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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (307833)	6/4/2009 9:20:34 PM
From: TimF	2 Recommendations Respond to of 793955

Short-sighted Partisan Politics Makes For Bad Decisions And nothing could make that point better than this: "Defense Secretary Robert Gates isn’t ruling out spending more on missile defense than what he’s asked for in next year’s budget if North Korea or other nations increase threats against the United States. Gates said the missile tests by North Korea over the past week appear to have attracted more support on Capitol Hill for missile interceptors." Candidate Obama was pretty darn sure that these interceptors just weren’t needed because, you know, they just weren’t! Russia isn’t our enemy anymore and we get along fine with China - where’s the threat?! Well during the entire lead up to the 2008 presidential campaign, North Korea and Iran were flinging missiles around right and left each, seemingly, with longer ranges and larger carrying capacity. Ignored. In fact, as I recall, Obama dismissed Iran as not much of a threat at all. Something about Iran being a ‘tiny’ country that ‘doesn’t pose a serious threat.’ Certainly not one that required a missile defense. Politics. All politics. Nothing based in reality, but instead dismissive rhetorical hand-waves designed to please the base. And those who controlled Congress picked up on the tune and danced to it. Now, suddenly, by doing almost exactly the same thing they’ve done for some years, North Korea has managed to resurrect the need for a missile defense? Why now? Well that’s easy. Now they’re governing, suddenly not having an armed missile land on friendly territory during their watch is a priority. Politics. The only real reason they opposed it previously is because the other side wanted it. Of course, if questioned about why this is different than when NoKo and Iran did this sort of thing the last few times, I’m sure they’d find a way to spin it that they think wouldn’t make them seem so short-sighted, petty and partisan (read the article, there’s plenty of spin included). That won’t change the fact one bit that they were indeed short-sighted, petty and partisan. ~McQ qando.net