Tim Pawlenty's Middle East Speech

My first impression when reading stories about GOP presidential contender Pawlenty's speech was negative, and after reading the whole thing I think it's a mixed bag -- with the bad outweighing the good. First, the good:

• The criticism of Obama's foolish "engagement" policy is on point
• Recognition that strong U.S. support for Israel gives a better chance for peace than a pretense that we are some sort of neutral broker.
• Threat to cut off Palestinian aid.

And the bad:

• a strong fetish for democracy promotion, and a seeming failure to understand that democracy is other countries is not necessarily in the U.S. interest.
• call to pressure friendly nations over human rights issues
• a way too optimistic view of Arab uprisings
  
• offhand dismissal of realpolitik in favor of what I consider unwarranted optimistic idealism

Overall I'm not thrilled with Pawlenty's ideas as advanced in this speech. What he calls isolationism can be better categorized as realistic assessment of American interests. There was some talk of U.S. interests in the speech, but not nearly enough. In purely political terms, the speech appears to indicate that he has knowledge of Middle East policy and coherent, if unconvincing ideas. But in my opinion various portions of his speech could easily have been spoken by George W. Bush or Barack Obama. And that's not a recommendation.

Tim Pawlenty and Bryan Fischer

While skimming through the left-wing blogosphere, I came across a post at Right Wing Watch about an interview former Minnesota Governor and presumed GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty did on the radio show of Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association. Pawlenty has been talked about as a potential presidential candidate since before the 2008 election. I still don't know that much about him, but the fact that he's doing interviews with Bryan Fischer automatically makes me take a more negative view of him.

Right Wing Watch may be a biased left-wing site, but if you look through its links on Bryan Fischer, you will see plenty of examples of his own words that illustrate just how much of an embarrassment he is to any rational person on the right. I recently wrote a post in response to his ludicrous and offensive assertion that the Medal of Honor has been "feminized." As someone who takes a realistic view of politics, I understand that would-be presidential candidates have to interact with some extreme elements of their party bases. But on a visceral level, the fact that Pawlenty appears on Fischer's show and grants him a measure of legitimacy makes me recoil. In my opinion, GOP candidates would be best served by keeping contacts with the likes of Bryan Fischer to a minimum.