Commentary - Lorie Byrd: Hating Bush is not a foreign policy

The slogan is a statement on family values voters who were branded haters during the Clinton years for taking a stands (ala Dan Quayle) such as that two parents were better than one, and later for being against intern canoodling.

Because the family values issue has taken a backseat to national security, it is about time for a new slogan. “Hate is not a foreign policy” is my suggestion for the perfect bumper sticker leading up to the 2008 election.

For well over three years now, we have heard Democrats tell us everything that is wrong with President Bush’s policy in Iraq, with many of the criticisms falling under the other popular liberal bumper sticker phrase, “Bush lied, people died.”

At first, we heard the president lied about Iraq posing an “imminent threat,” despite the fact that in his 2003 State of the Union speech he said we could no longer wait until a threat became imminent.

We later heard (and will soon see via Hollywood production) claims that the president lied about Saddam’s efforts to obtain yellowcake uranium, even though British intelligence still stands behind a report saying just that.

When no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction were discovered in Iraq, we heard that Bush lied about WMD, even though scores of leading Democrats, including some of the leading presidential candidates, also were on record saying they believed Saddam posed a WMD threat.

Another criticism from Democrats involves troop levels in Iraq. We learned how to pronounce Shinseki when the Army chief of staff became the member of the military most often quoted by Democrats who charged the president did not send enough troops to Iraq. Later, when Bush proposed sending additional troops, the Democrats decided less troops were needed and that it was time to pull the plug on the mission in Iraq altogether.

For several years, most Democrats’ “policy” on Iraq consisted of hatred for whatever policy George Bush supported. Over the past couple of years, though, that “policy” has evolved from hatred of Bush and any policy he suggested to a call for withdrawal before the mission is complete. Most recently, Democrats passed a bill that would only fund the troops if a deadline for withdrawal from Iraq was included.

To put it in bumper sticker language, the policy went from “hate” to “retreat.” Hate is not a foreign policy, and retreat is not a plan for success.

The 2008 presidential race is well underway. Tens of millions of dollars have been raised by the leading candidates and gradually those candidates are going on record staking out positions on various issues. There is currently no issue more important to the election of the next president than foreign policy and defense matters.

Last week, the liberal anti-war group Moveon.org released results of an online poll of 43,000 people who listened to a virtual town hall meeting with the leading Democratic contenders for president.

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who has called for the U.S. to withdraw troops from Iraq by March 31, 2008, was chosen by those responding to the survey as “best to lead the U.S. out of Iraq.”

Former North Carolina Sen.John Edwards came in a close second, having urged Congress to cut off funding for the war. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who voted for the war in 2002 and supported the mission until fairly recently, came in fifth place with only 10.7 percent of the vote.

In January, Clinton said of Bush and the war in Iraq, “I think it’s the height of irresponsibility and I really resent it … this was his decision to go to war … we should expect him to extricate our country from this before he leaves office.”

It is highly unlikely that U.S. troops will be out of Iraq by January 2009 when Clinton hopes to assume the office. A call for withdrawal is a plan for defeat, not victory. It is time for Democrats running for the presidency to share their plans for success.

Not only will the next president almost certainly still have troops in Iraq to lead, but there will be other countries, possibly Iran, Syria, and North Korea, whose actions will require a clear American strategy in response.

Americans need to know how their future president would address such future challenges. So far, campaign rhetoric has told us a lot about what Democrats are against, and their strategy for defeat, but not much about how they would pursue victory if they held the office.

Lorie Byrd is a member of The Examiner’s Blog Board of Contributors and blogs at wizbangblog.com.