According to the New York Times, all John McCain has to do to put Barack Obama “on the defensive” is to criticize him on a foreign policy issue:
Senator John McCain put Senator Barack Obama on the foreign policy defensive once again Monday, criticizing him here in his hometown for saying Iran did not pose the serious threat to the United States that the Soviet Union once did.
In order to make the charge, McCain had to mischaracterize what Obama said, but we’ll let that pass for the moment.
I guess this is a test: Are the American people as stupid as John McCain and the New York Times thinks they are? I can remember the days of fallout shelters and instructional films on what we should do when the bombs dropped. Many people believed that an all out nuclear war was nearly inevitable, and both sides had the ability to make that a reality. And, by the way, the Soviet Union was evil incarnate too, just like Iran. By any measure, the Soviet Union was the bigger threat, and most people with an ounce of sense and a shred of memory know that.
Have we really sunk so low in our public discourse that a politician can be said to be “on the defensive” for saying something that is demonstrably, indisputably, incontestably, incontrovertibly, indubitably, undeniably true?
I guess we’re about to find out. Personally, I think that the last 8 years have opened a lot of eyes and, to quote the old song, we won’t get fooled again. Fearmongering has run its course.
At least I hope it has.
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