McCain vs. Obama Foreign Policy Bully vs. Diplomat

McCain ran up to Pennsylvania Avenue Friday supposedly to help negotiate the $700B bailout and skip the debate. To McCain's judgment or lack thereof, when he got a lot of heat for erratic behavior he changes his position and sets out for Oxford, Mississippi. He clearly demonstrated his inability to handle several tasks at once or he was cleverly seeking to score political points but it back-fired.

Where's McCain's leadership or experience? He's so conjoined at the hip to Bush's foreign policy that he wants to win the war in Iraq before he can bring our troops home. Does he realize that we are losing everyday that we stay in Iraq? It is a humble man that can admit to making a mistake and seek to correct it. Obama said that we took our eyes off the ball, Afghanistan and Al Qaida the people responsible for 9/11. We had no justification for going into Iraq and wasting our military resources in that country.

Banks are closing at home, people are losing their homes, living in cars in "secured parking lots", public high school education is in crisis, 47M are without health insurance, 600,000 Americans have lost their jobs since January 2008 but we are spending $1B/month on two wars. Our soldiers are brave and loyal, it's a pity that we are not so loyal to them at the end of their tour of duty.

Hurricane, Katrina victims are still suffering. Hurricane, Gustav has inflected more pain on yet another segment of our population. Americans are worried not about security as much as about the conditions at home. Charity begins at home. If we cannot take care of each other, are we in any shape to take care of someone else?

We desperately want a President that is in tune with our concerns, that can address our needs in a humane fashion and that can transcend that empathy to the people of the world so that we admired again and not hated by everyone.

We have to lead by example not employ bully tactics to advance our position in the world. If we are going to be critical of Russia and others that seek to impose their will on others, we have to act responsibility.

In a hostile environment, Obama prefers to sit down with the feuding factions and employ diplomacy rather than rush to fight, fight and run the risk of stretching our military to a point of not being able to defend ourselves in a real crisis.