Dueling speeches, similar philosophies

Most everybody else wrote about the "dueling speeches" of Cheney and Obama, set up by Obama. last Thursday, so I did so for this week's Antiwar.com column. I suspect mine was a little different than many. After acknowledging rhetorical differences, I think I made a pretty good case that the foreign policies the two embrace and advocate are remarkably similar despite the anger Cheney wants to vent and the tendency of the two establishment "sides" to view one another as as tools of Satan if not the devil incarnate.

Obama's emphases may be different, but he believes the U.S. needs to be involved -- if only to make a decision about how actively to be involved -- in every conflict and potential conflict in the world. He might emphasize Afghanistan over Iraq, and he may really have believed at the outset that the Iraq war was a mistake. But he embraces the empire and revels in being its commander-in-chief. As his domestic ambitions are frustrated -- and many will be -- he will turn increasingly to foreign affairs, as every president since WW II has.