Investor's Business Daily Knocks Obama's Reliance On Lugar

Indiana Daily Insight picks up on a knock in an Investor's Business Daily editorial of Sen. Barack Obama's use of Sen. Richard Lugar in his latest ad to bolster his foreign policy credentials. IDI's Ed Feigenbaum writes, "Investor's Business Daily editorializes negatively about 'The Obama-Lugar 'Coalition', suggesting that U.S. Sen. 'Barack Obama has a curious way of trying to hoodwink voters into believing he is more hawkish than they think — by showing them how pally he is with a leading Republican dove.'" The editorial puts into perspective the non-role Obama has actually played in eliminating Russian nuclear weapons and Lugar's own misjudgments on Iraq:

Obama claims he and Lugar kept Russian nuclear weapons out of the wrong hands. But beyond getting a tour of a junkyard for old warheads in Russia in 2005, and supporting Lugar-sponsored missile legislation, it's actually unclear what Obama did.

Lugar is a poor choice of Republican for Obama to pair up with in feigning foreign policy credibility. The last thing Lugar did of any note was deliver an interminable speech on the Senate floor a year ago. In those remarks, he complained that 'our continuing absorption with military activities in Iraq is limiting our diplomatic assertiveness there and elsewhere in the world.' He called for 'a multifaceted diplomatic offensive' instead of President Bush's military surge.

Lugar's betrayal was described as historic by the Senate's top Democrat, Harry Reid. Portrayed in much of the media as a foreign-policy wise man, Lugar and his advice proved dead wrong. Had his counsel been followed last year, a chaotic Iraq would be dominated today by al-Qaida and Iran.

Now Lugar is actually being mentioned as a possible cross-party running mate for Obama. The Hoosier claims no interest, but back at the 1980 Republican convention in Detroit the then-little-known senator was almost begging publicly to be placed on the ticket with Ronald Reagan .... Lugar later sowed distrust with Republicans when he suggested selling out Nicaragua's Contra freedom fighters in the 1980s in exchange for a communist Sandinista version of 'free elections.'

Now, in an election year, Lugar describes the assertions in Obama's commercial as 'accurate' — rather than taking the opportunity to blast Obama's naive foreign-policy radicalism."