In his speech last night, Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden opened up his ticket not only to attacks on his party’s presidential nominee’s weakness on foreign policy but also to charges that he is (yet again) misrepresenting the historical record.
It seems sometimes when Democrats criticize the president’s foreign policy, they’re recycling talking points from 2005 or 2006. Or maybe it’s just that they can’t think up new arguments to respond to changing circumstances.
Biden claimed that “our country is less secure and more isolated than at any time in recent history.” Â
As the numerous terrorist attacks on US targets during (and immediately after) the Clinton Administration show, that’s hardly the case. Â If the Democrat thinks we’re more isolated, he obviously hasn’t been following the election returns in foreign lands over the past three years.
Since German voters rejected Gerhard Schroeder in September 2005, we’ve seen anti-Bush governments voted out in Canada and France while a pro-American Prime Minister, once defeated, has been returned to office in Italy. Â And until his reelection earlier this year, that man, Silvio Berluscon had (in 2006) been the only pro-American leader voted out of office in a major industrialized nation since Bush’s reelection in 2004.
In short, Biden’s comment shows how clueless he is in the field where he is supposed to be an expert. The only reason we’re perceived as isolated in foreign affairs is because the media dwelled on the very public opposition then-French President Jacques Chirac and then-German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder made to U.S. plans to liberate Iraq, something Biden then supported.
And just as Biden has switched his views on that liberation in response to shifting public opinion, so too did those nations switch their governments in response to public opinion. Both nations are now led by governments more favorably disposed to the United States of America and with whom the incumbent president has a good working relationship.
So I’m getting ready for tonights big speech by Barack Obama.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80lLU5-yji8&feature=related
To prepare I watched another speech by a dynamic public speaker. He also liked night time affairs, oddly lit for dramatic effect. Watch it….and if the 80,000 spectators tonight start lighting torches and screaming to the heavens……run, run very fast.