On sait qu’il est toujours int\u00e9ressant de lire…, non pas Gerard Baker, cette fois, mais notre ami Loren B. Thompson. Lui, sa sp\u00e9cialit\u00e9 c’est plut\u00f4t la d\u00e9fense sonnante et tr\u00e9buchante des vertus multiples du complexe militaro-industriel. Pour le reste et sur l’essentiel, la ligne est la m\u00eame que celle du cher Gerard Baker. Surprise, surprise… Loren B. est d’un avis diam\u00e9tralement oppos\u00e9 \u00e0 celui de Baker<\/a>. Pour lui, Obama est un faucon, un dur (\u00abObama is tough<\/em>\u00bb, titre de sa chronique UPI du 20 f\u00e9vrier<\/a>). Il n’est rien de moins qu’un GW r\u00e9incarn\u00e9 sous une peau un peu plus sombre, et certes plus exp\u00e9riment\u00e9 que l’actuel pr\u00e9sident lorsqu’il commen\u00e7a son mandat: \u00abAfter serving on the Senate Foreign Relations, Homeland Security and Veterans’ Affairs committees for several years, Barack Obama has assimilated the key features of the emerging security environment. He wouldn’t need the kind of education George W. Bush did in 2001 to be a competent commander in chief.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tLoren B. s’explique en se r\u00e9f\u00e9rant \u00e0 la carri\u00e8re du s\u00e9nateur de l’Illinois, en conseillant de ne pas s’attarder aux criailleries anti-guerre actuelles du parti d\u00e9mocrate. (Il les compare au comportement de ces m\u00eames d\u00e9mocrates contre Lincoln pendant la Guerre de S\u00e9cession, ou Guerre Civile. D’une pierre deux coups: GW devient Lincoln et la guerre en Irak, un replay<\/em> de la Guerre Civile, o\u00f9 l’on sait de quel c\u00f4t\u00e9 se trouvait Dieu.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abToday’s Democratic Party is so stridently opposed to the war in Iraq that it’s hard to believe the same party presided over most of the big military buildups of the last century. Sometimes it seems more like the Democratic Party of Civil War years, which impeded Lincoln’s efforts to win the war at every turn. But precisely because Democrats are so virulently anti-war, as they have been since the Vietnam conflict a generation ago, many voters have a wrongheaded view of where party front-runner Barack Obama stands on matters of war and peace. Like the main character in Ralph Ellison’s 1953 novel Invisible Man, Obama is a victim of stereotyping not because he’s black, but because he’s liberal.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbSo here’s a quick quiz to see how much you know about the national-security views of the junior senator from Illinois. Which candidate told Palestinians before Hamas was elected that America would never recognize their government until it abandoned its campaign to destroy Israel? Which candidate upset environmentalists by backing coal gasification because he thought the nation needed greater energy independence? Which candidate voted to build a fence along the nation’s southern border to prevent unlawful crossings? Which candidate favors the economic and political isolation of Iran if that country continues to pursue nuclear weapons? Sounds a lot like John McCain, but the answer is Barack Obama.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n