For the award granted to the commentator constructing the greatest number of strawmen in the smallest amount of space, I hereby nominate E.J. Dionne and his op-ed ” The Obama Doctrine ” in this morning’s Washington Post .
Dionne is so anxious to prove that President Obama’s foreign policy so very radically departs from that of his predecessor that, in a feat previously thought impossible, manages to build three strawmen within the first 386 words of the article:
Strawman #1 : Obama insists that the United States can’t achieve great objectives on its own, even though it is “always harder to forge true partnerships and sturdy alliances than to act alone,” as he put it this month in Strasbourg, France.
President Bush, don’t you know, believed that the United States could only achieve great objectives on its own. Here’s President Bush’s introduction of the much maligned National Security Strategy of 2002:
We are also guided by the conviction that no nation can build a safer, better world alone. Alliances and multilateral institutions can multiply the strength of freedom-loving nations. The United States is committed to lasting institutions like the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the Organization of American States, and NATO as well as other long-standing alliances. Coalitions of the willing can augment these permanent institutions. In all cases, international obligations are to be taken seriously. They are not to be undertaken symbolically to rally support for an ideal without furthering its attainment.
Strawman #2: Obama insists that we do not have unlimited resources to do whatever we want, whenever we want to. We have to make choices.
The Bush administration, of course, believed the exact opposite—that that the U.S. can do whatever we want and that America never has to make choices.
Strawman #3: The Obama Doctrine seeks to regain the world’s sympathy by acknowledging that while the United States is a great nation built on worthy principles, it is not perfect.
The Bush administration believed, don’t you know, that the United States is perfect.
Dionne saves Strawman #4 for his final paragraph: “The Obama Doctrine is a form of realism unafraid to deploy American power but mindful that its use must be tempered by practical limits and a dose of self-awareness. Those are the limits that defenders of the recent past have trouble accepting.”
Yes, yes, we know—the Bush administration was always unaware of practical limits and was devoid of self-awareness. And, of course, there are all those “defenders of the recent past” who have a hard time accepting “practical limits” and have no “self-awareness.”
That’s four rather obvious howlers in a column of 752 words. See if you can top that!
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