American officials are right to be concerned about the further evisceration of British defense capabilities that is apparently planned by the Tory-Liberal Democratic coalition government. Britain has already seen the size of its armed forces shrivel since the end of the Cold War, but Prime Minister David Cameron and Defense Minister Liam Fox apparently have more cuts in the works, expected to be in the range of 10 to 20 percent. Defense spending as a percentage of GDP, already far below the U.S. level, is likely to fall under 2 percent, putting Britain in the same league as Italy, Spain, and other countries with little in the way of significant and deployable military resources.
The Telegraph reports that “the cuts…. will lead to a substantial reduction in the size of the Army, which will also have to give up many of its tanks and armoured vehicles.” Also on the chopping block are the frigates that are needed to fight pirates and other valuable weapons systems that allow Britain to punch far above its weight in the international system. For all of Cameron’s and Fox’s empty and unconvincing rhetoric about maintaining British capabilities while slashing the defense budget, the reality is that their planned budget will continue the sad undoing of Britain’s global leadership role, which traces back to the 16th century.
The Financial Times, hardly a bastion of right-wingery, denounces the cuts in an editorial that warns “there is little sign of coherent geopolitical thinking behind Britain’s planned defence cuts. Instead, this has turned into a money-driven rather than a threat-driven process.” The FT notes that it is particularly striking that at the same time that Cameron is chopping defense, he “is sticking stubbornly to his promise simultaneously to raise Britain’s spending on overseas aid to 0.7 per cent of GDP. This is a bizarre choice of priorities, especially for a Conservative prime minister and particularly when the country is still at war in Afghanistan.”
I would emphasize how bizarre this is for a Tory prime minister. If the Conservatives are not the strong-on-defense party, what identity do they have left? There is a lesson here for those Republicans who might be tempted to adopt a green-eyeshade approach to our own defense policy. As Danielle Pletka and Tom Donnelly eloquently warn in today’s Washington Post:
Conservatives, and the party that putatively represents them, need to decide whether they wish to continue to warrant that trust. They can continue to be the party of Eisenhower and Reagan, supporting and resourcing a robust American role in the world. Or they can reinvent themselves as a combination of Ebenezer Scrooge and George McGovern, withdrawing from the world to a countinghouse America.
The need to maintain American strength — which won’t be cheap — is all the more imperative when one of our few reliable allies is slashing its own defense budget. That means, like it or not, that we will have to do more than ever to maintain global security, or else the entire world will pay a staggering price as terrorists, pirates, weapons proliferators, and other international menaces run free.
“his typically professorial answers”
Huh? What does Eric Trager have against professors? Why is ridiculing them in such a manner? Is Trager saying that professors normally sound like a bunch of smooth talking idiots?
You know, if both candidates state their positions well, relative to their ideological foundations, Obama wins.
That’s the way it’s been so far. WSJ poll:
“By a 21 point margin, 50%-29%, voters said the Democrats had the debate edge over rival Republican running mates John McCain and Sarah Palin, while 10% of respondents said the two tickets were equally as good and 4% said neither was good.”
No gaffes, no surprises, Obama wins. The electorate is leaning left.
You know that no matter how well McCain does tonight (and everyone is making his bar so high that’s
absurd) the media will hail this as a tie at best but more likely an Obama win.
The debates will not turn the race around no matter what. Things have change since the 80′s and the media spinning and the cut and paste editing jobs give the public whatever the media wants.
Obama wins the debates no matter what: that has already been decided long ago. McCain needs sometjing else to turn the race around. The MSM doing its job -for example- discussing Obama’s allies ( great piece by Thomas Sowell http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/10/the_real_obama.html ) would help.
Softening his blows has not accomplished a thing — not one iota — for McCain. He doesn’t have to call Obama the precise things I’d personally like to call him, but “untruthful”, “dissembling” and an “enabler of radical terrorist agendas and of national financial ruin” would do for a sample.
The Nutcases are trembling in fear of the Ponytail Guy who screwed up George Bush Sr.’s debate. Ponytails haunt right-wing dreams!
“The electorate is leaning left.”
You are half right. The electorate, however, is not leaning radical left. Barack Obama will be soundly rejected if the majority of the middle of the road voters learn the truth about him.
From Joe Klein, who is, of course, neither a Neoconservative or a Likudnik – merely Jewish:
October 6, 2008 10:07
Embarracuda
Then we have the ever-reliable Bill Kristol, in today’s New York Times, advising Palin to bring up the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Palin, of course, believes that’s a darn good idea:
“To tell you the truth, Bill, I don’t know why that association isn’t discussed more, because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country, and to have sat in the pews for 20 years and listened to that — with, I don’t know, a sense of condoning it, I guess, because he didn’t get up and leave — to me, that does say something about character. But, you know, I guess that would be a John McCain call on whether he wants to bring that up.”
