Dig in Deep

Obama is appealing to many voters, originally unlikely to vote Democrat, on a couple of things. Most notably, government charity and war.

Britt has posted some history lessons (see part 1 and part 2), dealing with government charity and its roots in socialism. There’s a lot more detail that we could go into, but I think his treatment was the right approach to summarize it. I’m still seriously thinking about a Matthew 6 parody site of the Matthew 25 Network. If I had a lot of spare time I probably would have taken it on by now.

On the war, there’s a great article at American Thinker by James Lewis called Would Obama have given up after Pearl Harbor? In it, he does a great job comparing the similarities between all of America’s most challenging moments.

The United States has experienced devastating setbacks in every major war. Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Truman, and Reagan were all told to quit and cut our losses. They didn’t — even when the newspapers and their political enemies screamed and yelled, walking a fine line near treason. George W. Bush’s experience with Iraq has been absolutely straight down the mainstream of American history, including all the setbacks, the gut-punching pain of losing good soldiers, the military turnaround once we found the right leaders, the betrayals by our political class, and the victory we are seeing today.

Judging by his words Obama would have given up at all the crisis points in the past: Pearl Harbor, the Battle of the Bulge, the Berlin Airlift, Bull Run, the British burning the White House in 1812, and Valley Forge.

While it is possible that Obama could develop this kind of leadership, the way he talks about foreign affairs, and the way he has approached Iraq and his desire to simply pull out without considering the consequences (and until Friday, never even admitting that the surge worked in Iraq), makes me believe otherwise.

“Leadership” is not some mystical quality that only highly educated WaPo journos can spot. Leadership is what allows you to win against huge opposition from all the Bob Woodwards of the media, from the Demagogue Party, from al Qaida, from Saddam and his minions, the Iraqi militias, the opportunists and corrupt Iraqi politicians, the worldwide Left, the academics, the demoted generals, the do-nothing CIA chairwarmers, and all the other saboteurs.

Leadership is what George W. Bush has demonstrated in spades. And he’s been abused for it just like Truman was, and Lincoln and all the others.

What would Barack Obama have done? Obama just thought it was all a miracle. “I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated … I’ve already said it succeed beyond our wildest dreams.”

But it wasn’t a miracle. It wasn’t beyond our wildest dreams. It was just the same grueling learning process that Lincoln had to go through, and FDR and all the others. The Petraeus strategy didn’t just happen. It was the product of years of hard, slogging, bloody, and finally victorious efforts. It was extremely painful, but in the end, it worked.

For McCain, the success of the surge was not beyond his “wildest dreams.” He had been fighting for the right strategy, and was the most vocal supporter of a surge, against the advice of political strategists, for years. Obama claimed that it would make things worse. Even today, when he finally admits that it has worked (and only because he has to), he refuses to admit that he was wrong about it.

When Russia invaded Georgia, Obama’s first statement was ambiguous. McCain’s first statement condemned Russia for their actions, and stood with Georgia, who was being trounced. It took Obama three days to come up with a statement that looked a lot like McCain’s.

America can’t afford to have a president that takes three days to figure out the right answer about Russia invading Georgia. America can’t afford a president that refuses to admit that he was wrong about whether a surge of troops would make a huge difference in Iraq.

Now compare the great presidents of American history, who successfully navigated America through difficult times – Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Truman, Reagan – and tell me which candidate today has demonstrated the ability to assess the situation and accurately come up with solutions that will make a difference. Obama comes up awfully short in that comparison.