The election of President Barack Obama is the best damn thing I have lived to see since the election of JFK. I think in fact Obama has more to offer and fewer inner psycho-sexual demons and Freudian family shit to deal with. That's saying a lot given Barack's journey.
Eisenhower served 2 terms during which his GOP confreres on the Hill exploited fear of the "red menace" relentlessly. The redeeming note is that DDE was generally embarrased by jingoistic nonsense and war mongering.
To some discredit, JFK had to overcompensate for the perception of softness on national security by accusing Eisenhower/Nixon of security weakness... alleging that a Soviet advantaged "missile gap" had emerged.
George W Bush served 2 terms during which his GOP confreres on the Hill exploited fear of the "terrorists" relentlessly. The awful truth is that GWB encouraged, fanned and exploited irrational fears to generate his entire foreign policy.
To his credit, Barack Obama decried a stupid war in Iraq. He noted that we dropped the ball in the one real and legitimate war. The real war was against Osama bin Laden and therefore in Afghanistan.
America must punish Afghanistan for hosting? sponsoring? being contiguous to...
HOLD THE PHONE... and make the jump in logic.