Obama’s (G)Rand Strategy, Part 2

One of the most damaging media hits on Gerald Ford back in the 1970s was the New York Daily News headline, “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”  Well, behold tomorrow’s Daily News front page:

Daily News Strategy Head copy

The other day I was hard on Rand Paul for being close to Obama in some respects on foreign policy.  Yet Friday he came out much more strongly than Obama on the need to do something serious about the rising tide of murderous Islamic radicalism.  From the AP:

Speaking to a ballroom later, some of the loudest applause for Paul came when he quipped: “If the president has no strategy, maybe it’s time for a new president.”

In an emailed comment, however, Paul elaborated by saying: “If I were President, I would call a joint session of Congress. I would lay out the reasoning of why ISIS is a threat to our national security and seek congressional authorization to destroy ISIS militarily.”

Is this for real, or just opportunism on Paul’s part?  It was only two days before these remarks that Paul was arguing in the Wall Street Journal that thoughtless American intervention in the Middle East had contributed to the rise of ISIS.  Perhaps so, but Paul needs to step up even more than he did, and lay out a more concrete and detailed strategy for what a President Paul’s foreign policy would look like,  Making Congress a participant is politically useful (though not strictly speaking constitutionally necessary), but this could also be just passing the buck.

Meanwhile, stand by for the next Daily News headline: “Obama To U.S. Security: Drop Dead.”

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