Just for the record I question the judgement of both Sens. McCain and Obama. I think that Sen. McCain was wrong then and right now: supporting the invasion of Iraq was poor judgement but he’s right about not withdrawing our forces from Iraq until the country is stabilized. I also should add that I’m deeply distrustful of the national greatness strain of foreign policy thought that Sen. McCain appears to support.
Sen. Obama on the other hand was right then and wrong now: he opposed the invasion of Iraq but the position that Sen. Obama seems to have lurched into—that we should withdraw our forces from Iraq without taking the situation there into consideration—is poor judgement. In my view the redeeming feature of Sen. Obama’s position is that he’s left himself enough wiggle room that it certainly looks to me as though he’s trying to give the impression that he’s going to withdraw our forces completely from Iraq without having any intention of doing so. I’m a little distrustful of that, too. Too clever by half.
Problem being that over the last several years Obama has occupied so many positions on Iraq that he can actually claim to have been for or against just about anything. He’s “refined” himself all over the map, having been just about everywhere BUT two places–he wasn’t for the war at the beginning (he also wasn’t in the US Senate then–see below) and he was always opposed to the key logistical element of the Surge, increasing troop levels.
That he opposed the invasion of Iraq (he says–his state senate records have never been made available) two years before he entered the US Senate is not much of a toutable credential, unless you want to poll a thousand or more other state senators to ask what they thought at the time for comparison purposes. He said he was against the $87 billion when he began campaigning in late 2003, but we were already there, so that’s a “hindsight” declaration. Since he wasn’t in any position to vote on it, we have to take that with some small grain of salt.
Isn’t it better to have leadership that can react and act with flexibility, rather
than to have leadership that has very little if any ability to be flexible in their thinking…what in life ever remains unchanged. If you are paddling a boat down river, do you keep a direct course through the rapids or do you change course as needed to avoid smashing into rocks and the sinking of your boat and all in it? Who can predict the final outcome of the Irag situation? Stopping an avalanche is impossible..starting one is another matter. Getting out of Irag is in our national interest and the worlds interest, staying the course may prove to be even more costly.