Aggressive Foreign Policy Doesn't Have to be Stupid

Some of the talk about Obama's popularity being a generational thing does not sound too convincing. His ability to forcefully respond to the intellectually bankrupt Republican approach to foreign policy equating "toughness," however, does seem to have an generational element. He was too young for Vietnam, which might have something to do with why he doesn't feel the need to apologize for not being pro-war all the time. Michael Tomasky illustrates an example of this in The Guardian. Before this section of the article, he described Bush's claim that Democrats like Obama were appeasers who would have rolled over and given all of Europe to Hitler.

John McCain, that same Thursday morning, was giving a speech in part about the need to move beyond the partisan bickering of the last decade. Within an hour or two, following Bush's lead, McCain attacked Obama: "What does he want to talk about with Ahmadinejad, who said Israel is a stinking corpse?" The Obama campaign emailed reporters accusing Bush of launching "a false political attack".

Now here's the important part. In the past two presidential campaigns, that's where this would have ended. The Democrat "responded" for the record, but somewhat perfunctorily, while the Republicans got their point across: the Democrats are appeasers, the Democratic nominee wants to talk to terrorists and he won't keep the country safe.

Game, set, match. This is how Bush built margins of trust with voters over Al Gore and John Kerry on national-security questions. Invoke appeasement of Hitler, toss in Israel's safety: this is exactly the kind of thing that sent Gore and Kerry running for the hills. Even Bill Clinton, who knew better how to return a punch, would have tried to change the subject back to the economy.

But the current version of the story ends differently. Last Friday, in South Dakota, Obama gave an extended and aggressive press conference in which he hit back hard. Bush and McCain, he told Americans, "are trying to fool you. They're trying to scare you. And they're not telling you the truth." He ticked off the lies that were told about Iraq and the benefits that would redound from making war there, noting that not one of the promises had come to pass.

The headline that afternoon on the influential blog of Mark Halperin, of Time magazine, conveyed the takeaway: "Bam!! Bop!!!! Bash!!"