Talking Points Memo has put together a great montage of Senator John McCain’s interviews over the last several months. It shows how McCain has been all over the place on the subject of Iraq. His most extreme position was that it was okay for us to stay in Iraq for 100 years. Just a couple of days ago, he was okay with a time table for leaving.
Once again, Tom Brokaw leads with a negative question for Senator Barack Obama: Why haven’t you been to Afghanistan, if you really think that it is the central front on the war on terrorism, before now? (That’s not quite as bad as “Have you stopped beating your wife?”– but close.) Again, Obama does a very good job getting out of this negative frame. He explains that he hasn’t been down at the corner barbershop playing dominoes. He states what he has been doing.
I would urge Obama to step back from phrases like “We must win in Afghanistan.” This type of phrase echoes of discourse on Iraq. All sorts of questions arise. What does “winning” mean? Will defeating the Taliban lead to a formal surrender with Mullah Omar (who is still on the loose) handing over his sword or AK-47 to our General on the ground?
Instead, Obama needs to talk about our goals. Afghanistan needs to develop a viable economy which exports something other than heroin. Farmers must have a reason to plant something other than poppy. We need to help the Afghans build roads, schools, and a real economy. I have no idea how to deal with the local tribal leaders who are used to having an enormous amount of power over their own regions, but these leaders must be made to work within the framework of their constitution.
Obama shows a national audience that he has command of foreign policy. His plan isn’t wimpy. Instead, it is aggressive and thoughtful.
If Obama made a mistake during this discussion it might have been with the phrase, “We know where they are.” However, he did qualify it by saying that military commanders have told him that they are… I don’t know. We’ll see if Senator John McCain and his gang will make something out of this.
The brilliance of Senator Barack Obama should be coming obvious to everyone who want to see it. Those that don’t, will never see it. One of truly crafty things that Obama does on “Meet the Press” is turn a negative question into a positive one. Answering a negative question puts you on the defensive, making a person look weak.
Tom Brokaw poses such a negative question when he asks Barack Obama to comment on something that David Brooks said. The wind up to the question was very long. Obama addresses it by mentioning that there were plenty of positive reviews of his speech (including mine). This was great. He is turning the negative into a positive. Then, he points out that conservative columnists are not usually in his corner. Finally, he shows that David Brooks was wrong. In addition, he point out harsh realities in the world and criticized Europe, asking them to step up.
Obama did a masterful job of turning a negative into a positive. It’s verbal Jujitsu. If you weren’t paying attention, you might have simply missed it.
I was looking for something a little different. Well, I found it. The Muppet’s Animal versus the great jazz drummer Buddy Rich.
Errington C. Thompson, MD, is a surgeon, scholar, fulltime sports fan and part-time political activist. He is active in a number of community projects and initiatives. Through medicine, he strives to improve the physical health of all he treats...
