Obama Embraces National Security as Campaign Issue

At the same time, the Obama campaign is seeking to portray Mitt Romney, the likely Republican nominee, as a national security neophyte whose best ideas are simply retreads of what the president is already doing, and whose worst instincts would take the country back to the days of President George W. Bush: cowboy diplomacy, the Iraq war and America’s lowest standing on the international stage.

In the coming weeks, Obama advisers plan to release a list of national security “surrogates” — high-profile Democrats like former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and Wesley K. Clark, a retired general — who will write newspaper op-ed articles, give speeches and take Mr. Romney to task every time he opens his mouth about foreign policy, Obama advisers said.

The plan is to draw a contrast between Mr. Obama — who, his advisers say, kept his word on ending the Iraq war, going aggressively after Al Qaeda and restoring alliances around the world — and Mr. Romney, who will be portrayed as playing both sides of numerous issues.

“He was for and against the removal of Qaddafi, for and against setting a timetable to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan, for and against enforcing trade laws against China, and while he once said he would not move heaven and earth to get Osama bin Laden, he later claimed that any president would have authorized the mission to do so,” said Ben LaBolt, press secretary for the Obama campaign.

The more aggressive posture is a break from the past, when Democrats on the national stage battled against the perception that the party was not as committed as Republicans were to a strong defense and an aggressive response to terrorism. Mr. Obama himself, during the 2008 campaign, drew criticism from both Republicans and his primary opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton, for what they called his naïveté, particularly over his willingness to talk, without preconditions, to American foes like Iran.

But Mr. Obama’s victory that year over Senator John McCain, a Vietnam War hero, was in part a result of an electorate weary from years of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, with a record that includes winding down the Iraq war and killing Bin Laden, coupled with the success of the military strikes in Libya and the removal of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, political and national security experts have embraced the Obama campaign’s belief that this could be the year when national security issues actually help a Democrat.

“Barack Obama’s position in foreign policy is substantively stronger than that of any other Democratic candidate in recent memory,” said David Rothkopf, the chief executive and editor at large of the Foreign Policy Group. “The general Romney refrain of ‘I can do better’ is easily defused with one word: ‘How?’ ” 

Of course, Mr. Obama will have to fend off criticism on Afghanistan, where he has announced a withdrawal date for American troops even as the political situation remains tenuous, with reconciliation talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government in disarray. But even on this issue, Mr. Romney’s criticism — that Mr. Obama should listen more to his generals — has not had much resonance with a public that polls show to be increasingly disillusioned with the American presence there.

Mr. Rothkopf’s description of the Obama counteroffense played out late last month, when Mr. Romney’s national security advisers sent an open letter to Mr. Obama via the conservative magazine National Review. The letter took the president to task over a host of issues, from Israel — which the Romney team said Mr. Obama had not done enough to support — to Iran, Afghanistan and Venezuela, where President Hugo Chávez, Mr. Romney’s advisers said, is growing in influence under Mr. Obama’s lax watch.

Within 24 hours, the Obama campaign struck back, this time choosing Foreign Policy magazine for its counterpunch. Beyond taking on each of the Romney letter’s accusations point by point, the Obama letter, signed by 18 mostly Democratic-leaning national security experts, demanded that Mr. Romney say what he would do instead.

“What specifically would you do to address the Iranian threat that is different from what President Obama is already doing?” the letter said. “Why did you call Russia ‘without question our No. 1 geopolitical foe,’ especially when strategic cooperation with Russia is essential for countering the Iranian nuclear threat?”

And finally: “What did you mean when you said, ‘It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person,’ referring to Osama bin Laden?” the letter said.

“We are so eager for this debate to happen,” said Michèle Flournoy, the former under secretary of defense who is now one of the Obama campaign’s national security surrogates. “If Romney is the Republican challenger, and he is going to make national security an issue, the president’s record is very strong and speaks for itself.”

A host of other Obama national security surrogates went after Mr. Romney last week, after he jumped on Mr. Obama’s open-microphone slip a few days before, during which the president was overheard telling Russia’s president, Dimitri A. Medvedev, that he would have more flexibility to deal with Russian concerns over the American missile defense system after the election in November.  Russia, Mr. Romney told CNN later, is “without question our No. 1 geopolitical foe.”

The Obama campaign released a flurry of statements from pro-Obama foreign policy notables taking Mr. Romney to task. “His national security priorities seem to shift opportunistically each week, from threatening war with Iran to calling Russia our biggest geopolitical foe,” said Richard J. Danzig, the Navy secretary under President Bill Clinton.

Mr. Romney, of course, has his own national security surrogates. Richard S. Williamson, who was Mr. Bush’s special envoy to Sudan, said Mr. Obama’s national security record left plenty of room for Mr. Romney to attack.

“The world is better off because Osama bin Laden is dead. The world is better off because Muammar Qaddafi is dead,” Mr. Williamson said in an interview. “But two deaths do not a foreign policy make.”

