Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Newt Gingrich is wrong.

There are many descriptors I'm tempted to use, but I'll settle for 'wrong'. Gingrich is calling Obama's foreign policy a 'fantasy'. This statement can not even pass for opinion. If I give him the benefit of the doubt, it is more accurately labeled a delusion. President Obama has been extraordinarily consistent throughout his campaign and early presidency. He has never limited military force as an option, he has always acknowledged that evil exists in the world and 'must be confronted'. To implement a foreign policy that emphasizes diplomacy over brute force is not a fantasy, Newt. It is called a vision. Our greatest leaders have always been visionaries. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of seeing the mountaintop, equal rights for people of color in this country were as much of an impossibility as world peace is today. Dr. King maintained the vision and pragmatically, courageously, led this country toward realizing that vision. He knew it would not happen in his lifetime but the vision, the goal, remained unchanged. Seeing potential does not imply blindness to reality. Seeing the end of the road in the distance does not imply ignorance of the roadblocks along the way. The vision of a better world is vital to achieving a better world. No one, including President Obama, believes the goal is easy to reach. Thankfully, we now have a president who is both a visionary and a pragmatist. Yes, Newt, it is possible to be both. To honestly believe Obama is conducting a fantasy foreign policy is, at best, naive and grossly misinformed of the facts.

No comments: