Scarborough: Politics Should End at the Water’s Edge in Time of Crisis

Scarborough: Politics Should End at the Water's Edge in Time of Crisis (RealClearPolitics)

JOE SCARBOROUGH: The president's snippy retort about the '80s wanting their foreign policy back now makes him look small and ill-prepared for the crisis that's on him. And the consensus among foreign policy analysts, it just is, is that the diplomatic corps believe that neither Vladimir Putin nor any other world leaders on the stage fear Barack Obama enough to alter bad behavior.

But it bears noting that the Republicans crowing about the Democrats' failed policy in Russia need to remember three things. First, it was George W. Bush who claimed to look into Putin's eyes and see the goodness of his soul. Right, remember that?

Second, it was the Bush administration in charge that did very little to stop Putin from invading Georgia in 2008, to support breakaway factions to aligned with Russia then. And third, there remains a quaint notion that some of us still hold closely in our hearts despite all the shabby behavior over the past quarter century, politics should still end at the water's edge in time of crises.

This is a time of crisis. A great crisis, Steve. And what can we do, other than calling the president feckless and attacking the president? Obviously, I've got -- I share a lot of the same concerns that John McCain shares with Barack Obama's foreign policy. But I don't think that gets us anywhere right now when Vladimir Putin already believes Barack Obama's weak, to undercut him in the middle of this crisis. So what can we do to make it hurt for Vladimir Putin?