Ethics

A Shiny Object

Democrats may have rediscovered their national security and foreign policy mojo under the leadership of President Obama, but they've also had a little help from Republicans who have seemingly abandoned that sphere of politics and deemed it a "shiny object."

Romney foreign policy advisor Robert O’Brien called the Obama campaign’s tactic a transparent ploy to distract from the sagging economy, including a recent jobs report that was “a disaster for them.”

“It doesn’t surprise me that they’re raising foreign policy because it’s another distraction from the Administration’s terrible economic record,” O’Brien told BuzzFeed. “They’re going from one shiny object to the next.”

I guess Afghanistan is just another distraction from their dog-whistle campaign. And discussing how you will handle the tens of thousands of men and women still serving there is a "shiny object."

Granted I'm not a political adviser and have no experience serving on a campaign, but I'm fairly certain that calling foreign policy a distraction is not the way to respond to criticism that you didn't mention service members a single time during your convention acceptance speech.

Today is 9/11. Take a ride in the hot tub time machine to 2004 and you would witness relentless sloganeering and pimping of the 9/11 brand by Republicans. Fast forward to today and foreign policy is just a shiny object. It's no longer useful to them.

I'm sure the Bush Administration thought foreign policy was just a shiny object on 9/10 as well.