Barack Obama's European and Middle East photo-op has lead me to ask myself why did Mr No Foreign Policy Experience Whatsoever bother to go to Iraq and Afghanistan when he had already decided on his Iraq strategy 5 months ago?
He should have brought John McCain along on the trip. McCain, an experienced Senator with foreign policy experience, he could have introduced BO to Gen. Petraeus, or at least picked him out in a crowd. Why will BO still not acknowledge that the surge of troops last summer has succeeded to quell sectarian violence and provide increased security and confidence in the Iraqi people that has then help foster increased strides in their struggling democracy?
If BO, or more importantly, his advisers, could step out of the D.C. beltway world-unto-itself news-cycle mentality, they would recognize that that in doing so, they could disarm McCain and his all-to-easy arguments that the first term Senator is a foreign policy newbie. By admitting what is patently apparent, he could re-take the high road politically and broaden his appeal to moderates in potential swing states.
These swing state voters, like most all voters NOT newly registered int he last 6 months, are intelligent. Using the brains God gave them, these moderates can miraculously, even without a master's in PolySci or Advanced Linear Logic, easily reconcile supporting a strategy to win a war while still wishing that same war had never happened in the first place.
Why is this not the story coming out of BOs trip? With all the journalistic decorum of a Paris Hilton sighting, the media seems focused instead on staged handshakes and thoughtful gazes out the window of a helicopter?
