New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen chews up a large chunk of the Sunday Union Leader’s opinion page to sell us on president Obama’s START treaty with Russia. Most of the words revolve around suggesting this will enhance security, that it is a good deal for America, and that there are a busload of experts, past and current military, former Secretaries of State, ex-presidents and sundry others who agree that this Treaty should be ratified. But a few things stand between taking this at face value and moving forward on her recommendation.
First, Mr. Obama, a man who has excelled at degrading his own country, and minimizing its global influence, wants it real bad. Not a good sign.
Second, look at the context. What would we say if this was George Bush, wasting political energy and government time and resources, to advance something like this when we should have all our attention on the failure of the debt commission to agree to its own recommendations? Should we not still have all eyes and all hands dealing with a looming tax increase that could send the economy into a bigger tailspin just a few weeks from now? What about the deficit? Where is the laser like focus? Why not job growth polices–other than using the extension of unemployment benefits for class warfare against opponents who just want it paid for from some dark corner of Obama’s multi-trillion dollar budget or one of his many slush funds. Why START now?
Third, and this ties into the first, START is to strategic nuclear security what Obamacare was to Health care. Its pursuit appears almost Pyrrhic, as if the victory must come regardless of the cost. So this is not a strategic defense effort, it is just another feather in Obama’s agenda cap. And with the brakes now being applied to his agenda come January 3rd, he is more obsessed with the Obama of history than the one responsible for national, and based on how they are selling it, Global security.
But like everything else that comes out of the administration or the drooling mouths of the party lap-dogs assigned to promote it, this is predicated on their standard template. "We can’t just do nothing" and "Things could be worse."
If we search the landscape of the Obama Presidency however, neither of these ideas is compelling. If we actually look at what Obama is willing to pass off as ‘doing something,’ it looks as if he has just bowed to another foreign leader, only this time over a nuclear weapons treaty.
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