I won’t argue with Blue Texan’s point about John McCain’s hypocrisy, but I have to wonder whether progressives should be making the argument in this way — even if it is meant as tongue in cheek:
St. McCain is such a global test surrendermonkey Chamberlain appeaser.
There is the danger that someone might take you seriously and think the writer advocates cowboy diplimacy.
This approach, by Matthew Yglesias, addresses the central issue here, which is the notion of priorities and focus:
there’s more to life than being a prisoner of DC conventional wisdom — “McCain, like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney may have years of Washington experience” but they’ve all made “flawed judgments and as a consequence we’re less safe.” In a crucial point, Rice observed (emphasis added) that a McCain administration would be “very much a continuation and intensification of the failed Bush policy, remaining in Iraq indefinitely not investing adequately in Afghanistan.” According to Rice we need to “show that we have learned from our mistakes in Iraq and elsewhere and are prepared to cooperate and collaborate on the challenges we face,” namely al-Qaeda, nuclear proliferation, and climate change.
I know Steve Clemons has expressed some concerns that Team Obama may have a problematic unwillingness to set priorities in foreign policy, but I thought Rice was admirably clear here. The question of cooperation and the question of priorities goes hand-in-hand. When you’re willing to define what it is you think is really important, then the stage has been set for other countries to work with you. The kind of deterioration in America’s ability to cooperate with other countries that we’ve seen over the past seven years stems not just from “cowboy diplomacy” but from Bush’s grandiosity and lack of focus.
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Hank Kalet 