McCain’s Big Stick

Sad. What a missed setup:

Senator McCain, I’m glad you mentioned that line from Teddy Roosevelt. Because that’s exactly the point. The reason we can’t address the problems in Afghanistan, the reason we can’t act in desperate moral situations like Darfur and Congo, is because, quite simply:

The big stick is in use.

And because of all the big loud talk of the last eight years, those countries simply don’t trust us when we want to send in troops to help. And our allies aren’t willing to join in with us. They’ve seen what happened in Iraq, and a lot of the people in those countries think we’re just trying to grab territory–and oil.

Everyday Americans don’t want that territory. But with a Halliburton CEO running our presidency, it’s easy to understand why people in Sudan don’t think they can trust our government.

We’ve had eight years of ‘talk really loud, swagger, and swing the stick around.’ It’s time to take Teddy’s advice.