I'm utterly speechless that Jerome's diary made was written, let alone made the recommended list. The basic premise of his diary: because Barack Obama sees threats in the world and wants America to address them, he's creepy.
He's done this before in his "Neo-cons love Obama" diary that I thoroughly debunked. Now multiple diaries makes a theme. Jerome is obviously trying to say that he doesn't like that Obama sees and wants to address threats in the world. Where the neocons did the slicing and dicing before, this time Jerome cherry picks and bold-fonts scary looking words (Ooh! He said "rogue state!") And then lets us all dread that Obama is the second coming of George Bush and Dick Cheney.
Well, I made clear in my last diary that Obama's foriegn policy is nothing to be afraid of. You can read the whole thing, but here's the conclusion:
Fighting global warming. Diplomacy. International institutions. Combating pandemic flu. Increasing international aid. Sure Obama wants to maintain a strong military. Yes, he made the extremely non-controversial statement that he would attack a country that looked like it wanted to attack us. The fact that he talks extensively about the military during a time of war in his first, major foreign policy address doesn't make him a Iraq-invading, Bill Kristol-loving neo-conservative. So Kagan's twist for his unsuspecting reader is this: make Obama's military talk seem like neo-con kind of talk, and obscure all that other stuff. Hook, line, sinker.
So, is Obama's "interventionism" to be feared by us? Only if you're an isolationist. I've been against the Iraq war as long as Obama. That's not my style of "interventionism." But more international aid to developing countries? More global cooperation to end nuclear proliferation? And the extremely rare multi-lateral military intervention to stop a brutal genocide? Well, that's not neo-conservatism. That's a strong, smart progressive foreign policy - and a position that other Democratic presidential candidates likely agree with. And that's why Kagan is making fun of Obama. Because that's not love you're reading in that article. That's fear. Kagan read the whole speech. And Obama's speech is a bristling indictment of Kagan's democracy-by-the-sword neo-conservative movement.
So back to Jerome's latest diary. I think it's obvious that there's threats in the world, so I'm not even going to address that part of the diary. But what really bothers me is this bit by Jerome:
You'd expect that a speech about foreign policy would be about, at some point, acknowledging that other countries might have different worries, and different priorities, and that a smart foreign policy would at least try to understand these (if not necessarily to accomodate them) to see how American goals can be advanced in the smartest way.
In other words, Jerome is positing that Obama cares only about threats. That he's some sort of Rudy Guiliani is sheeps clothing. But, really, is the fact that Obama notices threats in the world (and that Jerome is good at cutting and pasting those parts into a diary with a clever title) mutually exclusive from his believing that American isn't going to partner with the rest of the world or think cooperatively about the problems of other countries? Because notice what Obama says in the very beginning of this whole article:
The mission of the United States is to provide global leadership grounded in the understanding that the world shares a common security and a common humanity.
A common humanity. Sounds like he might be taking about that in his article, no?
And he doesn't disappoint: He devotes large sections to building non-military partnerships like the UN and other partnerships throughout the world to deal with our common inter-linked problems (I'll skip the details). He devotes another large section to our need to increase foriegn aid for poverty, etc:
[T]he United States has a direct national security interest in dramatically reducing global poverty and joining with our allies in sharing more of our riches to help those most in need. We need to invest in building capable, democratic states that can establish healthy and educated communities, develop markets, and generate wealth. Such states would also have greater institutional capacities to fight terrorism, halt the spread of deadly weapons, and build health-care infrastructures to prevent, detect, and treat deadly diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and avian flu.
In other words, Obama isn't just saying THREATS, BIG ARMY, ATTACK!!!! He see a large role in his foriegn policy vision in understanding the worries and problems of other countries. In fact, he wants to use these non-military methods to avoid "BIG ARMY ATTACK!" As I noted in that last diary, he spends a good bit of time talking about diplomacy, multilateral cooperation, international institutions, and addressing root problems through aid and charity (and that's just off the top of my head). But none of that comes through the "I promise this isn't a hit piece" diary, does it?
So, yes, he sees THREATS in the world and knows that the military might have to be used someday. So does John Edwards (["A]ll options must remain on the table ... Iran ... threatens the security of Israel and the entire world.") So does Hillary Clinton ("In dealing with this threat [of Iran] ... no option can be taken off the table."). If you want a presidential candidate that doesn't see threats in the world, I don't know what to tell you. I guess they're all creepy too.