Obama Legitimized

In this year's presidential race we have Barack Obama, someone who is wildly popular with the Democratic base, against John McCain, someone who does little to inspire conservative Republicans and leans hard on his supposed foreign policy know-how. In the last couple months, however, McCain's strongest issue has slowly eroded from beneath him. He's confused Shiites and Sunnis (whoops), said Vladimir Putin is the President of Germany (not President and definitely not Germany), referenced events in long-ago-defunct Czechoslovakia as though it is still a country (it's been a few years buddy), incorrectly identified troop levels in Iraq (by 20,000), and said that Iraq and Pakistan share a border (nope). There's even more stuff he's confused, misunderstood, misstated, etc, etc, etc.

Already McCain is looking shaky (that's the understatement of the day!) on foreign policy. Last week it got worse for McCain. The Prime Minister of Iraq, Nuri al-Maliki, endorsed Barack Obama's timetable for withdraw--a removal of troops over a 16 month period--saying that it was right for Iraq.

To make matters worse for McCain, the current administration has begun negotiating with North Korea and is getting positive results, and is doing the same with Iran and Syria. It was Barack Obama who, months ago, said we needed to engage diplomatically with rogue nations. Now we know Obama's view is right.

So, Obama was right by opposing the Iraq War in the first place, was/is right about engaging rogue nations in diplomacy rather than ostracizing them, and has the plan that is being endorsed by the top Iraqi politician. As a reminder, John McCain supported the Iraq War in the first place, endorsed the current administrations views on diplomacy (or lack thereof), and believes we may be in Iraq for up to 100 years. Yeesh.