So then, I’d guess, it would be appropriate to bring up some of the nuttiness that passes for godliness in Palin’s religious life. Leave aside the fact that The Embarracuda allowed herself to participate in a cermony that protected her from witchcraft, how about her presence–she didn’t “get up and leave”– at a sermon by the founder of Jews for Jesus, who argued that the Palestinian terrorist acts against Israel were God’s “judgment” on the Jews because they hadn’t accepted Jesus.
Speaking of Jews, the ever-execrable Sean Hannity has been having intercourse with a known Jew-hater named Andy Martin, who now wants to expose Barack Obama as a Muslim. According to the Washington Times:
In 1986, when Mr. Martin ran as a Democrat for Connecticut’s 3rd Congressional District seat under the name “Anthony R. Martin-Trigona,” his campaign committee filed papers saying its purpose was to “exterminate Jew power in America and impeach U.S. District Court of Appeals judges in New York City.”
Calling all Podhoretzs! Where’s the outrage? I mean, don’t the hateful doings at Palin’s church and Hannity’s perfidy deserve a lengthy exegesis from Pete Wehner or Jennifer Rubin or one of the other empretzled ideologues over at Commentary?
The blog crickets chirp at Commentary.
David,
This “truth” of yours does not stick. McCain need a terrorist attack + Bin laden killed report for a chance.
Calling all Podhoretzs! Where’s the outrage? I mean, don’t the hateful doings at Palin’s church and Hannity’s perfidy deserve a lengthy exegesis from Pete Wehner or Jennifer Rubin or one of the other empretzled ideologues over at Commentary?
The blog crickets chirp at Commentary.
Anti-semitism is a tactic for Commentary, not a serious issue.
Under normal conditions, the most he could realistically aim to accomplish would be a “big draw” – no doubt to be recorded as a lopsided loss in Democrat-heavy “snap polls” (Democrat-heavy as a result of in-built polling biases, including the typical preponderance of Democrats and weak Republicans in debate viewing audiences). Doing any better would likely require help from Obama or a mistake from Brokaw (i.e., actually allowing an unusually interesting question to break though his screen) – nothing to count on.
What alone could turn this debate into a “big win” would be a moment that allows McCain to take leadership in public outrage over the financial crisis. He may need a major proposal to do that, or he might, in a more familiar McCain pattern, build up to it. Either way, McCain must make his economic arguments clear, even go on the offense regarding Fannie, Freddie, and Franksie. How many Americans know, for instance, that the top House Democrat on FM&FM was literally sleeping with a subprime/FM player? But will that kind of thing come up, even peripherally? Whether the emotional inflection point appears and whether he can seize the moment instead of Obama is impossible to forecast.
Townhall “debates” are notoriously maudlin, touchy-feely, and risk-punishing – pervaded by weird rhetorical priggishness. There’s a hidden potential in them for a Jerry Springer free-for-all that culminates in the loser being torn limb from limb on national TV, and for the winner to be carried out on the shoulders of the middle class masses, but for all the talk of catastrophe and depression, our desperation doesn’t seem to have reached such levels yet.
wow, Hank in Michigan, showing his “moderation” middle of the road show, again.
so, I think this debate is going to be an excellent show of force for McCain. The electorate has witnessed a full length feature film, put out by the MSM, called, “Obama – the moderate”
I actually have come to believe that Obama is just a naive, idealist. He thinks that Ayers can rehabilitate like Ajad will. He thinks the oceans are healing because of his candidacy. He thought Rev. Wright was just a little hot under the collar. Nothing phases him, everything is cool. In short, Obama is an eternal college student running for class President. He is not a radical or extremist, just young with the worldly experience of an academic/community organizer — which equals next to zero.
I know McCain can turn this thing around. I remember the darkest days of the Iraq War, when every single pundit and thinker jumped ship and said goodbye to Iraq, hello civil war/genocide. McCain was there, and stuck with it. Again, Obama did nothing, only passing on his detached, idealistic observations. If Iraq can turn around, so can an election, esp. if McCain can bypass the MSM and go straight to the voters.
David Thomson Says:
October 7th, 2008 at 2:07 PM
“The electorate is leaning left.”
“You are half right. The electorate, however, is not leaning radical left. Barack Obama will be soundly rejected if the majority of the middle of the road voters learn the truth about him.”
You need to end your delusions,the middle of the road voters are no longer middle of the road with the “free market” screeching to a halt. Everyone voting for Obama is looking for a handout;but they’ll never admit that to a pollster. Everyone voting for Obama wants to avoid the tin cup full of pencils.
The reporting on FNC, on the other hand, is that McCain wants to be super-aggressive, and that Obama expects him to go off-topic in to Ayers-land. I find it hard to believe, but sometimes reporters do get things right!
