Even the Archliberal New Yorker Admits Obama's Rhetoric on Iraq is Out-of-Touch and Behind-the-News

Caught by Commentary:

In February, 2007, when Barack Obama declared that he was running for President, violence in Iraq had reached apocalyptic levels, and he based his candidacy, in part, on a bold promise to begin a rapid withdrawal of American forces upon taking office. At the time, this pledge represented conventional thinking among Democrats and was guaranteed to play well with primary voters. But in the year and a half since then two improbable, though not unforeseeable, events have occurred: Obama has won the Democratic nomination, and Iraq, despite myriad crises, has begun to stabilize. With the general election four months away, Obama’s rhetoric on the topic now seems outdated and out of touch, and the nominee-apparent may have a political problem concerning the very issue that did so much to bring him this far. . . He doubtless realizes that his original plan, if implemented now, could revive the badly wounded Al Qaeda in Iraq, reënergize the Sunni insurgency, embolden Moqtada al-Sadr to recoup his militia’s recent losses to the Iraqi Army, and return the central government to a state of collapse. The question is whether Obama will publicly change course before November. So far, he has offered nothing more concrete than this: “We must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in.” . . . Yet, as exhausted as the public is with the war, a candidate who seems heedless of progress in Iraq will be vulnerable to the charge of defeatism, which John McCain’s campaign will connect to its broader theme of Obama’s inexperience in and weakness on national security.

Jennifer Rubin points out:

So now other MSM outlets can get into the act. MSNBC tips its hand by saying, “This isn’t the Weekly Standard writing about this.” And other mainstream media sources likewise rush to confirm that, my gosh, Obama has a problem.

Perhaps if mainstream media reporters and pundits actually read something other than each other’s publications they might learn something new. Seriously, they tell us that the same facts reported months ago by Weekly Standard wasn’t worth a mention but a belated account from the New Yorker is? There could be no better proof that the worst victim of the media cocoon is the mainstream media itself.

That is interesting -- apparently MSNBC holds it against the Weekly Standard that it's gotten this right long before the liberal media would even acknowledge something as awful as the possibility of an American military victory.

posted by Ace at 06:30 PM

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