Just a moment ago, in response to George W. Bush's and John McCain's attack on Obama as "appeasing" Iran and terrorist organizations, Obama said, "If George Bush and John McCain want to have a debate about protecting the United States of America, that is a debate I am happy to have any time, any place, and that is a debate that I will win, because George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for."
Obama pointed out that we're in our sixth year of war in Iraq, no WMD have ever been found, we were told the war would last only a few months and cost a tiny fraction of what it has actually cost, and the occupation has not made us safer. He added that Osama bin Laden is still at large, and Al Qaeda is stronger than ever because "we took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan." He then noted that Iran - the country Bush and McCain accuse Obama of appeasing - has been the greatest beneficiary of their bumbling foreign policy and course in Iraq, and that both Iran and Hamas are stronger because of these policies.
Let me say this in no uncertain terms, Obama is playing this perfectly and admirably, and let's hope this is how he intends to campaign throughout the general election. He is not running and hiding from accusations of appeasement - he is confronting them directly and fearlessly, and using the attacks as an opportunity to return fire from a stronger moral and policy position, putting the spotlight right back on the right-wing policies that Americans have come to loathe and associate with Bush and McCain.
Obama is turning this snarling, canine, lizard-brain attack by the right wing into an opportunity to seize the news cycle, put out strong and lengthy clips of his unbowed responses, and refocus scrutiny on the glaring hypocrisy and failures of the Republican Party for the last several years. If Obama keeps this up, and the Republicans keep their behavior up, McCain doesn't stand a chance in November.
UPDATE:
Will the Republicans realize that, for the first time in a long time, their standard approach to these kinds of issues is failing and backfiring?
And, if they do, how will they handle this new, painful truth? We can expect to see a great deal of confusion and disarray as they try to come to terms with the massive backlash hitting them on their own talking points.
VIDEO UPDATE:
Hat-tip sgilman: