Obviously at the heart of yesterday's little tussle over the president's speech in Israel was the question of whether or not Barack Obama is tough enough to be president. This meme has been bubbling for a while. Even the New York Times' Bob Herbert suggested that Obama was a wimp (in so many words) a few weeks ago. It thus comes as little surprise that Obama is now hurriedly assuring the electorate that he's plenty tough enough to be president.
In a speech this morning, Obama used the phrase "Bush and John McCain" a dozen times. Marc Ambinder reports that Obama really got into the ritualistic Bush-bashing: "Obama came off as tough, pissed off, and in a fighting mood; the Goths are at the gate, and Obama's beating them back. That type of thing."
On a more substantive level, Obama engaged in an apparently extended conversation with David Brooks earlier in the week to flesh out his foreign policy philosophy. Acting in full post-partisan mode and attempting to prove his seriousness, Obama professed great admiration for the foreign policy stylings of the first Bush administration:
"I have enormous sympathy for the foreign policy of George H. W. Bush. I don't have a lot of complaints about their handling of Desert Storm."
This little Obama observation illustrates two key facets of his personality. Whenever he discusses recent history, Obama seems to rely on the Cliff's Notes version. In this instance, Gulf War = Good; Obama doesn't go any deeper. He certainly doesn't come across as a guy who has habitually thought about history's relevance to today's events for any length of time.
It doesn't take a particularly nuanced or sophisticated understanding of Desert Storm to conclude that the administration handled the war's endgame very sloppily. Earlier in the article, Brooks remarked on how Obama seemed quite well-informed on Lebanon. I don't doubt it. He's a serious and intelligent guy. But his views of historical events, whether they involve FDR's purported negotiations with Hitler or Desert Storm, are surprisingly simplistic for such a thoughtful candidate.
His admiration for the Bush 41 is also pregnant with implications. The big debate regarding Obama is whether he'll be a transformational president or just another incrementalist. Obviously, the former prospect frightens conservatives and delights liberals. Having seen Obama's campaign, I don't find any evidence of a fellow prone to bold actions.
Given his liberal instincts, that's good. The biggest foreign policy fear on the right is that a Democratic president will run around doing imprudent things like meeting with Ahmadenijad and precipitously pulling out of Iraq, heedless of the consequences. Obama gave himself wiggle room to revisit his Iraq policy upon his inauguration weeks ago, and days ago he abandoned his misguided summit plans.
All these changes beg one very serious question: What exactly will an Obama foreign policy look like? Really, no one knows. Its composition changed dramatically just this past weekend, and it will likely "evolve" still more in the future as he offers carefully thought through policies rather than visceral reactions at YouTube debates.
Yes, the fact that Obama hadn't settled on a foreign policy vision before he ran for president and still hasn't 18 months later is disconcerting. Given the direction in which he's moving, it's surprising the left remains so sanguine over its candidate's progress.
