Just as it seemed the liberal Democratic Presidential frontrunning candidates- Hill, Obama Bim Baden...gee, is there anyone else?.......were safe running to the left on defense and terrorism, two events this past week have made the water suddenly very unsafe for them.
Exhibit number one was this past week's Russian test of an anti-anti-ballistic missile defense system missle. So much for post-Reagan progress on arms control. Putin is off the reservation now.
No, it's not George Bush's "fault." Nobody can control another country's leader. Putin and his coterie are still smarting from their nation's fall from superpower status. Thus, their bet on militarism and economic blackmail, via oil and gas, to attempt to regain that status.
Say goodbye to the end of the arms race, my friends.
Exhibit number two is the just-announced apprehension of those terrorists involved in planning the total destruction of New York's JFK airport, along with a substantial portion of nearby Queens.
Yet again, we are reminded that terrorism lives, and is seeking to strike on our shores again.
Doesn't voting to withdraw from Iraq look silly when old and new enemies abound, are active, and demonstrate the continued danger of simply maintaining peaceful, healthy global trade and economic interdependence?
What idiot would vote to pointlessly retreat behind the non-existent "protection" of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Heck, we can't even keep our own TB-infected citizens out of our own country.
My own expectation is that these recent events will bring home to American voters that we are never "safe." That now is no time to vote for liberal pansies and appeasers.
Fate has a way of making some candidacies irrelevant, despite their own best efforts. Nixon lost his gubernatorial bid amidst the media coverage of the Cuban missile crisis. Kerry ran for peace during a hot, vital war against terrorism, attempting to invoke his own checkered and uncertain military service as his qualification.
I'd guess that by November of 2008, a candidate who is well-credentialed, strong on defense, and likable, will be leading in the race to replace George Bush.
I'm guessing that person will be either Fred Thompson or Rudy Giuliani. I don't think any prominent Democratic candidates will be able to tack back from the far left, where they headed to win their own party's nomination, to the center on defense, with any credibility left.
In fact, it occurred to me yesterday that you have to go back to Harry Truman to find a Democratic President of whom that party is still proud, and was not soft on defense. Johnson's abysmal mismanagement of both the Vietnam War, and the economy, amidst his wrong-headed, southern-white-guilt inspired social policies, earned him a place near Carter in the pantheon of failed Democratic Presidents. Clinton was lucky war did not find him as he dismantled our defenses and ignored the rising threat of global, Islamic-fringe-driven terrorism.
It could well be a rerun of the candidacies of (drumroll, please): McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, and Kerry.
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