WarSclerotic

Peace Now, the Philly version, Israel Hayom, Boaz Bismuth, July 29, 2016

U.S. President Barack Obama tried to sell Hillary Clinton to the American people when he spoke to the Democratic National Convention in Cleveland on Wednesday. After eight years in the White House, she is the most optimistic thing he has to offer, and Obama spoke about hope as if it was still 2008. If Clinton represents hope, fresh ideas and innovation, than Republican nominee Donald Trump has a lot of reasons to be optimistic.

In 2008 we witnessed a brutal fight between the Democrats. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had no mercy for each other. We all know how that fight ended: Obama became president; Clinton was left in debt. But the Clintons have this magic ability to land on their feet. In 2008, Clinton endorsed Obama (at the very last moment), then became his secretary of state and traveled the world. She saw conflicts up close. That is, she saw them rather than solved them.

The president getting emotional in Philadelphia was very emotional. His speech was too long, and he was too indignant. At the end of his address Clinton got up on stage, and the two hugged each other for a long minute. Bill Clinton, who watched from the VIP seats, had no reason to be jealous. He knows full well that this strong embrace was Obama’s way of asking for a third term.

It seemed as though the Democratic National Convention was taking place in a parallel universe. Recent polls show Americans are concerned over terrorism, over their personal safety, the rise in crime and the erosion in America’s status. But the Democrats in Philadelphia were determined to sell a utopian reality to America. The U.S. has never been stronger, the speakers insisted, even as Syrian President Bashar Assad was taking over Aleppo with Russian help.

As far as the Democrats are concerned, America has never been in a better shape, and that is why wars and conflicts were all but ignored in the convention. The message coming out of the city of brotherly love was this: We all like one another; there are no bad guys.

However uplifting that may be, terrorism was almost nowhere to be mentioned because Democratic conventions steer clear of that issue as much as possible. On Wednesday night the speakers had no choice, though, because national security was front and center. The Democrats’ tendency to bury their heads in the sand can play into the hands of the Republican nominee, because terrorism has increasingly become an issue in this election. Clinton has become associated with the Obama administration’s incompetency in the fight against the Islamic State, and rightly so.

Senators Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) and Brian Schatz (Hawaii) are concerned that Republicans are perceived as stronger on terrorism. This was reinforced when they heard the delegates in Cleveland shouting “No more war!” on Wednesday during former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s speech to the convention floor. As if America gets to decide if wars break out.

If Democrats want to win in November they have to address the issue that worries Americans the most: national security and terrorism, which according to one survey, is the top concern for 28% of Americans. But the Democratic National Convention’s message was heard loud and clear: peace now. This could explain why the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times daily tracking poll had Trump lead by 7 percentage points as of Wednesday.

This entry was posted on July 29, 2016 at 1:57 PM and is filed under 2016 elections, Democrat National Convention, Democrat Party, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Islamic terrorism, Obama. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: Democrat National Convention, Democrat Party, Islamic terrorism, Obama