No, Barack Obama is not the Second Coming of George McGovern

On the other hand, Rich Lowry – editor of National Review and therefore a man who should know better – offers this pithy analysis of American under Obama:

[N]one of this should be surprising since the Democrats, despite the Clinton interlude, never stopped being a McGovernite party, and Obama is a McGovernite figure

For the love of god, this is poppycock on stilts. I have no idea how, as Daniel Larison says, honouring an agreement signed by a Republican president that promised to withdraw American troops from Iraq can be construed as any kind of “McGovernite” policy. Indeed, for this to make any kind of sense I think you have to conclude that Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger must have once been “McGovernites” too since they wanted to end an overlong war too. And, of course, that famous “McGovernite” Ronald Reagan cut and ran from Lebanon.