroll | May 16th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Pat-one of us is whisling past the graveyard. I\’ll take a foreign policy decided election anytime as favoring Republicans and that includes this year. Living in Indonesia as experience? Yep, thats a clincher.
3. Kaus | May 16th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
I’m willing to bet that Obama was closer to Rev. Wright than Mccain was ever to Bush….Let me open up my 2 Obama books on the coffee table and look at the pictures of Obama hugging his Farakahn loving, jewish bashing former mentor again.
4. redrover | May 16th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Let’s examine John McCain’s foreign policy experience.
In Vietnam, he used his big powerful warplane to bomb innocent Vietnamese people who never did him or any other American any harm, and he’s proud of it.
I suppose that those dead guys who used several airplanes on September 11, 2001, to kill innocent Americans who never did them any harm would also be proud of what they did. Their allies certainly are.
In Iraq, McCain favors using US soldiers to kill innocent Iraqi citizens who never did him or any other American any harm, and he’s proud of it.
In Iran, he has used a parody of an old Beach Boys song to express his desire to bomb and kill innocent Iranian citizens who never did him or any other American any harm, and he’s proud of having made light of the horrific and indiscriminate act of mass murder that he espouses.
John McCain is a terrorist, plain and simple. In a just world he would be in jail for mass murder, along with Bush and the gang of thugs who got us into this criminal Iraq War.
Barack Obama is not Neville Chamberlain by any stretch of the imagination, but John McCain is a whole lot like Osama bin Laden, and a trigger-happy psychopath to boot.
5. Kaus | May 16th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Redrover…a Ho Chi Minh sympathizer…no wonder you like Obama! You’ve read Karl Marx cover to cover.
6. CR | May 16th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Pat, Obama’s foreign policy gaffes are more than just dust-ups. I JUST heard Barry say he wouldn’t negotiate with terrorists in his SD speech. But how is it that he can vow in one breath not to talk to terrorists and then in the next remind us that he will talk to Iran? I guess that as moronic as it may seem, it’s politically convenient for him right now to distinguish between “terrorists” and state sponsors of terror - which is no distinction at all given that one of those two bankrolls the other. It’s absolutely phony!
If he was half as honest as he claims to be, he’d admit he’s drawing the line this way because (a) he needs to take a stand against some jihadist outfit to prove to pro-Israeli voters that he’s not the appeasement-minded milquetoast the right claims he is, and (b) given that Iran has more regional leverage than Hamas plus the fact that he’s surely not going to deal with them militarily, he needs to preserve some way of dealing with them diplomatically.
It’s Just like his blowhard speech about race - nothing but political expedience dressed up as something more thoughtful and principled. Don’t be fooled.
7. Kaus | May 17th, 2008 at 10:54 am
I think Mark Steyn says it all “President Reagan talked with the Soviets while pushing ahead with the deployment of Cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe. He spoke softly – after getting himself a bigger stick. Sen. Obama is proposing to reward a man who pledges to wipe Israel off the map with a presidential photo-op to which he will bring not even a twig. No wonder he’s so twitchy about it”.
8. redrover | May 17th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
GW Bush just spent the last week appeasing terrorists, namely the Zionist-racist-Nazis now in charge of so-called “Israel”.
Sixty years ago, racist Zionists used terrorist tactics, mass murder and threats of mass murder, to steal Palestine from its indigenous people and drive millions of them from their ancestral homes in an act of ethnic cleansing reminiscent of the Nazis.
On 15 May, Bush spoke to this terrorist regime and told them that they were a “chosen people” who can forever count on American support for their racist policies.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080515/ts_nm/palestinians_israel_nakba_dc
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the most disgusting appeaser of them all?
Obviously, it’s not Barack Obama, who has never approved of the Iranian terrorist government, but GW Bush who has given the terrorist-racist Israeli government his blessing.
All you Zionist-racist sympathizers, please tell me this:
What’s the difference between
“Lebensraum für die Herrenvolk”
and the racist policy that Bush gave his support to in his speech to the Zionist-racists:
“Israel. Because the Promised Land is for the Chosen People. For Good…For Keeps…Forever”?
http://www.palestiniantragedy.com/images_palestine/palestine30.jpg
Finally, dear Kaus, why should I should I not “sympathize” with Ho Chi Minh? He was a freedom fighter same as George Washington.
Just as Washington drove the British imperialists from America, Ho drove the French, Japanese and American imperialists from Vietnam. If Washington is worthy of our honor, then so is Ho Chi Minh.
9. Kaus | May 17th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Redrover…you must have Stalin pictures in your basement too….I hope you realize how many people died in the cleansing of Viet Nam before USA shoes ever hit the shores by anti-stalinists merely because they didn’t believe in the cause.
I also think you should read the history behind Palestine prior to 1949…a lot of real estate was sold legally to Jews by the Arabs for property that was not of interest to them. I think kicking them out now would be equivalent to Rockford deciding there were too many blacks in the neighborhood and decided it was time for them to leave.
10. redrover | May 19th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Kaus,
Your resorting to brainless name-calling really undermines whatever arguments you might actually be trying to present.
For example, how many people, indigenous Indian people, died in the ethnic cleansing of North America as perpetrated by the founding Fathers. And how many African slaves were whipped, raped and murdered by these illustrious patriots?
Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, Kaus.
America was founded by Christian bigots who murdered Indians and enslaved Africans — that’s just a fact that you will have to accept, Kaus. But perhaps you will not because you have Hitler pictures in your basement.
Finally, if I buy a few acres of property in Mexico, it does not give me the right to form my own, gringo-only government there on that land and thousands of acres of other lands nearby that I take by force. But that is exactly what the Zionist-nazis did in Palestine in 1948.
11. Kaus | May 19th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Firstly…regardless of your demented view point on 1948, the fact remains that land was purchased by Jews from Arab owners and had the clearance of governing bodies. This is a very tiny land mass compared to the rest of the Middle East. Your Stalinist friends in Bulgaria, Russia and Poland decided it was a good place to send them to cleanse their country of Jews as well. You call Ho Chi Minh a freedom fighter, but the truth remains he murdered thousands of the native population in Viet Nam. Your \’facts\’ on America are irrelevant and also idiotic. If we look at who originally owned any country, than perhaps we should give land back to the Celts, Picts, and all other indidinous tribes of Europe if we can find any survivors..
12. Kaus | May 19th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
By the way Red, I don’t live in a glass house…I wasn’t alive when the Indians were massacred, slaves purchased nor was any of my family members, we all arrived by boat in 1880. In addition, you forgot to mention that African slaves were purchased by slave traders from existing Africans…money changed hands to native Africans! Red, no country is immune from evil practices. Oh…I’m not surprised that you don’t understand owning land and forming a government…being communist and all.
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