How did the party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy drift so far from the foreign policy and national security principles and policies that were at the core of its identity and its purpose?
... He promptly answers his own question, writing:
He also uses this forum to refute Barack Obama's recent claims that he is the one who is truly following in the footsteps of Kennedy and Reagan:This worldview began to come apart in the late 1960s, around the war in Vietnam. In its place, a very different view of the world took root in the Democratic Party. Rather than seeing the Cold War as an ideological contest between the free nations of the West and the repressive regimes of the communist world, this rival political philosophy saw America as the aggressor – a morally bankrupt, imperialist power whose militarism and "inordinate fear of communism" represented the real threat to world peace.
Mr. Obama has said that in proposing this, he is following in the footsteps of Reagan and JFK. But Kennedy never met with Castro, and Reagan never met with Khomeini. And can anyone imagine Presidents Kennedy or Reagan sitting down unconditionally with Ahmadinejad or Chavez? I certainly cannot.
By citing historical examples, Lieberman seeks to demonstrate that McCain's world view is in line with the Truman/Kennedy/Reagan model, while Obama is really just recycling the policies that led the Democratic Party into the wilderness during the Cold War.
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