So the tape of what Bill English said about Obama is Labour's latest ploy.
English was concerned Obama might reduce the role of the US and be unwilling to take decisive military action when needed. A fair point, although I think Obama will be less unwilling than many would have thought, given his more recent statements on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
So what does Phil Goff say? "The reality is that underneath it all National leaders are the same unreconstructed Cold War warriors they have always been"
Hold on, what does that mean? That National leaders have always been willing to fight on the side of the free world against Soviet (now Russian) tyranny? Heaven forbid - how awful! What Cold War?
Does it mean Labour has always been more ambivalent about the Cold War, after all Russia - USA - both the same right?
Clark said "If there's a war going, they want to be a part of it".
Unlike Labour's "independent foreign policy" which in the 1980s was a great big finger in the face of Western allies, which took New Zealand out of the Western alliance and made it "neutral" - a vile unforgivable position against the tyranny of the USSR and its satellites. Clark quite happily distanced NZ from ANZUS and the Western alliance.
National isn't abandoning the irrational anti-nuclear policy, National didn't argue that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was moral and correct, National has virtually no foreign policy difference from Labour. Bill English was foolish to talk indiscreetly about his views on Barack Obama, but he is no warrior - the National Party will make no substantive change in foreign policy. It didn't in 1990 and wont in 2008.
English was concerned Obama might reduce the role of the US and be unwilling to take decisive military action when needed. A fair point, although I think Obama will be less unwilling than many would have thought, given his more recent statements on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
So what does Phil Goff say? "The reality is that underneath it all National leaders are the same unreconstructed Cold War warriors they have always been"
Hold on, what does that mean? That National leaders have always been willing to fight on the side of the free world against Soviet (now Russian) tyranny? Heaven forbid - how awful! What Cold War?
Does it mean Labour has always been more ambivalent about the Cold War, after all Russia - USA - both the same right?
Clark said "If there's a war going, they want to be a part of it".
Unlike Labour's "independent foreign policy" which in the 1980s was a great big finger in the face of Western allies, which took New Zealand out of the Western alliance and made it "neutral" - a vile unforgivable position against the tyranny of the USSR and its satellites. Clark quite happily distanced NZ from ANZUS and the Western alliance.
National isn't abandoning the irrational anti-nuclear policy, National didn't argue that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was moral and correct, National has virtually no foreign policy difference from Labour. Bill English was foolish to talk indiscreetly about his views on Barack Obama, but he is no warrior - the National Party will make no substantive change in foreign policy. It didn't in 1990 and wont in 2008.
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