Victor Davis Hanson last week repeated a now familiar mantra: Obama = Bush. I wrote about this viewpoint before. As far as I can see, regarding national security, there’s nothing controversial about this conclusion. However, Hanson focuses on the liberal hypocrisy aspect of the issue and overstates his case. Obama campaigned on leaving a residual force of around 60,000 troops in Iraq, illegally invading Pakistan, surging in Afghanistan, the list goes on. Obama the candidate was no dove. In the Obama-McCain presidential foreign policy debate, I could spot only one policy difference: McCain wanted to create a League of Democracies, Obama did not. They were alligned on every other issue.
Hanson also lets the Right off the hook. Jack Goldsmith, in one of the earlier Obama = Bush editorials, blames the Cheney Right for propagating the Obama-is-choosing-law-over-security myth. Goldsmith is correct. Hanson might have built a more fleshed out argument had he taken Goldsmith’s cue and acknowledged the Right’s culpability in creating the false perception that Obama has strayed far from the security policies of his predecessor. Still, I accept Hanson’s overall conclusion. Obama is not actually that different than Bush.
