Quote from Obama today:
“[John McCain] talked about elevating the tone of debate in our country. He talked about reaching out in a bipartisan fashion to the other side. Then not an hour later he turned around and embraced George Bush’s attack on Democrats,” said Obama, who called the Arizona senator’s Iran policy “naïve and irresponsible.”
“He jumped on a call with a bunch of bloggers and said that I wasn’t fit to protect this nation that I love because I wanted to sit down and negotiate with tough diplomacy with countries like Iran. Accused me of not being fit…[or] being able to protect this nation,” he added.
He said both Bush and McCain “have a lot to answer for” over the war in Iraq and the failure to find Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda’s continuing strength, among other continuing foreign policy problems. “They are going to have to explain why it is that Iran is able to fund Hezbollah and poses the greatest threat to America and Israel and the Middle East in a generation. That’s the Bush-McCain record on protecting this country.
Ugh, I knew this was coming. This probably isn’t going to be my most popular post ever either but I am going to do it anyway.
Look, Obama at some point is going to have to take off the gloves and actually fight back without complaining about the tactics of the other side. Raising the tone of the debate in this country is not about not attacking your opponent’s point of view. In fact, it is well established that discrediting someone’s point of view isn’t a bad thing. Democrats essentially ran their 2006 Congressional campaign that way as a campaign against Bush and the issues he was pushing. I expect Obama and Democrats to hammer on those issues. That is completely and totally legitimate as long as you are following up with your own ideas (which both candidates generally do).
Saying someone’s ideas about resolving our issues with aggressive states and organizations is unsafe to the country is a legitimate issue statement (even if you disagree with it). Obama himself has called out McCain’s ideas to deal with Iran as irresponsible. That’s legitimate.
Raising the tone of debate is about not going down Jeremiah Wrights, Swift Boats, or National Guard AWOLs of the world and focus on issues that matter to everyone. I am not saying that those issues aren’t political issues, I am just saying they aren’t part of raising the bar.
And if you want to be completely honest, you absolutely cannot attach McCain to Bush when you’re talking about foreign policy. Foreign policy is primarily a function of the executive branch. Last time I checked, McCain wasn’t VP, Secretary of State or in any cabinet position in the Bush White House. It would make as much sense as attaching Kerry to Clinton’s foreign policy. Attaching McCain to Bush is a very political thing, it is a clever association but it certainly isn’t raising the bar.
I hesitate posting this because it is not always true but I think I should do it anyway. I get the feeling that some Obama supporters don’t like their candidate getting attacked on issues and that instead of trying to come up with answers, they simply lash out at that technique. Yet, those same people seem to be in full delight in situations like this where Obama is attacking back or being aggressive on the campaign and rooting for him to “take off the gloves” and so on. I may be the only person who finds this funny but I can’t help to highlight the irony that the reason that many of these people were initially attracted to him was because he didn’t do this stuff.
To me, that’s just like any other candidate you get attached to. You don’t want people to attack him, you want to defend him, you’ll even seek out justifications to support him. That’s fine, that’s exactly what you should be doing.
But if I have to hear McCain called “McSame” or McBush” again or see it on one of your stupid signs Portlanders, I am going to start coming up with childish nicknames for your candidate. Then, after our fourth grade class gets out maybe we can go play on the monkey bars. Morons.
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