McCain Slings Mud at the Clinton’s
| By ToddHill - Oct 11th, 2006 at 1:35 pm EDT |
| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
In what appears to be the first shot of the upcoming '08 gallup race, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) blamed former President Clinton for the current standoff with North Korea. Once again we have the Party on the Right opening Chapter 2 of the election year playbook to "When All Else Fails Blame Clinton."
The senator from Arizona, who is eerily attempting to clone himself after the same man who in the 2000 Republican primaries raked him over the coals, decided to "remind" Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) that it was the framework developed under her husbands administration that led to this past weekends nuclear test by North Korea. I'll be the first to say the Agreed Framework with Kim Jong Il did not yield the results we all had hoped for. Short of all out war it, was a culminating deal that collectively was leading towards a much broader effort to derail the communist nation's ambitions for the world's deadliest weapons. The Clinton administration was leaving a well-structured diplomatic approach that the Bush administration simply needed to finish; but instead, they chose to ignore, offend, and upend a real diplomatic effort to disarm a rogue nation bent on pursuing nuclear weapons. In so doing they gave Kim Jong Il all the reasons he could ever want to arm himself with weapons of mass destruction.
Ratcheting up the 2001 slap in the face provided by the incoming Bush administration was the 2002 "Axis of Evil" speech, and then culminated with an unnecessary war in Iraq based on a new foreign policy of preemptive war. Choosing instead to rely on 6-nation talks, led by China, and coupling that with the continued public flogging of North Korea, has brought us to this current stalemate. The 6-nation talks are a ridiculous front for diplomacy, and having China lead the effort, probably North Koreas staunchest underground supporter, is like letting the fox into the hen house. Rubber-stamping senators like McCain approved all of this with no help from Bill Clinton.
Further, Republicans have utilized this nuclear test as reason to champion funding for missile defense. I've written time and again what a waste of time, money, and valuable resources this ridiculous project would be. Considering every vital dollar our country produces is being sucked up by the debacle in Iraq we can ill afford to chase pipe dreams in deterring nuclear threats. It's a system that can be overwhelmed by multiple nuclear launches; it has a very low success rate, costs billions of dollars when armor, equipment and more are needed in Iraq. More importantly the system doesn't account for 21st century threats of terrorism.
Instead of gearing up for a 2008 White House run it would be helpful if the senator from Arizona would call his best friend in the West Wing and chastise him over a foreign policy that has galvanized rogue nations like North Korea, Iran, and others, to defy the international community in pursuing deadly weapons of mass destruction. The thirst for greed and desire for absolute power led our country into the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, instead of focusing on real threats like Kim Jong Il.
The senator from Arizona, who is eerily attempting to clone himself after the same man who in the 2000 Republican primaries raked him over the coals, decided to "remind" Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) that it was the framework developed under her husbands administration that led to this past weekends nuclear test by North Korea. I'll be the first to say the Agreed Framework with Kim Jong Il did not yield the results we all had hoped for. Short of all out war it, was a culminating deal that collectively was leading towards a much broader effort to derail the communist nation's ambitions for the world's deadliest weapons. The Clinton administration was leaving a well-structured diplomatic approach that the Bush administration simply needed to finish; but instead, they chose to ignore, offend, and upend a real diplomatic effort to disarm a rogue nation bent on pursuing nuclear weapons. In so doing they gave Kim Jong Il all the reasons he could ever want to arm himself with weapons of mass destruction.
Ratcheting up the 2001 slap in the face provided by the incoming Bush administration was the 2002 "Axis of Evil" speech, and then culminated with an unnecessary war in Iraq based on a new foreign policy of preemptive war. Choosing instead to rely on 6-nation talks, led by China, and coupling that with the continued public flogging of North Korea, has brought us to this current stalemate. The 6-nation talks are a ridiculous front for diplomacy, and having China lead the effort, probably North Koreas staunchest underground supporter, is like letting the fox into the hen house. Rubber-stamping senators like McCain approved all of this with no help from Bill Clinton.
Further, Republicans have utilized this nuclear test as reason to champion funding for missile defense. I've written time and again what a waste of time, money, and valuable resources this ridiculous project would be. Considering every vital dollar our country produces is being sucked up by the debacle in Iraq we can ill afford to chase pipe dreams in deterring nuclear threats. It's a system that can be overwhelmed by multiple nuclear launches; it has a very low success rate, costs billions of dollars when armor, equipment and more are needed in Iraq. More importantly the system doesn't account for 21st century threats of terrorism.
Instead of gearing up for a 2008 White House run it would be helpful if the senator from Arizona would call his best friend in the West Wing and chastise him over a foreign policy that has galvanized rogue nations like North Korea, Iran, and others, to defy the international community in pursuing deadly weapons of mass destruction. The thirst for greed and desire for absolute power led our country into the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, instead of focusing on real threats like Kim Jong Il.
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