Blinded By Love Of Bipartisanship

Earlier this month, I authored a nice little post on how Bill Richardson was smoking something strong when he said that Barack Obama's foreign policy would be a return to the bipartisan, universal-love-fest, audaciously hopeful, unifying foreign policy of a bygone era; and now it seems its time to write a quick follow up to that since, as of this past weekend, that bullshit line is now being parroted by the candidate himself. Yes folks, Mr. AudacityOfHopeMan has claimed that his foreign policy platform is:

"...actually a return to the traditional bipartisan realistic policy of George Bush's father, of John F. Kennedy, [and] of, in some ways, Ronald Reagan." [emphasis added]

Yea, right.

I think the Gipper will forgive me for paraphrasing one of his old lines when I say: Senator Obama, you're telling people that you've got a foreign policy that's like Ronald Reagan's. Well let me tell you something, Senator. I knew Ronald Reagan. He was a friend of mine. And Senator, you're no Ronald Reagan!

Seriously, as I've said before, Reagan's foreign policy was not the kind of bipartisan yuck-fest that Senator Obama is trying to make it out to be.

As I noted while raking Governor Richardson over the coals, President Reagan's foreign policy was laughed at by most Democrats - that is, until it worked, and the Soviet Union fell, and Communism was reduced to the "ash heap of history," just like Reagan said it would be. Causing the Democrats to do a little 'revisionist' history and pretend like they were on board all along.

Thankfully, most of us know better.

Furthermore, in this little speech, Senator Obama praises H.W. Bush's handling of the First Gulf War; but, as no less an authority than Margaret Thatcher has noted, it was H.W's failure to remove Saddam the first time, when he had the chance, that created the set of circumstances which led to the Second Gulf War. If Pops had finished the job - and not stopped halfway - then W never has to invade Iraq in 2003. But hey, Obama-rama's got an agenda to push, so why bother to think things through, right?

The next point to be made about these remarks is to, again, reiterate that there was nothing warm, fuzzy, and bipartisan about a great deal of Cold War policy. It, too, was a product of politics (hence the word: policy); and thus, while the personalities may not have been as memorable, it was still every bit as partisan as the foreign policy we have today.

Finally, I want to note one last thing about Obama's statements and point out why, aside from the matter of partisanship, his 'return to a traditional foreign policy' is an incredibly stupid idea. And that is simply this: The Cold War is over, as is the lovefest of 90's idealism. The world is a different place now than it was then, and while 9/11 certainly has made this especially so, this fact would be true even if 9/11 had never happened. Interacting with Nations, IGOs and NGOs on an International level means being flexible and, while learning from your past, living, thinking, and, most importantly, acting in the present (with the future in mind). Using the 1960's foreign policy to respond to the 2000's problems would be the height of both ignorance and arrogance; primarily because, and you would think this would be obvious; the 2000's are not the 1960's. The times change, and thus American Foreign Policy should too.

It's too bad Senator Obama is to naive to understand something as basic as that.