PrintMay 17, 2008
Obama's historical ignorance proves Bush's point
Reeling from his inference of an accusation of being an appeaser to terrorists, Barack Obama lashed out against President Bush and John McCain.
"They [Bush and McCain] aren't telling you the truth. They are trying to fool you and scare you because they can't win a foreign policy debate on the merits. But it's not going to work. Not this time, not this year."
Obama claimed that U.S. diplomacy in the past was successful because we were willing to sit down with enemies. Only Bush and McCain refuse to follow the well-trod path of unconditional face-to face talks. "That has been the history of U.S. diplomacy until very recently," Obama said. "I find it puzzling that we view this as in any way controversial. This whole notion of not talking to people, it didn't hold in the '60s, it didn't hold in the '70s ... When Kennedy met with (Soviet leader Nikita) Khrushchev, we were on the brink of nuclear war."
The problem with Obama's contention is that it is a lie. John Kennedy met Khrushchev in Vienna on June 4, 1961. At the time, many seasoned diplomats worried that the Soviet leader would be emboldened by his encounter with the young and less experienced American president. The Cuban Missile Crisis, to which Obama refers, took place in October, 1962, sixteen months after the two leaders met.
The talks did nothing to prevent aggression. In fact, they may have paved the way. Only when Kennedy stood up to Khrushchev with American military power did the Soviets rethink their course.
"It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union."
This week, those Kennedy words sound a lot more like President Bush than Barack Obama.
I am scared, not by the President's pledge of solidarity with Israel, but by Obama's ignorance or misrepresentation of history. I can only hope that the nation tells the dashing young Senator from Illinois, "It's not going to work. Not this time, not this year."
