2008 Woodie Awards
McCain should be wary of adopting neo-con message
Dan O'Gara
Issue date: 4/15/08 Section: OpEd Page
The centerpiece of the candidacy of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has been his strength in foreign policy and national security. A Vietnam War hero, McCain certainly knows better than his Democratic counterparts what the fury and utter desolation of war is like firsthand. Having been a foot solider in one of the United States' most disastrous foreign policy adventures he can claim to have learned the harsh reality of what an ill-conceived war can do to the psyche of America's armed forces.
He has carried these lessons over to his career as successful legislator and can also claim vastly more foreign policy experience at the highest level than the Democratic candidates could ever dream of. You know it is bad when Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D-N.Y.) claims to foreign policy experience are based around her husband and phantom sniper fire while Sen. Barack Obama's (D-Ill.) campaign clings to the fact that Obama has Kenyan roots. On paper, it is laughable to even compare McCain to the two. Given such deep experience and breadth of knowledge, it is surprising to find that the senator does not have a deeply entrenched view of the world. He is not committed to any rigid view on how nations should engage each other and would never be mistaken for an ideologue; rather, he has fashioned himself as a political maverick during his time in the senate.
Flexibility and openness to new ideas are certainly political assets and essential qualities for our next president to possess. It is hard to imagine McCain allowing a small group of narrow-minded neoconservatives to hijack his foreign policy the way former President George W. Bush allowed Dick Cheney & Co. to. Yet for all his prowess and experience, McCain has made some embarrassing foreign policy errors in recent weeks. He claimed that Shiite Iran has been training Sunni Al-Qaeda in Iraq, a fundamental and potentially dangerous misreading of the Iraqi situation that should give all pause. Just to ensure that no one thought it was a one-off, McCain repeated his error earlier this week at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Being a maverick is one thing, but making such a fundamental error proves that McCain is not nearly the foreign policy expert everyone assumes. To his credit, the senator appears to be fully cognizant of his shortcomings and he seeks advice from a wide array of foreign policy specialists.
He has carried these lessons over to his career as successful legislator and can also claim vastly more foreign policy experience at the highest level than the Democratic candidates could ever dream of. You know it is bad when Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D-N.Y.) claims to foreign policy experience are based around her husband and phantom sniper fire while Sen. Barack Obama's (D-Ill.) campaign clings to the fact that Obama has Kenyan roots. On paper, it is laughable to even compare McCain to the two. Given such deep experience and breadth of knowledge, it is surprising to find that the senator does not have a deeply entrenched view of the world. He is not committed to any rigid view on how nations should engage each other and would never be mistaken for an ideologue; rather, he has fashioned himself as a political maverick during his time in the senate.
Flexibility and openness to new ideas are certainly political assets and essential qualities for our next president to possess. It is hard to imagine McCain allowing a small group of narrow-minded neoconservatives to hijack his foreign policy the way former President George W. Bush allowed Dick Cheney & Co. to. Yet for all his prowess and experience, McCain has made some embarrassing foreign policy errors in recent weeks. He claimed that Shiite Iran has been training Sunni Al-Qaeda in Iraq, a fundamental and potentially dangerous misreading of the Iraqi situation that should give all pause. Just to ensure that no one thought it was a one-off, McCain repeated his error earlier this week at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Being a maverick is one thing, but making such a fundamental error proves that McCain is not nearly the foreign policy expert everyone assumes. To his credit, the senator appears to be fully cognizant of his shortcomings and he seeks advice from a wide array of foreign policy specialists.
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