You can read the latest outburst from Barack Obama on the Hamas/Iran issue. It has all the markings of the New Politics we have come to expect from Obama. First, as he did in the “100 days” issue, he takes McCain’s words out of context. (This makes it clear that Jamie Rubin took McCain’s comments out of context and that McCain explicitly opposed dealing with Hamas until they renounced terrorism.) Second, any criticism of his own positions is per se intolerable, out of bounds, outrageous, etc. Third, he never addresses the specific issues. What was wrong with President Bush’s comments? Why shouldn’t voters be concerned about his promise to meet with rogue state leaders? What’s the difference between his desire to meet with Ahmejinedad and Jimmy Carter’s outreach to Hamas?
The McCain camp labeled Obama’s remarks a “hysterical diatribe” and repeated the basic facts:
Senator Obama has pledged to unconditionally meet with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — who pledges to wipe Israel off the map, denies the Holocaust, sponsors terrorists, arms America’s enemies in Iraq and pursues nuclear weapons. What would Senator Obama talk about with such a man?
Later in the day McCain, speaking at the NRA convention, himself took on Obama:
Talking, not even with soaring rhetoric, in unconditional meetings with the man who calls Israel a ‘stinking corpse’ and arms terrorist who kill Americans will not convince Iran to give up its nuclear program. It is reckless to suggest that unconditional meetings will advance our interests.It would be a wonderful thing if we lived in a world where we don’t have enemies. But that is not the world we live in, and until Senator Obama understands that reality, the American people have every reason to doubt whether he has the strength, judgment, and determination to keep us safe.
We’re not even out of the primary season and already we know that Obama’s campaign strategy will be built on misdirection, feigned outrage, and evasion. I guess the New Politics is exactly like the Old Politics. Plus ça change . . .
