Republicans play defense on defense

I’ve been covering politics for a long time but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a role-reversal quite as stark as the one that’s shaped the news cycle over the last few days.

At issue is national defense and in particular the Obama campaign’s questioning of whether Republican leaders — including presidential candidate Mitt Romney — would have taken the steps necessary to kill Osama bin Laden.

What’s interesting here is that this is a debate over national security and defense.  Typically it is the GOP side that moves aggressively to define the terms of engagement.

Anyone who remembers the last decade knows that George W. Bush was quite comfortable using war-time theatrics — remember “Mission Accomplished”? — to boost his political fortunes. 9/11 featured prominently in some of his 2004 campaign ads.

One conservative attack ad in 2004 openly questioned whether John Kerry, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, was tough enough to go face-to-face with terrorists.

But drawing on lackluster statements about bin Laden made by Romney, former President George W. Bush, and others, Mr. Obama and his surrogates questioned the GOP’s willingness to hunt and kill the terror leader.

Naturally, the notion that Republicans might be soft on terror triggered a firestorm of condemnation on the right, with conservatives blasting the White House for “politicizing” and “cheapening” the killing of the 9/11 mastermind.

But in politics, turnabout is widely seen as fair play.

This campaign season, Mitt Romney has insisted repeatedly that Obama is “weak” when it comes to foreign policy and national defense and has “apologized for America.”

That’s how the GOP tried to frame the campaign.  But the last few days, it was Obama who forced Republicans to respond and react.

And in elections, when you’re counter-punching rather than playing your own game, it’s not usually a good thing.

Republicans obviously have a factual point that much of the groundwork for killing bin Laden was laid during the Bush Administration.  Wartime victories are, by their very nature, bipartisan.

It’s also difficult to imagine a President Romney not ordering the Navy SEALS to move forward with the mission in Pakistan.  Suggesting otherwise, as the Obama campaign has done, is speculative at best and far-fetched at worst.

Yet the simple fact is that this debate refocuses voters’ attention on the fact that bin Laden was, in fact, killed on Obama’s watch. This commander in chief gave the right order, overriding the advice of two of his closest advisers.  It was a gutsy move.

The dust-up will also likely draw attention to the fact that by any objective reckoning, the Obama administration has moved effectively to sharpen the war on terror, using drone strikes and other “surgical” tactics to eliminate terror leaders, while minimizing the exposure of American ground troops.

More broadly, this chapter of the campaign suggests that Obama plans to fight back against what some pundits, including Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson, have described as an early effort at “swift boating.”

Kerry may have been Swift-Boated, but Obama is not going to be SEALed. Republicans are used to calling Democrats cowards and worse. Not this time.

Complicating the GOP’s effort to get back on the offense when it comes to national defense is the fact that Romney has no experience in military affairs.  He’s no John McCain.  He’s not even George W. Bush.

Romney can’t just assume that his side owns this issue.  He’ll have to convince Americans that he would make a better commander in chief than the guy who pulled the trigger against bin Laden.

Tags: analysis, election12, politics