Bill Dyer picks up a line from a Nicholas Lemann New Yorker article on the foreign policy differences between the Obama camp and the McCain camp. Lemann wrote, "In the Obama camp, all dichotomies are false dichotomies, which the candidate transcends." [my emphasis] That
strikes me as one of the most naive statements imaginable. Although the words are that of an Obama supporter, everything Obama has said and done so far points to their accuracy. Bill Dyer's comments are apropos:
And great-power competition no longer existing? I cannot imagine a more reckless and dangerous notion. It does exist, it has existed since even before the time when the great powers were the Persians and the Greeks. In case Sen. Obama and his whiz kids haven't noticed it, a resurgent Russia is at this very minute playing games of chicken with the U.S. Navy off the Black Sea coastlines of Georgia and the Ukraine while quote-unquote "negotiating" with the Ukrainians for an extension of the old Soviet Navy strategic base at Sevastopol. The Chinese have just conducted their first space-walks and are building an aircraft carrier. And yes, the
modern-day Persians — the mullahs of Iran — want back in the game, too, and they're doing everything in their power to leap-frog their way in with nuclear weapons.
Gentle readers, keep in mind that the passage I've quoted here is written by an Obama supporter. It's a "best-case spin" on the Obama team, intended to make them look wise and competent, the kind of people who will keep you and me and our children safe. But not even the prose-smiths of the New Yorker seem to realize that this team of snot-nosed elitists — "we’re ferocious and brilliant and we’re going to crush the other team" — is guaranteed to get the United States into a world of new troubles precisely because of that attitude.