Video: Obama's Flip-Flop On Missile Defense

From the first Presidential Debate in Oxford, Mississippi last night, Barack Obama changes direction on missile defense quicker than an "unproven" defensive interceptor.

But while he flipped in the right direction, is this Change You Can Believe In?

Some are latching on to the word "unproven," i.e. Obama said he would cut only the parts of missile defense that don't work. This is a very generous --- and quite mistaken --- interpretation of Obama's weasel word because it's a part of a robotic phrase that has always rolled off critics' tongues: "unproven-missile-defense-systems."

I purposefully left in the declaration “I will not weaponize space” to clearly demonstrate that when Obama says he’ll cut “unproven-missile-defense-systems” the implication is that he’ll kill the whole program.

Since the earliest days of missile defense, critics have either said:

1. “it’s unproven, it will never work, therefore don’t do it” or
2. “missile defense weaponizes space”

Obama's Iowa video trucks in the cliched language of a doctrinaire critic of missile defense, and he was thisclose to tiredly mocking it as "Star Wars." So, yes, his debate statement was indeed a BIG flip flop.

UPDATE: Thanks, LGF, Gateway Pundit, Jawa Report and memeorandum.

For a good primer on the current status of US missile defense, check out the series NPR ran this week --- 5 parts, start here.

Comments

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[Baraka]

This isn't the missile defense system obama thought he knew