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The whole “horse race” element of politics is usually pretty shallow stuff, but it’s relevant here: It’s hard to imagine how John McCain could be having a worse week or so on national security, a week that comes just as Barack Obama has been stepping up a multi-faceted effort to prove his own competence on the issue. Since much of McCain’s presidential hopes are predicated on his national security strength, that is not a welcome development for him.
The latest news, on Wednesday, is that the Bush administration is authorizing what the International Herald Tribune called “the most significant U.S. diplomatic contact with Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.” Added the Herald Tribune: “the decision appeared to bend, if not exactly break, the administration’s insistence that it would not negotiate with Iran over its nuclear programs unless it first suspended uranium enrichment.” Barack Obama, who has encouraged such meetings, hailed the development as a plus for his policy. McCain, who had encouraged isolating Iran, was left reacting by saying it was a rejection of the “unilateral” meetings Obama supported. More than one journalist concluded that this was advantage: Obama.
On Tuesday, McCain made some ambiguous statements on his Afghanistan plan that opened him up to charges of flip-flopping in a way that ends up making him look like he has come to think of things the way Obama has on troops levels.
Also on Tuesday, McCain again made a reference to Czechoslovakia as if it still existed, at least the fourth occasion he has done so in this campaign. It’s a gaffe, so it is far less important than any of the other developments, but McCain’s had his share of foreign policy slip-ups, something that doesn’t exactly speak well of his expertise in that regard.
And early last week, of course, McCain was confronted with the news that the Iraqi prime minister was calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops – which Obama favors but McCain does not – which McCain first greeted with skepticism, then silence, then a continuation of his own policy.
Meanwhile, Obama conducted a CNN interview with foreign policy expert Fareed Zakaria Sunday and appeared at ease with the subject. He released advertisements that highlights his national security views in states where such a move could be valuable. He penned an op-ed in the New York Times Monday which further clarified his Iraq position, in case there was any lingering doubt on that. And on Tuesday he delivered a wide-ranging foreign policy speech that the AP deemed his “most ambitious… to date,” where he again gave no major cannon fodder to opponents. All of this comes in advance of his trip next week to Europe and the Middle East, where, Brandenburg Gate controversy aside, he will probably be well-received and stands to make up even more ground on foreign policy and national security.
Despite all this, there is good news for McCain. First off, it’s just one week so far – it doesn’t yet have the look of the kind of week from which he cannot recover. Part of the reason he can recover is that he still was viewed by voters before any of this as the one with the edge in foreign policy, and, despite hostility from voters on the Iraq War, his plan for the country was running neck-and-neck with Obama’s. There are still areas where McCain can attack Obama, such as on his opposition to the Iraq troop surge (although that attack will be met with an answer that McCain showed bad judgment himself by supporting the war at its onset) and Obama’s absence on foreign policy issues as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations panel.
And McCain’s remarks, shifts and other problems haven’t caught fire in the media. McCain’s warm relationship with the press has long annoyed his opponents, who see favoritism in the coverage. None other than George Bush himself was irritated when, in 2000, McCain got away with referring to Czechoslovakia: “I don’t think there is any plot; I hope there isn’t,” Bush said. “But it’s an amazing phenomenon, I’ll tell you that. It’s like the flap over the foreign-leader deal. A guy gets up and quizzes me — it’s my fault for trying to answer — but John McCain says something about the ‘ambassador to Czechoslovakia.’ Well, I know there is no Czechoslovakia (there’s a Czech Republic and a Slovakia), but yet it didn’t make the nightly national news. I’m not going to gripe about it, but the media question is starting to pop up.” |
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