My apologies if this was already diaried, I couldn't find one in a search.
Believe me, I am utterly flabbergasted that I am even writing these words, but George Will, of all people, has actually penned, a few weeks ago in the Washington Post, a very strong case that Republicans who call Obama weak on defense have no idea what they are talking about. It is a steady demolition of the idea that the GOP should even bring up this issue, and even actually mocks a few Republican campaign claims. I realize Will wasn't the biggest fan of McCain in the last election, but that someone so indelibly linked to the Republican establishment would diverge from the apparent orthodoxy that "Democrats are weak" is, to me anyway, astounding.
Will begins with a few jabs at Obama, but cannot quite bring himself to cheer lead for further war, and even mocks the idea that staying in Iraq longer than we did would have done any good:
Hours - not months, not weeks, hours - after the last U.S. troops left Iraq, vicious political factionalism and sectarian violence intensified. Many Republicans say Barack Obama's withdrawal - accompanies by his administration's foolish praise of Iraq's "stability" - has jeopardized what has been achieved there. But if it cannot survive a sunrise without fraying, how much of an achievement was it?
This, to me, is an astounding admission that the neocon project of nation-building by conquest was a failure. But Will isn't close to finished. In the next few paragraphs, he needles Mitt Romney, all but encouraging the reader to join him in a dry, cynical chuckle:
Mitt Romney opposes negotiations with the Taliban while they "are killing our soldiers." Which means: No negotiations until the war ends, when there will be nothing about which to negotiate. "We don't," he says, "negotiate from a position of weakness as we are pulling our troops out." That would mean stopping the drawdown of U.S. forces - except Romney would not negotiate even from a position of strength: "We should not negotiate with the Taliban. We should defeat the Taliban." How could that be achieved in a second decade of war? What metrics would establish "defeat?" Details to come, perhaps.
Will then goes on to note how small the defense cuts Obama proposes really are, and asks Obama's critics, just what exactly they think he is endangering:
Are Republicans really going to warn voters that America will be imperiled if the defense budget is cut 8 percent from projections over the next decade? In 2017, defense spending would still be more than that of the next 10 countries combined snip GOP critics say that Obama's proposed defense cuts will limit America's ability to engage in troop-intensive nation-building. Most Americans probably say: Good.
At length, he ends by criticizing the increasing GOP drumbeat on Iran, noting that nothing they have proposed is any different than what is already being done, and even acknowledging that Obama got Bin Laden in the bargain:
Osama Bin Laden and other "high-value targets" are dead, the drone war is being waged more vigorously than ever, and Guantanamo Bay is still open, so Republicans can hardly say that Obama has implemented dramatic and dangerous discontinuities regarding counterterrorism.
Frankly, I'm stunned. HE just basically admitted that all that Republican chest-beating since the days of Nixon has basically been reduced to dishonest gasconade, one even George Will acknowledges, on a national newspaper of record, is phony.
Newt, however, seems not to have taken Will's advice.