Sen. Obama’s campaign slogan has been “Change You Can Believe In” seemingly forever. I’ve been thinking that that slogan needed changing since he was exposed as an old-fashioned politician. I’ve finally figured out what a new, ‘truth-in-advertising’ slogan would say. Thanks to Jack Kelly’s column, and Captain Ed’s post, I think the new slogan should be “Inexperience We Can’t Afford.” Here’s what I’m referring to:

In defending his stated intent to meet with America’s enemies without preconditions, Sen. Obama said: “I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did.”

That he made this statement, and that it passed without comment by the journalists covering his speech indicates either breathtaking ignorance of history on the part of both, or deceit.

I assume the Roosevelt to whom Sen. Obama referred is Franklin D. Roosevelt. Our enemies in World War II were Nazi Germany, headed by Adolf Hitler; fascist Italy, headed by Benito Mussolini, and militarist Japan, headed by Hideki Tojo. FDR talked directly with none of them before the outbreak of hostilities, and his policy once war began was unconditional surrender.

FDR died before victory was achieved, and was succeeded by Harry Truman. Truman did not modify the policy of unconditional surrender. He ended that war not with negotiation, but with the atomic bomb.

I spoke about Obama’s victory speech here, at which time I ridiculed Sen. Obama’s statements. Sen. Obama sounds just like other Democrats when he says that we need to bring the troops home from Iraq and that we need a surge of diplomacy.

It’s time for Sen. Obama to understand the worthiness of what I call the Reagan Principle. You’ll recall that President Reagan didn’t get into negotiations on arms control treaties until he’d scared the daylights out of the Soviets. He didn’t believe in having summits just for the sake of having summits. His strategy proved right when the Soviet Union collapsed after briefly toying with what’s best described as limited freedom, aka glasnost.

Let’s remember the lesson UBL took from our leaving Somalia too early. Here’s what bin Laden told ABC’s John Miller:

“Our people realize[d] more than before that the American soldier is a paper tiger that run[s] in defeat after a few blows,” the terror chief recalled. “America forgot all about the hoopla and media propaganda and left dragging their corpses and their shameful defeat.”

Sen. Obama’s foreign policy is driven by a pacifistic mindset. It isn’t informed by learning history’s lessons.

That’s the type of inexperience we can’t afford in wartime.

Technorati: Obama, Foreign Policy, Pacifism, Ronald Reagan, Glasnost, JFK, FDR, Harry Truman

Cross-posted at California Conservative