Cheney vs. Obama: Who won? CQ says Cheney
May 22, 2009 at 9:49 am by Wayne Garcia
With a h/t to Tampa Bay political consultant Gregory Wilson, here’s a contrarian view on scoring yesterday’s pseudo-debate on terror, Gitmo and national security. I agree with Congressional Quarterly’s assessment of Barack Obama on conventional political terms. It is a truism: When you’re ’splaining, you’re losing. And I believe Obama made no headway with the crazy left who wants to shutter Guantanamo immediately and just cut loose the terrorists or bring them on down to circuit court for good ol’ U.S. justice system trials.
But Obama won the day, make no mistake about it. He was historic, clear in his ethics, determined in his purpose that we can win against terror without becoming terrorists ourselves. He may have lost in terms of short-term public opinion but he wins the longer war. And that is what CQ, in its traditional wisdom, fails to grasp.
Having said that, reading the full CQ article makes ya think…
Excerpts from the article after the jump:
From CQ:
There are certain rules to get you through campaigns:
When you’re explaining, you’re losing.
What counts is not what you’re saying, what counts is what you’re talking about.
Always shoot at the guy above you, and never shoot at the guy below you unless he’s catching up so fast you have no other option.
When you choose to engage, do so on terrain of your choosing, where you are strong and your enemy is weak.
And once you’ve chosen to engage on the terrain of your choice, make sure that if he brings a knife, you bring a gun.
Barack Obama — who ran a textbook, disciplined campaign for President, abiding by each of these rules and then some, and was rewarded for it by becoming only the third Democrat since 1945 to win a majority of the vote — appears this week to have totally abandoned the discipline that got him to where he is.
