Testing Obama

I submitted this to Politico, in response to this "Arena challenge: Explain Joe Biden's "not gonna be apparent that we're right" comment."

Let's cut to the chase: Big tests are coming. American power -- our reputation, our alliances, our military capacities, our economic leverage -- have declined precipitously during the Bush years. Regardless of who is President, now that we are strained and overspent, a resurgent Russia, a rising China, and numerous other challengers are all going to be looking to take advantage.

Consider how Clinton and Bush both pursued rapid NATO expansion during the Yeltsin and early Putin years, running the table on the Russians even while we had rather friendly personal views of their leadership. Now the tables are turned. To the extent they're playing a long-term zero-sum chess game, our opponents have more important factors to consider beyond whether or not they personally like or dislike the individual who's pushing the pieces for the US.

We are worrying to much about the distinctions among game players, when what we really need is a game changer. Does anyone have the temperament and skill to move the players in the political theater beyond the zero sum thinking that got us where we are today? It's clear enough to me that Obama is far more likely to have those abilities than the hawkish McCain. With Biden, it seems to be a matter of which side of the bed he got up from on any given day.