by Rod D. Martin
January 23, 2007

1. The President’s noting of our fight against AIDS in Africa is no small thing:  Bono recently said that America is spending fully half of all the money spent in the whole world on this effort.  Another thing this President has done for which he gets zero credit, and for which America gets no credit abroad.  But it’s important nonetheless.

2. It is amazing to me that Pelosi stands to applaud the line about Darfur — where we can do relatively little without launching another war — but is steadfastly against doing what is needed to keep free the 25 million liberated souls in Iraq, where we already have boots on the ground.  This is a pretty good indication of her true position:  if the President isn’t doing something big and bold, attack him for inaction; if the President IS doing something big and bold, attack him for that.  The specifics of the issue do not matter.  The only thing that matters is attacking.

3. This applies too to the degree of foreign coalition support the President just cited in our war on terror.  We are in Iraq under UN mandate, we are in Afghanistan with NATO in the lead, we are in six-party talks over nuclear disarmament in Korea, etc. etc.  Throughout the war, the left has attacked the President for “going it alone”, and yet that’s obviously not true.  And of course, in Korea, when Bush abandoned the failed Clinton approach of one-on-one talks with Kim’s regime and instead brought the other interested parties to the table, the Dems attacked him for that and demanded to “go it alone”.  The mind just boggles, until you realize that the “debate” is not about policy:  it’s just about demonizing the left’s opponents.

If you think this is a healthy approach to leading, much less leading the world, get ready:  with the Dems running Congress again, this is just the warm-up.