Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., attacked President Obama for passivity in the face of revolutions in the Middle East and faulted him for the national security leaks that have plagued his administration in recent years.
“Our president is not being true to our values,” McCain said at the Republican National Convention after describing the situation in Syria and the abortive Green Revolution in Iran. “For the sake of the cause of freedom . . . we must return to our best traditions of American Leadership and support those who face down the brutal tyranny of their oppressors — and our enemies.”
McCain knocked Obama, obliquely, for his handling of Libya. “At our best, America has led,” he said. “And always we have led from the front never from behind.” He also suggested that Obama has given “Israel, a nation facing existential threat, a reason to doubt America’s leadership.”
The 2008 Republican presidential nominee and former prisoner-of-war saved his most heated rebuke of Obama for the recent national security leaks.
“We cannot afford [the military] to be endangered because their government leaks the secrets of their operations to the media,” McCain said.
