The American Spectator

Political Hay

A couple of weeks ago, the Left was having a grand old time yucking it up over Sarah Palin, even starting a little pool taking bets as to the date when Palin would withdraw. A couple of days ago, the Huffington Post called on Joe Biden to withdraw so that Hillary Clinton could take his place and save Obama from the Palin tidal wave.

But while they are reopening the Democrat ticket, they may as well replace the top of the ticket as well.

p> Should Obama Withdraw? br> In 1991, when President George H. W. Bush was preparing to run for reelection, a devastating charge was raised by Gary Sick, who had served on the National Security Council under Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan. Sick alleged that during the 1980 campaign, candidate Ronald Reagan had dispatched his running mate George Bush to negotiate a deal with the Iranians to delay release of the American embassy hostages they were holding until after the election. In return, the Iranians were supposedly offered arms to be sent by the Israelis. /p>

Sick actually had no evidence to back up his charge, except a record of a short trip by Bush to Paris in the fall of 1980. But the charge still caused a firestorm among Democrats and the media at the time, who were in agreement that if true the charges would amount to treason. The watchword among the liberal lynch mob was that even though there was no evidence to support it, the very seriousness of the charge required a complete investigation. So both the House and the Senate each did such a complete investigation, finding nothing.

Just two days ago, on September 15, the New York Post published an explosive article by Amir Taheri, an Iranian born journalist who has long covered the Middle East for a wide range of publications. He was editor in chief of Iran's largest daily newspaper from 1972 to 1979 and has in the past been a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Newsday. He has also long been widely published throughout Europe and the Middle East. He is currently a regular contributor to CNN, National Review, and the New York Post.

p>In the article, Taheri says that Obama has done in regard to the troops in Iraq what Reagan and Bush were alleged to have done in regard to the Iranian hostages. Taheri writes: br> /p>

While campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence. According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.

br> Taheri further reported: br>

Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops -- and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its ‘state of weakness and political confusion.'....Though Obama claims the US presence in Iraq is "illegal," he suddenly remembered that American troops were in Iraq within the legal framework of a UN mandate….His advice was that, rather than reach an accord with the "weakened Bush administration," Iraq should seek an extension of the UN mandate.

topics:
Foreign Policy, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, Islam, Military, Iraq, Iran, Russia, Israel, Pakistan, European Union, North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, Energy, Alaska