Despite all his initial talk of bipartisanship and putting aside the stale arguments of the past, President Obama is revealing himself with each passing day to be a traditional, doctrinaire liberal.
And although it has received little coverage, Obama's liberal instincts are influencing the direction of America's defense posture. True, Obama has not cut and run in Iraq and Afghanistan, as many feared he would, and for this, he deserves the praise he has received from conservatives. But the longer-term defense policies the Obama administration is establishing are troubling and will be very difficult for a future president to reverse.
The core policies mapped out in President Obama's defense budget are not the result of an internal Pentagon review. They originated inside the Center for American Progress (CAP), a liberal think tank headed by former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta, and were openly, if quietly, laid out during his campaign. CAP's website features "a progressive 'Quadrennial Defense Review'" and other papers laying out defense policies "progressives" would like to see in a Democratic administration. The center boasts that President Obama's recent defense cuts "reflect the overall thrust of CAP's recommendations over the last four years, and [the administration's] specific recommendations clearly embrace our suggestions."
Read it in the National Review.
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