Adolar
07-27-2007, 11:57 PM
Was the American political scene always this bad?
As I grow older, I admit that I'm getting more and more querulous and
outright cynical, but I can't remember a collection like the present
crop of presidential wannabes in the past.
What would Mencken say, were he living today?
July 27, 2007 - Hillary's Late Hit - by Patrick J. Buchanan
When, in the South Carolina debate, Barack Obama said he would meet
with the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Iran and North Korea in
his first year as president, he stepped into a cow pie.
Hillary pounced, declaring that in a Clinton White House, there would
be no promised first-year meetings with any dictator or enemy of the
United States.
The morning headline in Miami roared that Obama was open to meeting
Fidel. In the Jewish community, word was surely being moved that
Obama had opened the door to a face-to-face meeting with Iran's
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a Holocaust skeptic who has predicted the
Israeli state is not long for the Middle East – and should be
transplanted to Europe.
Pundits watching that Citadel debate scored Hillary the winner,
contrasting her presidential sobriety with Obama's puppy enthusiasm
for talking to tyrants.
Why, then, with press and politicians declaring her the winner, did
Hillary Clinton have to step in and clock Obama after she won the
fight?
The day after the debate, Hillary said Obama had exposed himself
as "irresponsible and naive."
This gave Barack, who had been busy explaining what he had meant, an
opening to declare that what was "irresponsible and naive" was Sen.
Clinton's vote to give George Bush a blank check to plunge us into a
war in Iraq most Democrats have come to believe was the worst
strategic blunder in U.S. history.
Instead of Barack's impetuosity being the issue, Hillary's war vote
is now front and center, her greatest vulnerability in seeking the
nomination of an antiwar party. Her eagerness to exploit Obama's
blunder also suggests a lack of serenity and confidence in her double-
digit lead over Obama.
In the next debate, Hillary is certain to be put on the defensive
about her war vote, and Obama has been liberated, by her throwing the
first punch, to hit back hard – on his strongest issue, the war.
A surprising mistake by Sen. Clinton, who has run something close to
a flawless campaign. But there is a more substantive issue here. That
is the gravamen of the original question.
Should not the United States be in constant contact with those we see
as enemies, to prevent irreconcilable differences from leading us
into war? Here, Obama's instincts are not wrong.
During World War II and the Cold War, FDR and Harry Truman met with
Josef Stalin. Ike invited the "Butcher of Budapest" for a 10-day tour
of the United States and tête-à-tête at Camp David. JFK met Nikita
Khrushchev in Vienna – after he declared, "We will bury you." Richard
Nixon went to China and toasted the tyrant responsible for the deaths
of thousands of GIs in Korea and greatest mass murderer of the last
century, Mao Zedong.
None of the five with whom Obama said he would meet is in the same
league with these monsters of the 20th century.
Kim Jong-il has not launched a war on South Korea or tried to
assassinate its prime minister and entire cabinet, as his father, Kim
Il-Sung, did. Syria's Bashir al-Assad has yet to fight his first war
and has never perpetrated the kind of massacre his father did in
Homa. Yet, George H.W. Bush welcomed Hafez al-Assad as a fighting
ally in the Gulf War.
Castro is the same evil tyrant he has always been. But Vice President
Nixon survived meeting him, and he is surely less dangerous than the
young Fidel, who reportedly urged the Soviets to fire their Cuban-
based missiles at the United States, rather than pull them out.
Hugo Chávez is an anti-American demagogue, but also the twice-elected
president of Venezuela. How does he threaten "The Republic That Never
Retreats"? As for Ahmadinejad, he is not the supreme leader of Iran,
and his nation has not launched a war since the Revolution of 1979.
With no atomic weapons, no ICBMs, no air force to challenge ours, no
navy, an economy 2 percent of ours and its oil reserves running out,
Iran is scarcely an existential threat to the United States.
All of these rulers wish to be seen as defying the United States, but
not one of them – not North Korea, Iran, Syria, Venezuela or Iran –
can seriously be seeking a major war with the United States that
would bring wreckage and ruin to any or all of them.
What we have in common with them is that neither of us wants a hot
war. As for a cold war, does any one of these nations represent a
long-term strategic or ideological threat to a United States of 300
million, with 30 percent of the world's economy, and the best air
force, navy and army on earth, and a nuclear arsenal of thousands of
weapons?
If Bush can bring Libya's Muammar Gadhafi, who was responsible for
Pan Am 103, the Lockerbie massacre of American school kids, in from
the cold, why cannot we talk with Hamas and Hezbollah and Assad and
Ahmadinejad?
What has any of them done to us compared to what Gadhafi did?
