Via Yglesias, I see this piece from Col. Bacevich:
The burden of identifying and confronting the Bush legacy necessarily falls on Obama. Although for tactical reasons McCain will distance himself from the president’s record, he largely subscribes to the principles informing Bush’s post-9/11 policies. McCain’s determination to stay the course in Iraq expresses his commitment not simply to the ongoing conflict there, but to the ideas that gave rise to that war in the first place. While McCain may differ with the president on certain particulars, his election will affirm the main thrust of Bush’s approach to national security.
The challenge facing Obama is clear: he must go beyond merely pointing out the folly of the Iraq war; he must demonstrate that Iraq represents the truest manifestation of an approach to national security that is fundamentally flawed, thereby helping Americans discern the correct lessons of that misbegotten conflict.
***This is a stiff test, not the work of a speech or two, but of an entire campaign. Whether or not Obama passes the test will determine his fitness for the presidency.
He should have been a General.
Rosali
He lost his son to Bush’s folly.
Alex
There’s an old Dana Carvey as George H.W. SNL skit, where Bush is talking about going to war with Iraq (the first time). Claiming that it’s not “another Vietnam,” Bush says, “We have learned well the lesson of Vietnam: stay out of Vietnam.” We don’t learn lessons very well over here…
Face
Ba’Lack Obama’s biggest issue is trying to campaign in a country whose media is so in-the-tank for the opponent. He must parse every word he speaks, and gear up for about 159 “apologies” for things never said/misconstrued between now and November. The media has already shown their eager willingness to turn every word his surrogates say into a full-blown gaffe. Accuracy and honesty be dammed.
I don’t think a man can win the Presidency with such an antagonistic print and broadcast media. Paint me extremely pessimistic.
ThymeZone
If you listen to his Missouri speech from yesterday, you will discern that he is on that path. I think that an “Iraq speech” will be forthcoming and that it will be of the same quality as the speech from yesterday.
McCain’s mainproblem here is that he thinks, and says, that Iraq is the New Vietnam. He can’t get away from Vietnam. Unfortunately for him, the time window for leveraging that into votes expired about 25 years ago.
If this is a contest about ideas, or lessons learned, then McCain, and not Obama, needs to pass a test. Right now McCain’s only clear advantage is that he can yell “Get off my lawn” while his opponent is talking about ideas. It remains to be seen whether this sly strategy is a winner.
calipygian
This guy breaks my heart. He is a Conservative who opposed the war from the beginning and who lost his kid in Iraq.
That he hasn’t turned into the Incredible Hulk and just gone down to DC and dismantled the place piece by piece is incredible to me.
He is a much better man than I.
calipygian
I’ve been handed the check.
KevinD
Bacevich should be Obama’s Secretary of Defense
calipygian
That isn’t the lesson his idiot son learned. His idiot son learned that we could have won Vietnam if it weren’t for those dern
kidslie-brul DemocRAT journal-lie-sts.Wilfred
Oops. Obama already gave Israel a blank check. Bacevich is right, of course, but others have been saving the same things for the last 7 years and all we got was one step closer to attacking Iran.
If anyone thinks Obama is going to refute Bacevich’s last clause…
joe
If Barack Obama can articlate an altervative foreign policy vision to McCain’s neo-conservatism – a comprehensive philosophy of how international politics works and what our strategy should be – I’ll even be willing to forgive him telecom immunity.
There are people out there who think that making democracy promotion an important plank in foreign policy is a uniquely neoconservative idea, that is unfailingly bound up with launching wars of aggression. Both to win this election and to set his country on a new path, Barack Obama needs to educate the public about a different way.
ThymeZone
The media does not lead, it follows. When it fails to follow, as it is doing now, the public tends to ignore them.
The media thinks that parsing the statistical view of a statement like “the surge is working” is relevant. The public doesn’t care if the surge is working, the public is facing a trainwreck at the grocery store and the gas station and the emergency room and is very tired of the We Are Winning Iraq baloney. The media doesn’t get this, but the media is not going to elect McCain any more than it is going to rehabilitate George Bush’s 25% approval rating.
The media has an approval rating somewhat lower than Bush’s.
w vincentz
The “Bush Legacy” will soon include, besides thousands of dead bodies, a complete collapse of global financial markets as the dollar is inflated to pay back the Chinese for assisting with covering the debt of Bush’s folly.
Get ready folks. This rollercaster is headed down.
I give it three months, max.
Tsulagi
Another good piece from Bacevich.
Completely agree. The retarded Bush Doctrine along with Cheney’s 1% justification threshold should be nuked.