I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve often had problems with William Kristol’s brand of conservatism. It is no secret that Kristol was one of the leading founders of the neo-con movement. While I certainly have no problems with preemptive strikes undertaken on solid intelligence that Americans are under imminent threat, I do have a problem with the concept that the American military can largely shoulder the neoconservative mission of spreading democracy to the world.
With that said, Kristol gives the McCain team excellent advice on how Governor Sarah Palin should approach the debate on Thursday here in St. Louis with Senator Joe Biden. In his opinion, Governor Palin should keep the debate focused on the tax and spend liberalism that Senators Barack Obama and Biden share. Put Biden on the defense. Kristol writes in his International Herald Tribune column titled “How McCain wins” the following:
I’m told McCain recently expressed unhappiness with his staff’s handling of Palin. On Sunday he dispatched his top aides Steve Schmidt and Rick Davis to join Palin in Philadelphia. They’re supposed to liberate Palin to go on the offensive as a combative conservative in the vice-presidential debate on Thursday.
That debate is important. McCain took a risk in choosing Palin. If she does poorly, it will reflect badly on his judgment. If she does well, it will be a shot in the arm for his campaign.
In the debate, Palin has to dispatch quickly any queries about herself, and confidently assert that of course she’s qualified to be vice president. She should spend her time making the case for McCain and, more important, the case against Obama. As one shrewd McCain supporter told me, “Every minute she spends not telling the American people something that makes them less well disposed to Obama is a minute wasted.”
The core case against Obama is pretty simple: He’s too liberal. A few months ago I asked one of McCain’s aides what aspect of Obama’s liberalism they thought they could most effectively exploit. He looked at me as if I were a simpleton, and patiently explained that talking about “conservatism” and “liberalism” was so old-fashioned.
Maybe. But the fact is the only Democrats to win the presidency in the past 40 years - Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton - distanced themselves from liberal orthodoxy. Obama is, by contrast, a garden-variety liberal. He also has radical associates in his past.
It sounds like McCain may be listening to the critics of how his campaign is handling Sarah Palin — let’s hope so. Otherwise, we are faced with the unpleasant promise of the executive and legislative branches being controlled by the Dems with the 1st and 4th most liberal Senators at the helm.
And did Obama as Kristol suggest give Palin and McCain the opening to reintroduce the lovely Jeremiah “Hillary ain’t never been called a n______” Wright into the debate — Let’s hope so:
The most famous of these is the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and I wonder if Obama may have inadvertently set the stage for the McCain team to reintroduce him to the American public. On Saturday, Obama criticized McCain for never using in the debate Friday night the words “middle class.” The Obama campaign even released an advertisement trumpeting McCain’s omission.
The McCain campaign might consider responding by calling attention to Chapter 14 of Obama’s eloquent memoir, “Dreams From My Father.” There Obama quotes from the brochure of Wright’s church - a passage entitled, “A Disavowal of the Pursuit of Middleclassness.”
So when Biden goes on about the middle class on Thursday, Palin might ask Biden when Obama flip-flopped on Middleclassness.
Go after them Sarahcuda!