Though poorly stated, Barack Obama had a point.
As I grow older, I admit that I'm getting more and more querulous and
outright cynical, but I can't remember a collection like the present
crop of presidential wannabes in the past.
What would Mencken say, were he living today?
July 27, 2007 - Hillary's Late Hit - by Patrick J. Buchanan
When, in the South Carolina debate, Barack Obama said he would meet
with the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Iran and North Korea in
his first year as president, he stepped into a cow pie.
Hillary pounced, declaring that in a Clinton White House, there would
be no promised first-year meetings with any dictator or enemy of the
United States.
The morning headline in Miami roared that Obama was open to meeting
Fidel. In the Jewish community, word was surely being moved that
Obama had opened the door to a face-to-face meeting with Iran's
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a Holocaust skeptic who has predicted the
Israeli state is not long for the Middle East – and should be
transplanted to Europe.
Pundits watching that Citadel debate scored Hillary the winner,
contrasting her presidential sobriety with Obama's puppy enthusiasm
for talking to tyrants.
Why, then, with press and politicians declaring her the winner, did
Hillary Clinton have to step in and clock Obama after she won the
fight?
The day after the debate, Hillary said Obama had exposed himself
as "irresponsible and naive."
This gave Barack, who had been busy explaining what he had meant, an
opening to declare that what was "irresponsible and naive" was Sen.
Clinton's vote to give George Bush a blank check to plunge us into a
war in Iraq most Democrats have come to believe was the worst
strategic blunder in U.S. history.
Instead of Barack's impetuosity being the issue, Hillary's war vote
is now front and center, her greatest vulnerability in seeking the
nomination of an antiwar party. Her eagerness to exploit Obama's
blunder also suggests a lack of serenity and confidence in her double-
digit lead over Obama.
In the next debate, Hillary is certain to be put on the defensive
about her war vote, and Obama has been liberated, by her throwing the
first punch, to hit back hard – on his strongest issue, the war.
A surprising mistake by Sen. Clinton, who has run something close to
a flawless campaign. But there is a more substantive issue here. That
is the gravamen of the original question.
Should not the United States be in constant contact with those we see
as enemies, to prevent irreconcilable differences from leading us
into war? Here, Obama's instincts are not wrong.
During World War II and the Cold War, FDR and Harry Truman met with
Josef Stalin. Ike invited the "Butcher of Budapest" for a 10-day tour
of the United States and tête-à-tête at Camp David. JFK met Nikita
Khrushchev in Vienna – after he declared, "We will bury you." Richard
Nixon went to China and toasted the tyrant responsible for the deaths
of thousands of GIs in Korea and greatest mass murderer of the last
century, Mao Zedong.
None of the five with whom Obama said he would meet is in the same
league with these monsters of the 20th century.
Kim Jong-il has not launched a war on South Korea or tried to
assassinate its prime minister and entire cabinet, as his father, Kim
Il-Sung, did. Syria's Bashir al-Assad has yet to fight his first war
and has never perpetrated the kind of massacre his father did in
Homa. Yet, George H.W. Bush welcomed Hafez al-Assad as a fighting
ally in the Gulf War.
Castro is the same evil tyrant he has always been. But Vice President
Nixon survived meeting him, and he is surely less dangerous than the
young Fidel, who reportedly urged the Soviets to fire their Cuban-
based missiles at the United States, rather than pull them out.
Hugo Chávez is an anti-American demagogue, but also the twice-elected
president of Venezuela. How does he threaten "The Republic That Never
Retreats"? As for Ahmadinejad, he is not the supreme leader of Iran,
and his nation has not launched a war since the Revolution of 1979.
With no atomic weapons, no ICBMs, no air force to challenge ours, no
navy, an economy 2 percent of ours and its oil reserves running out,
Iran is scarcely an existential threat to the United States.
All of these rulers wish to be seen as defying the United States, but
not one of them – not North Korea, Iran, Syria, Venezuela or Iran –
can seriously be seeking a major war with the United States that
would bring wreckage and ruin to any or all of them.
What we have in common with them is that neither of us wants a hot
war. As for a cold war, does any one of these nations represent a
long-term strategic or ideological threat to a United States of 300
million, with 30 percent of the world's economy, and the best air
force, navy and army on earth, and a nuclear arsenal of thousands of
weapons?
If Bush can bring Libya's Muammar Gadhafi, who was responsible for
Pan Am 103, the Lockerbie massacre of American school kids, in from
the cold, why cannot we talk with Hamas and Hezbollah and Assad and
Ahmadinejad?
What has any of them done to us compared to what Gadhafi did?
Though poorly stated, Barack Obama had a point.