I’m staying with the debate topic today, and according to the latest report I could find, the debate is still on (Washington Post – McCain Says Yes to Debate in Miss.):
Sen. John McCain announced in a statement that he is resuming his campaign and will travel to Oxford, Miss., this afternoon to face Sen. Barack Obama at 9 p.m. EST. In the statement, the McCain campaign said that there had been “significant progress” this morning toward a deal on a financial sector bailout, including the return of House Republicans to negotiations.
The report goes on the note the text of the official McCain statement. I’m encouraged by this turn of events, I’ve been looking forward to this debate for some time because of the focus on foreign policy. I see very clear differences between the two parties on matters of foreign policy, but I thought I’d highlight a contrarian view from Prof. Andrew Bacevich:
Don't expect a fundamental policy critique when Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain meet on Friday to discuss national security issues and foreign affairs during this year's first presidential debate. To Andrew Bacevich, author of the book The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, all that talk about change in this year's campaign is, at best, talk about change around the edges of American policy. Yes, it matters who our next president is, but neither Obama nor McCain is likely to challenge the assumptions and arrangements that drive and govern our international and military commitments.
The rest of the article is an interview excerpt in which Bacevich goes on to relate strands in the American historical narrative to themes deep in the American psyche that suggest the dominance of a shared consensus on foreign and security policy, a consensus which anticipates little change in U.S. foreign policy after the election. What do you think, will U.S. foreign policy change after the November election?
