SUPPOSE WE ACCEPT THAT HE'S RIGHT:

The Left Offers Obama a Strategy (Ronald Radosh, 2/25/08, FrontPageMagazine.com)

Tom Hayden is, of course, no longer a major public figure with great influence. His words, however, resonate with scores of activists as well as liberal intellectuals, who will take them to heart and seek to up the ante on the Obama campaign. Hayden, who clearly views Iraq as another Vietnam, is seeking to move Obama to adopt the prescriptions of the most left-wing sectors of the Democratic Party constituency.

Pointing to Obama’s victory speech in Houston last week, Hayden has noted that Obama has shifted his position, to one of calling for withdrawal of all American troops in the first year of his administration, not over a lengthier time span. Does Obama mean it? Hayden has one suggestion: the Left and antiwar forces must hold Obama to his word. More importantly, he argues that sentiment among Obama’s base “is running strongly enough to push the candidate forward to a stronger commitment,” strong enough to move him away from the words in his 2006 book The Audacity of Hope, in which Obama wrote that a complete withdrawal was a matter of “imperfect judgment” and “best guesses.”

It is clear from Mr. Hayden that his supposition - and that of the Left he represents - (his comments appear in The Nation magazine website) believe that the United States should not be involved on a “so-called war on terrorism,” a phony concept developed by evil and strong neoconservatives who falsely believe there is something called “Islamofascism.” Obviously believing that there is not such force in the world, he argues that its advocates, including Senator John McCain, favor a “permanent war against Muslim radicals” that is really about one thing: “American access to oil.”

Why wouldn't access to our main energy source be a worthwhile thing to defend?

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 25, 2008 7:05 AM