Here’s another suggestion. To separate from the pack, presidential candidates might consider going refreshingly candid and saying, in effect: “Of course, health care, education and jobs are important. They’re always important.
“But everything, ultimately, is moot if we don’t soon figure out our place on this planet. Do we remain a Brobdinagian misfit perversely accommodating those who misread, misunderstand or just flat-out hate us? We can, of course, continue to blame craven “Old Europe,” the feckless United Nations and mutant Muslims, but we can’t pre-empt everything and everybody.
“On September 12, 2001, we had most of the world with us. Then we lost the moral high ground. That’s the real tragedy. And we’re no safer for our poorly planned, occupational response. Bravery and heroism are not synonyms for intelligence and enlightened self interest.
“We still ask nothing of Americans – except our military families. As a result, our foreign policy is still largely oil driven. As a further result, we’re still in bed with autocrats and dictators worse than Fidel Castro. It makes the spreading of democracy, still a work in voting-inertia progress here at home, look hypocritical.
“And the 45-year-old, Cold War-era, economic-and-travel embargo against Cuba just reminds the rest of the world — at the worst possible time — that the U.S. can be petty, arrogant and inhumane. This counterproductive policy has got to go. Now.
“Until we address all this — and actually talk (which doesn’t mean appeasement) to everyone that impacts us — we’re fooling ourselves with business-as-usual political pandering over values, taxes, ‘outsourced’ jobs, political correctness and entitlement programs.”