California Conservative

When I read this article in Haaretz, I was a little stunned. Here’s what I read that stunned me:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is very critical of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama’s positions on Iran, according to reports that have reached Israel’s government.

Sarkozy has made his criticisms only in closed forums in France. But according to a senior Israeli government source, the reports reaching Israel indicate that Sarkozy views the Democratic candidate’s stance on Iran as “utterly immature” and comprised of “formulations empty of all content.”

This isn’t surprising to anyone who paid attention to Sen. Obama’s deer-in-the-headlights reaction to Russia’s invasion of Georgia. The only thing that makes this stunning is that Sarkozy’s critique of Sen. Obama is as negative as it is.

Following their July meeting, Sarkozy repeatedly expressed disappointment with Obama’s positions on Iran, concluding that they were “not crystallized, and therefore many issues remain open,” the Israeli source said. Advisors to the French president who held separate meetings with Obama’s advisors came away with similar impressions and expressed similar disappointment.

Saying that Sen. Obama’s policies weren’t crystallized is code for saying that he didn’t think things through, at least not enough to formulate a coherent policy.

Now Fast Eddie Rendell is trying to convince Pennsylvania voters that John McCain is erratic and that Barack Obama is the steady hand:

Well, Democrat Gov. Ed Rendell, speaking on behalf of the Obama campaign at a news conference, said there’s no question who we want handling a crisis and the three presidential debates proved it.

Which candidate was “calm, collected” during the debates?, Rendell asked. Which candidate was “angry, mad and lost his cool on a number of occasions and lashed out”?, the governor asked. “John McCain was the one, I think, that showed erratic behavior,” Rendell said.

Wait.

Obama is the better candidate to handle a crisis because he was calm during the debates?

Brad Bumsted notes that Joe Biden opened this up with his “Mark my words” comment:

What was Biden thinking? By opening up the issue of being tested in a crisis he played to McCain’s strength. It’s the last area Obama wants reopened in the media.

Spinmeister Rendell tried to deflect it by saying it was only common sense and that there’s historic precedent for presidents of both parties being tested early in their terms.

There is a precedent of a newly elected president who wasn’t tested his first six months in office. That president was Ronald Reagan. At the time, Iran held 52 American hostages for the last 444 days of Jimmy Carter’s administration. Approximately 5 minutes after President Reagan was sworn in, the airplane carrying those hostages cleared Iran’s airspace.

It isn’t coincidence that Ronald Reagan was the oldest president elected. If elected, John McCain would replace President Reagan as the oldest man elected to his first term in office.

There’s another historical precedent for this. JFK was young, charismatic and inexperienced when he met with Kruschev. After meeting with JFK, Kruschev was convinced that he could roll JFK. I suspect that Barack Obama would be tested early by Russia and Iran because he’s inexperienced and clueless.

Things could get ugly in a hurry.

Technorati Tags: Obama, Ed Rendell, Joe Biden, Foreign Policy, Sarkozy, Ronald Reagan, John McCain, Russia, Iran, Iran Hostage Crisis, JFK, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 at 2:25 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Election 2008, Foreign Policy, Iran, McCain, Obama, Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.