Yesterday's and today's indignant responses from the Obama campaign about Bush's criticism of attempts to negotiate with terrorists are being misreported by the media. That is, misreported as to the significance, not as to the facts.
Yes, Bush said in the Knesset that it's silly to think that we'll convince terrorists that they've been terribly wrong all along. And who can argue?
Well, Obama can. Not that he says it's smart to talk to terrorists, though he did say that he's willing to have direct talks with no preconditions with state sponsors of terrorism and nuclear proliferation like Iran, Syria and North Korea. He says that Bush was aiming at him and unfairly criticizing him while abroad. "Dishonest and divisive" are Obama's words, certainly not new ones in recent Democratic discourse.
The Bushies said no, the remark was about Carter, or at least that they figured people would think that they were criticizing Carter. Carter, of course, deserves all that and more. If the Knesset wanted to burn Carter in effigy, Bush would be justified in lighting the match.
But the underreported key is that Obama wants Bush to criticize him in public, as much as possible and as directly as possible.
Why? Because the primary Democratic strategy this year is to run against the one man who constitutionally can't be on the ticket for the Rs. Everything that McCain proposes is a continuation of the failed policies of George W. Bush. Every remark that Bush makes is yet another divisive, unfair slam of Obama.
The question is whether the electorate will continue to believe it in six months. If, as seems at least plausible, the economy continues to rebound and the war continues to go well, we wonder whether the efforts of the media and the Dems to portray the present as the apocalypse will remain convincing to 51% of citizens 18 or over. We don't expect people to start liking Bush. But we do wonder whether they'll think that a modified continuation of Bush is better than an unmodified reprise of Carter.
So Obama isn't being hypersensitive or self-absorbed with his response. He's being sly, keeping the Dems' most salable characteristic--we're not Dubya--in front of everyone.
2 comments:
Just wanted to share the tidbit that PM Gordon Brown (the so-called anti-Blair of Labour) has a lower job approval rating than GWB (leading to a 20% opinion poll lead for the Torries). Interesting, n'est-ce pas?
Oui!
We think that European politics is a leading indicator of American politics and so are heartened by the Old Countries' turn to the right.
The question is how far out this leading indicator leads. Six months is the max, we hope.
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