Operation Enduring Apologetics

Marquette University law professor Rick Esenberg, by way of attempting a defense to Senator John McCain's allegedly superior foreign policy mastery, writes:

McCain underscored his advantage by chiding Obama for his statement that he would invade Afghanistan.

Obviously even Canada invaded Afghanistan nearly seven years ago and the subject of "invasion" was one of its next door neighbors, Pakistan. But Esenberg does point out one of the sillier occasions during Friday's "debate" between McCain and Barack Obama.

"You don't say that out loud," advised McCain, responding to Obama's suggestion that American forces would chase al-Qaeda leaders over the border into Pakistan if necessary.

Why not? This isn't exactly Geraldo Rivera diagramming specific troop movements in the sand for the benefit of Fox News viewers worldwide. It's a statement of general intent, and one that's been made by both President Bush and his 90% BFF John McCain.

There are complications in the tribal regions along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and it's practically a matter of common knowledge that local security forces are at least sympathetic to — if not protective of — the hardliners operating there.

McCain himself has said many times that he would follow Osama bin Laden & Co. "to the Gates of Hell." Would the non-cooperation of local militias and Pakistani intelligence services along the Roads to Hell prevent the relentlessly hawkish John McCain from doing so?

Of course not.

It's reminiscent of the conservative outrage over the New York Times's startling revelations that the U.S. government was listening in to overseas satellite phones, as if some military secrets had been disclosed. If you can operate a satellite phone, you're aware of the potential to be intercepted, much like a DirectTV subscriber praying against rain fade during the two-minute warning.

Prof. Esenberg and all the other GOP neocon apologists love it when John McCain gets to tough-talking but when Barack Obama does, he's "naive." It's quite the glaring double standard.

Speaking of Pakistan, foreign policy adept John McCain called it a "failed state" prior to the ascension to power of General Pervez Musharraf in 1999. Yet in 1999, wasn't McCain the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee? Surely he must have had some concerns about a "failed state" in possession of nuclear weapons.