Positions versus Policies

[Bad Thoughts]

I finally hit the roof watching "Morning Joe" today. Joe, in usually concern-troll form, started off on how the two candidates are essential alike, promising the same things, and that the emotional uproar is over narrow differences. Mika, of course, resembled her father only in appearance, agreeing with her colleague, and offered nothing but an approving nod. When Joe said that McCain and Obama wanted more multilateralism, I almost leapt through the screen, wanting to say that McCain only wants to browbeat our allies, Obama wants to talk to them.

This assertion does not belong to Joe Scarborough alone, but it frosts me every time I hear someone say it. It's either intellectually lazy or dishonest. It replaces "policy"--which includes how things will get done--with "position"--what one wants to accomplish. If you only go by positions, Obama and McCain probably look similar, maybe showing a few differences in the numbers. From this perspective, Obama will raise taxes, McCain lower them. The problem is that it is a reckless way of looking at them. The policy is far more important: Obama realizes we can't borrow more and must become financially disciplined.

Does Scarborough really think that McCain's will be a multilateralist like Obama? McCain follows Bush in thinking that our allies should be browbeaten into conforming to our foreign and military policy goals. This has been the essential problem of our foreign policy since 2001. McCain's own statements over Georgia, trying to look tough, have caused them to suspect him. He may want to have the US act in concert with other nations, but his words brought NATO to recoil. Had McCain spoken in Berlin to 200,000 people (a mixed group that also included many Americans) and said that Europeans must provide more forces to Afghanistan, like Obama did, how would they treat him? Would they be polite? I doubt it.