We all remember the charge from years back, when a young Barack Obama was first running for president against John McCain and his attack-dog running mate, Sarah Palin — the self-described “hockey mom” who famously compared herself to a pit bull with lipstick.
Palin was placed front and center attacking Obama over his tangential association with Bill Ayers, who decades earlier had been a leader of the Weather Underground, the radical anti-Vietnam War organization responsible for bombings including the U.S. Capitol and Pentagon.
The right went wild.
Here was a liberal change agent, a Black man with a funny name, who, as Palin famously described it, was “palling around with terrorists.”
The label stuck like Super Glue. Obama and Ayers had casually crossed paths in Chicago civic and education circles, but they certainly weren’t bosom buddies. Ayers’ terrorist activities had occurred decades earlier, when Obama was a child.
But “palling around with terrorists” was one heck of an effective, nuclear political accusation.
Still, back then, presidential campaigns could get plenty nasty, but most candidates themselves still maintained some basic standards of integrity and civility.
At an Oct. 10, 2008, rally in Minnesota, a supporter told McCain he was frightened by the prospect of an Obama presidency. McCain wasn’t having it.
“I have to tell you, he is a decent person, and a person that you do not have to be scared as president of the United States.”
Imagine that. Defending the character of the man you’re desperately trying to defeat.
Eventually, the Ayers hysteria faded. The attack failed, and Obama won the presidency.
Today in our upside-down, wrong-is-right political world, we’re witnessing something far different in “palling around with terrorists.”
This time, the palling is real, it’s presidential and consequential.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed his affection for and friendship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, leader of a nuclear-armed country officially designated by the United States as a state sponsor of terrorism.
On Sunday, Trump wrote on Truth Social:
“Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in joint military exercises with South Korea.”
Trump complained about the cost and said the exercises sent an “inappropriate and hostile” signal toward North Korea, which he described as “unthreatening and respectful.”
Then came the consequence:
“I have instructed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to substantially reduce the joint military exercises!”
Think about that.
The president explicitly cited his “very good relationship” with Kim while ordering reduced military exercises with South Korea — one of America’s closest treaty allies.
Meanwhile, North Korea continues developing and testing ballistic missiles threatening South Korea, Japan and U.S. forces.
Time and again, Trump has fawned over Kim, seemingly convinced his personal charisma can work miracles.
We’ve seen the handshakes, smiles and the remarkable 2019 spectacle of an American president walking into North Korea, producing truckloads of wonderful propaganda photographs.
What did all that personal diplomacy buy us?
Seven years later, North Korea is more deeply integrated with America’s adversaries. It possesses an expanding nuclear arsenal and increasingly sophisticated missiles. North Korea supplies Russia with weapons and troops for Vladimir Putin’s war against democratic Ukraine.
That’s not 4D chess.
That’s real-world screwups from a foreign policy extending about as far as a handshake with a pal. And there are real-world consequences when an American president places extraordinary confidence in personal relationships with authoritarian leaders while publicly undercutting longtime democratic allies.
South Korea and Japan have built their security around American reliability. When Washington reduces military exercises because our president has a “very good relationship” with the dictator those exercises deter, our allies have every reason to wonder what American security guarantees are worth.
And the pattern extends beyond North Korea.
Trump has long frustrated Western allies with his extraordinary deference toward Vladimir Putin and the authoritarian system Putin has constructed in what was, briefly, a developing democratic Russia.
Meanwhile, six months into what was once presented as a short war with Iran, the president’s confidence in his own personal instincts and relationships isn’t producing anything resembling peace on Earth.
The old accusation against Obama was guilt by association.
Today’s problem isn’t association. It’s real presidential policy.
Sarah Palin once electrified the Republican base by accusing Barack Obama of “palling around with terrorists” because Obama knew a former radical whose crimes had occurred when Obama was a child.
Seventeen years later, an American president openly cites his “very good relationship” with the dictator of a nuclear-armed state sponsor of terrorism that has pledged for three generations to annihilate the USA.
So, about that old “palling around with terrorists” line?
Does the Right no longer care? Have we become so accustomed to this behavior that something that once would have generated outrage and international scandal now passes as just another day? Yeah. Now we’ve got palling around. For real.
And the cost to America’s reputation as a sane, reliable democratic ally is enormous.
Gary Horton is chairman of the College of the Canyons Foundation board. His “Full Speed to Port!” has appeared in The Signal since 2006. The opinions expressed in his column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Signal or its editorial board.
