“Beltway Boys” dis Mike but parrot his Pakistan strategy

Today on the Fox News Channel, “The Beltway Boys”, Mort Kondracke and Fred Barnes, did a segment on the state of the candidates’ standings in the Iowa Caucus polls, followed by a segment on what’s going on in Pakistan.

Largely, it would seem, on the basis of Bob Novak’s anonymous “private corporate poll” (see my previous post), they downgraded their predictions for the GOP Iowa Caucus to a Romney win, with Mike coming in second. They attributed Mike’s apparent slippage to what they view as Mike’s not handling questions re: the Bhutto assassination well, and thus seemingly not qualified for leading the free world. As I also noted in previous posts, Fox News Channel viewers would have no evidence upon which to base such a conclusion, as FNC interviewed all the major GOP candidates about it except Mike! But Mike was actually magnificent in his evaluation of the situation, if you happened to tune in to MSNBC for your “Morning Joe” yesterday.

Back to the Beltway Boys, it was Kondracke who summarized the Pakistani situation. He quoted Bhutto from a personal interview he had had with her, in which she had told him that “Musharraf was playing the US like a violin”. Kondracke then concluded that the US now needs to get tougher with Musharraf to go after the terrorists in Pakistan, or let the US do it.

Now where have we heard that before? Could it be the invisible front-runner Fox News has been avoiding lately? Indeed, the Beltway Boys’ policy conclusion re: Pakistan was almost vertabim Mike Huckabee! Contrast that with the opinion of John McCain, whom the media (including FNC) are fawning over for his “foreign policy experience”-based views on the current crisis. McCain’s strategy is basically to coddle Musharraf even more than the Bush administration has already, for fear of his losing control over Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

Oooo Kaaayy, so let’s base US foreign policy on our fears, rather than our strengths. Does that sound like a good strategy for the US (or for any nation, for that matter)?

Of course, Ronald Reagan’s approach was always “peace through strength”, and it’s Mike Huckabee—not John McCain—who has a real understanding of what that means in practice. For the sake of US security and world peace, let’s make sure Governor Huckabee is our next President!