Nothing like backing an ally in wartime by invading them.
TR
http://www.nypost.com/seven/08032007...etz.htm?page=0
THANKS, BARACK
FINALLY, '08 SUBSTANCE Obama: Terror speech prompts serious debate at last.
August 3, 2007 --
SEN. Barack Obama performed an immense service on Wednesday by delivering a speech on terrorism in which he basically promised that, as president, he would invade Pakistan.
Now, the substance of the speech is highly questionable: This country is never going to insert military forces to conduct a major campaign against al Qaeda inside Pakistan without the permission of that country's government. It won't happen if Obama becomes president - nor if Hillary Clinton or Rudy Giuliani or Frosty the Snowman wins the job.
The other sections of the speech featured earnest promises that Obama would do many things to fight terror - mostly things that this country is already doing and has done for the past five years.
Questionable or not, though, the speech was something, and that's something.
If you were listening closely, you heard a gigantic sigh of relief rising from the chattering classes - those of us who are paid to spend our days interpreting and analyzing the presidential contest: Finally, here's something real to discuss - not a well-prepared or poorly handled debate answer, not a memo by a campaign manager discussing fundraising prowess, not a staff shakeup. We sunk our teeth into Obama's speech like Neanderthals suddenly transported before a serving for two of Peter Luger's porterhouse.
By delivering the first major foreign-policy address by a leading contender for the '08 presidential campaign on either the Republican or Democratic side, Obama for the first time laid honest claim to being a force for change in U.S. politics.
(John McCain has given several important addresses about the new military strategy in Iraq on the floor of the Senate, but those were not campaign speeches per se. And Joe Biden has said interesting things, but I'll be president before he will.)
This presidential campaign has been going on for eight months now. It's the earliest, most active and most hotly contested campaign in this country's history. There's never been anything like it - and it will either redefine what running for president means in the future or it will stand as a fascinating aberration.
It's also been a campaign notable for its lack of substance. People love to blame the media for focusing on trivialities instead of deeply serious issues, but for most of the past year all anyone's been given to talk about has been trivialities.
The campaigns themselves are far more focused on the nuts and bolts of politics. They are the driving force behind all the articles about who has money in the bank and how much they have and how many donors they have and where they all are.
The campaigns talk strategy, not policy. They discuss organizational strength in Iowa or the national polls or the big Feb. 5 primary - whichever is their card to play.
Even on health care - a matter that is central to the Democratic Party's effort to retake the White House - campaigns have offered detailed plans that have a prefabricated, pull-down-off-the-shelf quality about them.
By far the most hilarious line of the race so far was John Edwards raging that attention was being paid to his expensive haircuts because insurance companies don't want people to know about his health-care plan. In fact, it's been praised to the skies by the liberal commentariat - but Edwards himself hasn't said a single memorable thing about his plan.
Instead, we're told Edwards deserves attention because he is doing well in the polls in Iowa and Nevada.
Obama made his speech because he made a mistake in the YouTube debate last week - agreeing to meet unconditionally with the dictators of North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela. Despite efforts by some apologists to claim that this was a smart thing for Obama to say, clearly he and his people decided it wasn't smart at all - and that he had to talk tough about something to make himself appear to be a credible national leader.
That is why the YouTube debate was such a triumph and why it will be good for Republicans to field the same sorts of questions. At the very least, unconventional questions cause candidates to respond in uncharacteristic ways, which can have a bracing effect on the political discussion.
One of seven people - Obama, Clinton, Edwards, Giuliani, McCain, Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney - will be president in 15 months. It is past time for them to start talking at length in a sustained way about pressing issues.