Who Will Confront Obama? Cheney, Gingrich and...?
BILL KRISTOL
"Mark my words," Joe Biden prophesied in late October 2008, "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama."
And so it was to be. North Korea's testing nukes, Iran's testing missiles, Russia's testing its ability to bully neighbors, China's testing crackdowns on dissidents, Sudan's testing non-cooperation on Darfur, jihadists from Pakistan to Gaza are testing and re-testing terror and intimidation. It's a testing world out there. And not just for President Obama. Because other political leaders also have an obligation to explain what policies they'd pursue to prevent a dangerous world from -- not to put too fine a point on it -- spinning out of control.
For Republicans and conservatives, the temptation has been to attend to the home front and to focus on resisting Obama's big government agenda -- an agenda worth resisting, in my opinion. But the most successful conservative intervention in the first four months of the Obama presidency has been -- counter to predictions by consultants and pundits -- that of Dick Cheney on national security policy. He may be the only Republican so far who's really forced Obama onto the defensive. And most conservatives and Republicans would, I think, agree that the other Republican who's effectively -- if episodically -- challenged Obama on foreign and national security policy has been Newt Gingrich.
Both Cheney and Gingrich have the background and stature to address credibly national security issues. Here's an interesting question: Will any Republican whose career lies mostly ahead of him -- or her -- step up to confront Obama on the foreign policy and national security front? Is any of them enough of a risk-taker to defy the conventional wisdom that if you're a mere senator or congressman or governor or aspirer to office, you should focus on domestic issues, that it's hard (and it is) to take on a president on foreign policy? Will any of them seek to join Cheney and Gingrich in the foreign policy fray?
What if no younger political figure steps forward? If national security remains front and center over the next three years (a pretty safe bet), could the GOP nominee in 2012 be Gingrich...or even -- gasp! -- Cheney?
PostPartisan - Who Will Confront Obama? Cheney, Gingrich and...? (25 May 2009)
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