Is Obama Listening With Those Big Ears?
Mon Nov 26, 2007 at 05:15:57 PM PDT
I started reading some of his positions after writing some popular early articles such as "The Obama Drama Meter" and "Don't Hold Bated Breath For Obama," about him. At that time, not sure now, it was an interactive thing on his Web site where you could write and/or give suggestions. In fact they were asking for suggestions--get that. So I took him up on it and wrote about his early position on increasing military funding.
Obama said he backs current plans to increase the Army and Marine Corps by 92,000 troops. Under his defense plan, more resources would be committed to counter-insurgency and intelligence expertise as well as language and cultural skills.
Former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) and Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) also want to see an enhancement in military numbers. Biden is advocating a larger concentration of special-operations forces and the creation of a civilian corps that would respond to post-conflict emergencies worldwide.
However, the candidates did not offer any details about how they plan to recruit more ground forces.
The next president will likely face a significant challenge in recruiting, as the military services already have lowered their recruitment standards, pushing recruitment spending to 20 times more than they spent before Iraq.
I said to the effect why the hell do you wish to spend more money on the military when what they have they are grossly misspending already?
It's not like I was looking for a direct answer. But I was surprised that he thought we should pour more money down that rat hole. True JFK got the ball rolling in dough and it has been that way ever since.
I told Obama to slow his roll on funding for military until we could get what we have under closer scrutiny. Seems to have fallen on big deaf ears.
Now, it seems that he has no problem with giving Bush bushels of money to keep the Iraq quagmire going.
I also wrote in my articles that he should really attack Hillary, get tough with that old bird, but he didn't. Others too told him to get tough with her. Now, he seems to be doing so. THen there is the Oprah effect. Has this begun to come into play with his numbers now?
http://thehill.com/...
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There's more on this from Robert Kagan (Washington Post) who claims he saw Obama openly channeling "pure John Kennedy" in an April 2007 speech. In that speech he was calling for an increase in troops:
Obama's speech at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs last week was pure John Kennedy, without a trace of John Mearsheimer. It had a deliberate New Frontier feel, including some Kennedy-era references ("we were Berliners") and even the Cold War-era notion that the United States is the "leader of the free world." No one speaks of the "free world" these days, and Obama's insistence that we not "cede our claim of leadership in world affairs" will sound like an anachronistic conceit to many Europeans, who even in the 1990s complained about the bullying "hyperpower." In Moscow and Beijing it will confirm suspicions about America's inherent hegemonism. But Obama believes the world yearns to follow us, if only we restore our worthiness to lead. Personally, I like it.
Sen. Barack Obama addresses the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. (By Jerry Lai -- Associated Press)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Heloise
