The "clear signal to the world" is of Obama's profound unreadiness

My guest-post early Thursday morning at HughHewitt.com mocks the spin Team Obama is trying to put on Joe Biden's accidental truth-telling about how the world will test a new President Obama. The theme: "How can anyone in the world take them seriously, when Barack Obama and his lean, mean team of 500 foreign policy advisers can't even manage to achieve a diplomatic triumph over Joe Biden's mouth?"

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[Copied here for archival purposes on November 5, 2008, from the post linked above at HughHewitt.com.]

(Guest Post by Bill Dyer a/k/a Beldar)

My transcript from a video clip of Sen. Obama that's posted on Jake Tapper's ABC News blog:

You know, I think that Joe sometimes engages in rhetorical flourishes. Uh, but, I think that, uh, his core point was that the next administration is going to be tested regardless of who it is because of the fact that we have — uh, the next administration is going to be inheriting a whole host of really big problems. And uh, so, the president is going to be tested. And the question is, will the next president meet that test by moving America in a new direction by sending a clear signal to the rest of the world that we are no longer about bluster and unilateralism and ideology but we're about, uh, creating partnerships around the world to solve practical problems. That's going to be the best way to meet that test. And I have confidence that we will be able to do so.

"Pathetic" does not begin to describe this response.

In the first place, I can't feel pathos, nor any other emotion save contempt, for someone who's so badly twisting the truth: Joe Biden's comments weren't at all about a prospective McCain presidency, but explicitly and pointedly about the need for Obama supporters to rally behind Obama in an Obama presidency.

The world has seen John McCain's steadfast courage — whether from the cockpit of his A-4, the filthy bed of a North Vietnamese prison clinic, or the floor of the United States Senate. Barack Obama's toughest moments in his entire life, by contrast, have come when the likes of Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, and Joe Biden ganged up on him in a Democratic primary debate to point out that he was making an international fool of himself, and prospectively of his country, by committing to immediate presidential level meetings without preconditions with the world's worst dictators.

In the second place, what is it but ridiculously counterproductive "bluster and unilateralism" to publicly threaten and then re-threaten military strikes on Pakistani soil over the disapproval of Pakistani authorities? In the Pakistani government, we already have something of a partnership, not an ideal one by any means, but a workable one. Is it Obama's notion that we improve our partnerships by destabilizing our partners?

The "clear signal to the world" is already being sent: Barack Obama is a naif, a child, sometimes a brat, but always an out-of-touch dreamer. He might as well be holding a sign that says "Kick me and steal my lunch money!"

How can anyone in the world take them seriously, when Barack Obama and his lean, mean team of 500 foreign policy advisers can't even manage to achieve a diplomatic triumph over Joe Biden's mouth?

There is quite literally no limit to the national catastrophes we can easily foresee for an Obama presidency.

— Beldar