POST: McCain Shakes Up and Giuliani Goes Off the Deep End,
I looked over the crew and likewise got similarly depressed. Add them all up and it would look like we're going to be tough on and with everyone (meaning we grow the military in all directions), and to me, that sounds like more of the same, just differently (and one would assume more adroitly) administered.
Rerunning the Ford Admin with W did not work, and rerunning the Reagan Admin is unlikely to work either. Too much thinking from bygone ages at a point in history when major realignments are taking place (the biggest ones just beginning). There is way too much going on globally to "hold any line" or "just get tough."
The board shifts dramatically under our feet. We either recalibrate or find ourselves fundamentally outflanked by history. We need to rejoin the world dramatically with this presidency. Accommodation on many fronts will be required to do that. Absent that "difficult/easy" (depending on your point of view) adjustment, our security will be--by default--dramatically damaged over time.
The other problem with rerunning Reagan for Rudy is that Thompson will do the same, and when McCain drops, one imagines those numbers go to him more than Giuliani (although Fred had a different sort of spouse problem). I fear Rudy assumes his low 30s numbers signal a floor, when they may be much closer to a ceiling (Hillary faces the same danger in the Dems).
Alas, in my desperation, I find my mind wandering to Barack Obama. I am willing to trade experience (although his wordly life is highly valuable at this point in history) for the flexibility required to change our damaged relationship with the world.
Thanks to Hans Suter for sending this.
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Comments (11)
The traditional Left/Right divide is going to destroy this country. You're looking for a politician who can blow it up, which is why you like Obama (and probably why you thought you liked Giuliani). Old style Left/Right nonsense infects everything - from foreign policy/defense issues to healthcare. Instead of trying to look at an imaginative approach to universal healthcare as a policy that potentially could be a boon to American business, the Left sees the issue only in terms of bad corporations vs. good workers, while the Right sees it only in terms of a policy of creeping socialism. The ossified views of the traditional Left and Right on defense (not to mention issues like taxation) come out to the same sort of thing.
Posted by stuart abrams | July 11, 2007 4:07 PM
Tom,
When a Democrat candidate such as Hillary or Obama stands up and says,"We've done all we can do in Iraq, we must leave now and let the Iraqis sort things out for themselves. I know it will be bloody, and that after an extremist government is installed there, we will at some point have to go back, but it is much better now to disengage in the Middle East." I'll take them seriously. I don't hear anything about Sys Admin or shrinking the Gap from the Dems. Do you? After all you have talked with them.
Posted by SR | July 11, 2007 4:37 PM
Yes, Obama is inexperienced. Normally he would need eight more years in the Senate to have the necessary "gravitas". Desperation, however, is setting in. I find the field of candidates from both parties shockingly flawed. Is this the best a country of 300 million can produce?
Posted by Ted O'Connor | July 11, 2007 4:54 PM
Tom,
It is so good to hear a guy like you gunning, pardon my term, for Obama. You blogging colleague Andrew Sullivan blogs the philosophical aspects of Obama's candidacy constantly. My fondess of Obama stems from just that. When you have a candidate that attacts guys like you, Andrew Sullivan, and left of centre guys like me, we might have a winner on out hands.
I do feel like there might be a slight breeze heading towards this beautiful deck of cards...
Posted by Brady | July 11, 2007 6:22 PM
It's like you read my mind!! No wonder I've been discouraged and see nothing new out of this current crop of candidates. I am REALLY hoping (and praying) that someone on the DEM side who has simply FANTASTIC leadership experience will jump in and give everyone inside and outside the beltway SOMETHING big to OHH and AHH over. :) Yea we need someone who can be a election "map changer".
Posted by RCBev | July 11, 2007 6:35 PM
Oh FYI -- if you are in the DC area tomorrow --
On Thursday, July 12, 2007 General Clark will testify to the House Armed Services' Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee on "A Third Way: Alternatives for Iraq’s Future".
The subcommittee hearing will begin at 3:00 pm ET at 2212 Rayburn. This hearing is open.
Witnesses:
General Wesley K. Clark (USA, ret.)
Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe
Max Boot
Senior Fellow, National Security Studies
Council on Foreign Relations
Dr. Muqtedar Khan
Assistant Professor, Political Science and International Relations, University of Delaware
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution
Posted by RCBev | July 11, 2007 6:42 PM
Would like to know how we "change our damaged relationship with the world."
Clinton was popular because he practiced check book diplomacy and was seen by most Europeans as being pro-socialism. I learned this from conversations with people in Europe and Africa back in the 90s. They saw him as very generous and always willing to use the force of government to solve any and all problems. Since this is SOP in Europe, I understood their affinity for him.
In Africa they knew he always brought the foreign aid checkbook when he traveled. They hoped to get their piece of the pie. Bush has actually done more for Africa but gets no credit because ??????
How does that kind of diplomacy attract solid allies who share our beliefs in globalization and shrinking the Gap? All they want is our money and signing on to their vision of a socialist world.
It appears to me that the Anglosphere (minus Canada and New Zealand) is the only part of the world that we can depend on in this "long war."
We're at war. We need a mean son of a bitch with a stainless steel spine who knows how to lead and delegate. The nearest thing I see to that in this current field is Rudy.
Posted by Jimmy J | July 11, 2007 10:23 PM
Hey everybody, pay attention! When Barnett talks about rejoining the world, he's not just talking about the parts of the world inhabited by Euros. He's talking about reaching out to the pillars of the New Core, esp. China, but India, Brazil, and South Africa too, and getting them integrated into global security systems (and that process opens the door to Iran too). That's where the guts of your sysadmin force is going to come from, and that's what none of our politicians are talking about. And you sure aren't going to hear anything like that coming out of the mausoleum of neo-con dinosaurs that Giuliani has assembled as his foreign policy team.
Posted by stuart abrams | July 12, 2007 9:17 AM
"...the Anglosphere (minus Canada and New Zealand)..."
Canada and NZ are in Afghanistan. Their militaries are (quietly) on board with the GWOT. New Zealand even rejoined ABCA in 2006. The core of the Core is the Anglosphere, and the Anglosphere military alliance is remarkably strong. As Tom has written, the Anglosphere can't do everything. But without it, you can't do anything. Long term, the big risk is that Britain will get mixed up in an EU defence configuration tthat marginalizes their ties to the USA. We cannot share information with Britain that would in turn reach France, and in turn reach real or potential enemies. But for now, the system is working.
Posted by Lexington Green | July 12, 2007 9:20 AM
I'm and Independent, but with the current crop my dream ticket would be Obama as Pres, and Richardson as his VP. This would seem to balance the lack of experience and give us a VP that was capable of restoring some of the lost connectivity we've experienced in the past six+ years.
Posted by Jeremy | July 12, 2007 11:07 AM
I just had a major attack of irony. Cheney, who's term as VP has been such a disaster, might actually be a great VP for a Giuliani White House. A partner who's his equal in experience and ego might be just what Rudy would need to make his term a success.
On the democratic side, right now I'd pick Obama with Clinton as VP. He gets her experience (pretty formidable in its own right) money and connections with less of the baggage. But as someone who's got a mind of his own and a willingness to occasionally buck conventional wisdom (at least on racial matters), he's less likely to become a puppet.
Posted by Michael | July 13, 2007 6:38 PM