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Pelosi: Dems oppose Social Security, Medicare cuts (AP)

WASHINGTON – The top House Democrat says she and fellow Democratic lawmakers will oppose including cuts in Social Security or Medicare benefits in any package aimed at reducing huge federal deficits.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi made the remark to reporters Thursday after returning to the Capitol from President Barack Obama's budget talks with congressional leaders. The leaders are looking for a compromise package that would extend the government's borrowing limit while also slicing trillions off future budget deficits.

Signals have emerged that the White House would consider culling savings from Social Security and Medicare. But Pelosi, a California Democrat, says Democrats believe those two programs should not be used to pay for tax breaks for the rich.

Republicans have opposed ending some tax loopholes for the wealthy.

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Democrats Oppose Talk of Cuts to Social Security - New York Times

As word spread that Mr. Obama was considering large savings from the use of a different measure of inflation to reduce the annual cost-of-living adjustment in Social Security benefits, Democrats joined with lobbyists for older Americans to reject the idea. Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said Democrats would oppose changes in Social Security benefits as part of the deficit-reduction talks.

“Any discussion of Social Security should be on a separate track,” he said. Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, said, “Any savings should be plowed back into making Social Security stronger.”

Representative Sander M. Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, said, “The proposal would place new burdens on the backs of seniors.”

Representative Xavier Becerra of California, a member of the House Democratic leadership, said, “The cuts in Social Security benefits would grow larger as retirees age, and seniors who rely most on Social Security to pay for basic necessities would receive the biggest benefit cuts.”

On the Senate floor, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, said Thursday: “Social Security and Medicare benefits should not be on the table. Social Security is not the cause of the deficit, and beneficiaries should not be made to shoulder the burden of deficit reduction.”

In particular, Mr. Whitehouse said, Congress must not “cut benefits through backdoor methods such as lowering the cost-of-living adjustment.”

Republicans are concerned about the growth of entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare. Some, like Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, support the idea of an alternative measure of inflation, known as the chain-weighted version of the Consumer Price Index, because they believe it is more accurate. But the party, waiting to see details, has not taken an official stand.

Lobbyists for older Americans were blistering in their criticism of the proposal, which, according to the Congressional Budget Office, could reduce federal spending by more than $110 billion over 10 years.

“This is nothing more than a backdoor benefit cut that Washington hopes Americans won’t notice or understand,” said Max Richtman, executive vice president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

He said Social Security beneficiaries did not receive a cost-of-living adjustment this year or in 2010 because inflation, as measured by the standard Consumer Price Index, was so low.

AARP, the lobby for older Americans, said last month that it might be open to modest reductions in Social Security benefits for future recipients. But A. Barry Rand, the group’s chief executive, tried to quash the inflation adjustment idea, saying that “AARP will not accept any cuts of any kind to Social Security as part of a deal” to reduce the deficit and increase the debt limit.

The proposal under discussion would affect current and future beneficiaries. Any move to exempt current beneficiaries would reduce the amount of savings.

Supporters of the proposal argue that the current measure of inflation overstates increases in the cost of living because it does not adequately reflect how, when faced with higher prices, consumers change their buying habits, substituting cheaper items for more expensive ones.

On the other hand, some economists say the current measure understates the impact of inflation on older Americans, who tend to spend more of their income on health care. Medical prices have been rising faster than the overall price index.

Budget negotiators are also discussing a proposal that would use the alternative measure of inflation to adjust income tax brackets and other provisions of the tax code, like the standard deduction and the personal exemption amount.

This proposal would raise nearly $60 billion over 10 years, as more Americans would find themselves in higher tax brackets.

Republicans, adamantly opposed to any form of tax increase, worry about an increase that might result from using the new measure of inflation to adjust tax brackets.

Representative Robert E. Andrews, Democrat of New Jersey, said he would consider changes in the Social Security benefit formula only as part of a giant deficit-reduction package that included substantial new revenues and cuts in military spending. If the alternative measure of inflation is more accurate, he said, it would be “logical, consistent and desirable” to use it in adjusting tax brackets and Social Security benefits.

Grover G. Norquist, a prominent conservative strategist who is president of Americans for Tax Reform, said he saw a big difference. Reducing Social Security benefits would be a cut in spending, and “that would be fine,” Mr. Norquist said. But he said using the new price index to set tax brackets would be a tax increase, in violation of the pledge made by Republican leaders.

Stephen C. Goss, the chief actuary of Social Security, said the alternative inflation measure could reduce annual cost-of-living adjustments so the benefit for a retiree turning 85 in 2035 would be about 7 percent lower. The cuts are cumulative and would have a larger effect on older beneficiaries, who depend more on Social Security as a source of income.

Congressional Democrats said that using a different version of the Consumer Price Index could also reduce Medicare payment rates for some health care providers, including ambulatory surgical centers, clinical laboratories and suppliers of durable medical equipment like wheelchairs and respirators.

In addition, they said, the proposal could eventually increase the number of Medicare beneficiaries who must pay higher premiums because they have incomes above a certain level — $85,000 for individuals and $170,000 for married couples this year.

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