CK,
What are your thoughts? I think McCain could overreach, and look desperate attacking cool Barry like that.
Jonas,
Why was what i said swsw32saswe3aDXSw3szaq
Jonas,
RATHER… I don’t see how what i said suggests I’m not moderate.
It is hard to imagine McCain winning this election with out drastic major events interceding.
Jonas – my thoughts are the same as on the prior page: I don’t think that this looks like the time or place for McCain to try to turn the campaign around – unless he has something new and substantive to reveal or propose, such as calling for Chris Dodd to be decapitated and his skull mounted on a pike outside Capitol Hill – but the opportunity might present itself anyway, whether in a single moment or over the course of the entire joint performance. As I understand it, both the context and the format are supposed to limit interaction and, contrary to Mr Trager’s observations, audience reaction. It could be a very mushy, underwhelming affair.
If McCain and Obama fight each of the remaining weeks to a draw, I think the “natural” course of the race would put McCain-Palin within striking distance as the polls tighten. Striking distance would not, however, equate with a win. I think M-P have to get a little closer than that, have the momentum going into the final weekend, with undecided/weakly committed voters experiencing mass emetic reactions to Obama rather than growing comfortable with him.
To believe the race is over, you have to believe that the 10-point swing over the last couple of weeks represents voters suddenly finding a permanent home, and lying to pollsters when nearly 1/5 on either side say they could change their minds. I think M-P are in a dangerous position – where the appearance of an even wider gap might become fatal to morale – but not at the point where they absolutely need to risk it all on a swing at the fences in an environment like this one.
Going “Ayers” would be a major, major mistake in North Carolina, where the banking industry is collapsing and people are very worried about job security and healthcare. Americans are savvy consumers, they buy Toyotas and Hondas even though Chevy and Ford are “more patriotic.” Obama will win if he convinces that he is better on the economy, or if McCain fails to convince otherwise. Ayers and other trivia on here is not going to sell any independents to buy Republican.
North Carolina: 10/6/08 666 LV McCain 49 Obama 49 CNN/Time
Need I remind that Bush won this state by 12 points in 2004?
If McCain’s next Hail Mary is to be super aggressive at tonight’s debate, he’ll be down 15 points by the weekend. He’s so erratic and angry. Just not presidential timber.
McCAIN had his chance,he could have joined with the House Republicans agaist the rescue bill. The bill stinks anyway. He would then have differentiated himself from Obama,Bush, The Wall Street crowd,and he would have joined millions of angry voters. AND at the debate tonite he could have put Obama on the total defensive,defending that piece of crap. He,however.AGREED with Obama,a Maverick without balls/a steer. A Maverick without a brain,
#15: for once, Jenny’s rag&bone shows some talent at self-reflection.
#16: good to know that the savvy idiot-without-a-fix knows that Nashville is in NC. Could he be a product of the Chicago Annenberg Scam?
McJerk is going to have to “go Ayers” tonight. He’s been saying he will. If he doesn’t, then it’s one more flip-flop, which will contribute to his erratic image. The longer this goes, the tighter the corner McJerk paints himself into!
CK,
I hear ya. Where is the vision, the grand idea motivating McCain/Palin. Its fine with me to go negative, but I need to hear the positive. I hope McCain outlines that tonight,
CKM is right about the tepid nature of the format tonight, but expect Tom Brokaw to understand that and inject a provocation or two or three. (Brokaw’s hardly been averse to confrontation in his Meet The Press gig.) If Mac wants to face down Obama, Brokaw may give him that opportunity.
Well, JM – I think the elements of the vision or positive message were readily apparent coming out of the GOP Convention. What’s important and very doable in this kind of debate is to lay the facts and arguments out from his perspective, and to connect as an engaged and serious leader. As for the whole game, it’s more important and more achievable to get a rally going than to swing for the fences.
If you haven’t read Geraghty’s latest post, it’s pleasant reading for a conservative, especially on a day like today when so many numbers – stock prices and poll numbers – are going down together. I agree especially about there being no objective reason to believe that recent swings in the opinion polls reflect some fundamental, ineradicable decision, and also about the danger to Obama and the ‘nauts if they think and act as if this is all but won (playing the score rather than the game, as Jeff Van Gundy might say):
http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=N2VjNDg2NmY0ZThlYzVkNTdlNTlkMzc5NmVkYTdkNjk=
“Engaged and serious leader”-
that’s it, CK. I hope McCain does that successfully. Thank you very much for the article. It is reassuring. Let’s hope the Jedi mind powers are working.
This ought to be a fun debate. The stock market down 800+ points in two days and McJerk’s going to be talking about some old lefty. That ought to win him all kinds of points with the voting public. On the other hand, if he doesn’t do it, then it’s yet another flip-flop and the Nutcases will despair over not getting their red meat. Couldn’t happen to a bigger senile old McJerk than him.