Jeffrey Goldberg, national correspondent for The Atlantic, plays himself in an op-ed for The New York Times discussing Obama's language on Pakistan:
his convention speech, he said, “McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the gates of Hell — but he won’t even go to the cave where he lives.” I’m still not sure what this means, but it’s very muscular.
When you pose a rhetorical question in diss form, you should make sure the answer is not readily available. If it is, as in this case, then all you've done is embarrass yourself.
Obama has said for a long time that he would act "actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets" inside Pakistan if the Pakistani government did not. Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding in the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan. By contrast, former POW John McCain has repeatedly said that Pakistan is a "sovereign nation" and therefore he would be unwilling to enter Pakistan in pursuit of bin Laden. This position is even harder to square when you consider McCain's zeal for invading Iraq -- apparently McCain is only interested in violating the sovereignty of nations when the safety of the United States isn't directly affected.
Ironically, Obama has been pushing for a policy in Pakistan that would change the nature of our relationship with their government so those kinds of unilateral actions wouldn't be necessary, while McCain argued for unconditional support of ousted President Pervez Musharraf until it was no longer possible.
If in fact, as Goldberg argues, the election should be decided on the basis of which candidate is best able to keep us safe, then he should take substantive policy differences -- like whether or not to pursue high-value terrorist targets inside Pakistan -- as seriously as he would like his readers to take them.
--A. Serwer
