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McCain Channels the NYT, CFR, John Kerry
Presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain, outlining his foreign policy positions on the heels of an overseas trip, is renewing his call for the United States to work more collegially with democratic nations and live up to its duties as a world leader. "Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed," the Republican said in prepared remarks a few days after returning from the Middle East and Europe. "We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies."
For the billionth time, please provide specific examples where the US failed to listen to "allied" views that offered plausible concrete alternatives to US policies, or we did "whatever we want" in some arrogant or cavalier manner where plausible concrete alternatives were available. And, BTW, WTF would be the "collective will of our democratic allies"?? "Will"? Is he effing joking?
What matters here is that the Euros feel aggrieved, not that they have a reason to feel that way. McCain makes nice early in the campaign and takes away a potential talking point that the Dhimmicrats otherwise would use in the fall. This is about domestic politics, pure and simple.
The pitch, scheduled for an appearance Wednesday before the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, is a fresh acknowledgment by the GOP's likely presidential nominee that the United States' standing on the world stage has been tarnished and that the country has an image problem after eight years of President Bush at the helm.
There we have it. Don't know if McCain said this, but the tone of his speech and some of the words reported here are predictable fodder for media twerps to once again roll out the most tired, most mindless, most revealing myth of the post-9/11 world - the "tarnished" US image. Atta boy, Maverick.
Again, right or wrong, the trope is that somehow the U.S. is out of sync with its allies. We all know why, but McCain doesn't win an election pointing that out.
Critics at home and abroad have accused Bush of employing a go-it-alone foreign policy in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks when the administration spurned international calls for caution and led the invasion into Iraq. Democrats have derided McCain as offering the same foreign policies as Bush, whose support is at a low point as the public craves change.

But McCain, mindful of a need to lay out his own vision for the future and distance himself from the unpopular Republican president, voices a more collaborative approach. "The United States cannot lead by virtue of its power alone," McCain said. Instead, the country must lead by attracting others to its cause, demonstrating the virtues of freedom and democracy, defending the rules of an international civilized society, and creating new international institutions to advance peace and freedom, he said.
And where, Einstein, have we "led by virtue of" our power alone? Is that a particularly inept way of saying something stupid, such as we can't do what we need to do if we are forced to do it mostly by ourselves? Or would he care to offer specific examples? So I suppose actually applying the provisions of the Geneva Convention - even, because of a farcical and rogue Supreme Court, inventing US obligations never constitutionally agreed to by the executive or the Senate, and obligations to absurdly implausible interpretations of plain treaty language to boot - instead of tearing them up by declaring that all outlaw belligerents qualify for their privileges and protections, doesn't qualify as defending the rules of civilized society?
"If we lead by shouldering our international responsibilities and pointing the way to a better and safer future for humanity ... it will strengthen us to confront the transcendent challenge of our time: the threat of radical Islamic terrorism," said McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war who has decades of experience in the Senate on foreign affairs.
Get this idiot out of here before I slap him. This s**t isn't just infuriating, and inexcusable - there IS a practical, pernicious impact on the real world. McCain's adoption of this idiocy further subsidizes the cowardice and incompetence of "allies" who are the ones who need to reform their ways, and of course only deepens the erroneous popular perception that there is a whit of merit to this obnoxious "mainstream" nonsense.
McCain isn't necessarily adopting it, he's just stroking it enough to set it aside.

Posted by: Verlaine 2008-03-26
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=235208