Gregory D.

Lee

Read Greg's bio and previous columns here

May 26, 2008

Does Size Really Matter To Obama?

You can always tell when the Democrats have blown their cover and are exposed for who they really are.

They get their panties in a bunch and begin to sniffle and whine. Such was the case when President Bush told the Israeli Knesset, during celebrations of Israel’s 60^th birthday, "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along . . . We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

President Bush hit the nail on the head. He never mentioned Barack Obama by name, but Obama and his Democratic pro-appeaser base knew the description matched his political profile. That’s because Obama had previously stated during a Democratic presidential debate that he would meet face-to-face without any preconditions with thugs and dictators like Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong II and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Immediately, Democrats and the media denounced President Bush for criticizing a presidential candidate while on foreign soil. The Boston Globe editorialized that Bush’s statement about appeasement was “Malarkey.” It was perfectly clear to them to whom President Bush was talking about. Then critics, pundits, talking heads and other columnists began giving examples of Republican and Democratic presidents who had successfully negotiated with world dictators who had blood on their hands, such as Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev over nuclear weapons and John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev over the Cuban missile crisis. For good measure, they also threw in the Bush Administration itself having talks with Libya's Col. Mohmmar Khadafy and Defense Secretary Gates’s statement that he approves of direct negotiations with Iran.

Then Obama himself stepped in it again while campaigning in Pendleton, Oregon when he tried to clarify his remarks about appeasement by saying, “Iran, Cuba, Venezuela – these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying, ‘We’re going to wipe you off the planet.’”

Since when does a nation’s size matter when it comes to national security?

Republican presidential nominee John McCain jumped into the fray and said, “Such a statement betrays the depth of Sen. Obama’s inexperience and reckless judgment. These are very serious deficiencies for an American president to possess.” An advisor apparently whispered in Obama’s ear that size actually doesn’t matter, and Obama did an about face the next day while campaigning in Montana saying, "Iran is a grave threat. It has an illicit nuclear program. It supports terrorism across the region and militias in Iraq. It threatens Israel's existence. It denies the Holocaust. The reason Iran is so much more powerful than it was a few years ago is because of the Bush-McCain policy of fighting in Iraq and refusing to pursue direct diplomacy with Iran. They're the ones who have not dealt with Iran wisely."

One fact seems to be missing from this debate. Reagan for sure, and Bush when compared to Obama, are conservatives. Their style of negotiation is backed up by military strength, which is the ultimate diplomatic tool. President Kennedy was more like a current-day conservative in his foreign and tax policies compared to just about any Democrat in office today. Regardless of party affiliation, liberals have no business negotiating America’s national security because they have a proven track record of unabashed appeasement.

How did Iran become “so much more powerful?” It started more than a few years ago. It happened in 1979 when Jimmy Carter appeased the Ayatollah Khomeini by doing absolutely nothing militarily to punish Iran for seizing our embassy and holding American hostages for over 400 days. Iran released the hostages literally the very minute Reagan was being sworn in. They knew then there was a new sheriff in town and they know now that Obama is no Reagan.

Reagan resisted an agreement with the Soviets to eliminate all nuclear weapons because the Soviet Union had a massive army that overwhelmed NATO, and American nukes were they only way to stop it. His increase in defense spending, including “Star Wars” R & D, led to the Soviet Union imploding when its economy could not keep up. An appeaser like Obama would have jumped at the chance to dismantle our nukes regardless of how vulnerable that decision would have made us.

Liberals cannot be trusted with the nation’s security, and an appeaser like Sen. Obama is no exception.

Gregory D. Lee is a nationally syndicated columnist for North Star Writers Group (www.northstarwriters.com). He can be reached through his website: www.gregorydlee.com.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

This is Column # GL021. Request permission to publish here.