During the presidential debates, Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden rammed home the notion that a John McCain presidency would be nothing other than four more years of George W. Bush. This equivalence has been the cornerstone of Obama’s entire campaign: Given the public’s displeasure with Bush (and despite its even less-favorable opinion of the Democratic Congress), Obama has successfully established this notion. Without attacking and destroying this proposition before Tuesday, he cannot defeat Obama.
For his part, McCain during the first debate listed the large number of examples of where he differed from Bush, including how to conduct the Iraq war, what to do about the current lending crisis, the Gang of Fourteen, torture, shutting down Guantanamo, campaign finance, climate change, spending cuts to accompany tax cuts, and so forth. (And while Obama repeats the “McCain voted with Bush 90 percent of the time” mantra, he is never called to account for the fact that he votes with the Pelosi-Reid Congress 95 percent of the time.) In the third debate, McCain finally stated directly that he is not George Bush.
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The irony here is that Obama actually has much more in common with Bush than McCain does. The second debate centered on the so-called Wall Street bailout. While both candidates supported the ultimate Senate bill, it was McCain who initially reached out to support the House Republicans in their effort to defeat the original Bush-Paulson plan. Obama, on the other hand, expressed his support so long as the plan was adjusted to adopt certain obvious provisions to which no one could object (accountability, upside for the taxpayer, and so forth). Despite a campaign that blames everything on Bush, Obama is quick to follow his Democratic cohorts in supporting Bush on perhaps the biggest issue of the day. Is Bush correct or not?
Bush was always heralded as a business lightweight. The press would repeatedly point to his failures as an oilman or baseball owner; he was caricatured as a one-trick pony on economic issues — cut taxes. Somehow, Obama is believed to be “better on the economy” — whatever that exactly means — without any record whatsoever to justify this conclusion. Obama has no economic training, no business experience, and no examples of voting upon (much less being responsible for) issues with significant economic consequences. Perhaps his only experiences with credit to guide him through these perilous times are his work with ACORN and community organizers to shake down banks for more loans to those who are otherwise unable to meet normal lending standards, and his ability to get Tony Rezko to help him finance his own home. It is only through his skill in both articulating grievances and promising deliverance from economic hardship that he has acquired an unjustifiable reputation for economic wisdom.
Bush is constantly charged with using the “politics of fear” to persuade the public of the necessity of his programs. Little is written about how Henry Paulson, with close ties to many Democrats in Congress, has effectively convinced Bush of the grave — indeed fearsome — consequences of not bailing out Wall Street, and has enabled Bush to go forward and repeat the same fear doctrine. Obama has repeated this same tactic in all of his public statements about the situation.
Obama’s resemblance to Bush is extensive. In his refusal to credit the Iraq War “surge” with success in stabilizing Iraq, Obama has shown the same inability to admit mistakes that the left-wing media relentlessly attribute to Bush. More incredibly, Obama suggests he, not the surge, was responsible for the Iraqi turnaround; his stance, in essence, pressured the Iraqis to conform. Is this his own “Mission Accomplished”? The Left boldly criticized Bush as dangerously limited by his inability to admit his failures and make critical adjustments; so much so as to appear “out of touch.” But that’s exactly what Obama has done.
Bush has been mocked as a pawn of his advisers, particularly Vice President Dick Cheney. Yet Obama is already advised by some 300 foreign-policy “experts,” and his statements — for instance, his response to the Russian invasion of Georgia and his own proposed invasion of Pakistan to get Osama bin Laden — demonstrate his complete reliance on their opinions. There is, in essence, “no there there,” but rather a dependence on others to tell him what is the most appropriate position to take. Unlike John McCain, who displayed a full understanding and core beliefs concerning our responsibilities in the world, Obama has had to ramble publicly through a variety of elite stock phrases, testing feedback, before arriving at a final, most politically appropriate position. Bush has been ridiculed as “stupid” — but Obama’s responses to the Georgian invasion, starting with a call for both sides to show restraint, followed by an absurd push for a U.N. resolution (lacking a rudimentary understanding of Russia’s Security Council veto), followed by a lukewarm attempt at fortitude, demonstrated clearly how unknowledgeable he is — even with an arsenal of advisers.
Bush was criticized before he took office for not having the foreign-policy “experience” necessary to lead the nation. His campaign responded with “process” answers — pointing out
how he would address issues. Bush would state that he would surround himself with the best, and solicit different viewpoints — and, from that wide angle, decide upon the best course of action. This is precisely how Obama has dealt with his empty foreign-policy portfolio. Obama has wowed listeners by describing the table, which he intends to populate with (largely ex-Carter administration) names and from which his magically gifted “judgment” will derive the right moves. “Process” is what drives his answers, and fills the Obama foreign-policy deficit.
Bush has also been bludgeoned for constructing a foreign policy based on man’s universal desire for freedom. Such an aspiration was deemed sophomorically fanciful (and devilishly “neocon”) by the Left. Yet Obama’s Berlin “sermon” referred repeatedly to that “yearning” as what overwhelmingly unites us all.
In one of the debates, Obama made clear that his plans for utilizing diplomacy with Iran are what the Bush administration is, in large part, currently implementing. And Obama’s statements concerning attacking Pakistan embody the abusive “bluster” for which “cowboy” Bush has been derided.
