Senator Barack Obama picked up an endorsement today that the campaign undoubtedly hopes will boost his foreign policy cache against Clinton. Zbigniew Brzezinski is a polish born Democratic foreign-policy expert who is often hailed as the left’s answer to Henry Kissinger.

Of Obama over Senator Clinton he said:

“Obama is clearly more effective and has the upper hand” labeling Clinton’s foreign policy ideas as “very conventional,” Brzezinski said. “I don’t think the country needs to go back to what we had eight years ago.”

So why am I going to be skeptical on this?

Brzezinski, very proudly, touts himself as the brainchild behind the United States support and arming of the mujaheddin in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union. Now I mention this because since 9/11 liberal Democrats have actively blamed Ronald Reagan for this policy claiming it directly assisted in training, funding and giving a cause to the elements who would later become al Qaeda and of course to Osama bin Laden himself.

In reality this was a policy born from the Carter administration, though of course it was under Ronald Reagan that this policy expanded to the full level envisioned during the Carter admin, thanks in large part to Congressman Charlie Wilson.

IT would have been one thing to take credit for this policy as a response to the Soviet empire. Brezinski, before 9/11, proudly took another claim though. That the administration actually began funding these elements in Afghanistan BEFORE the Soviets intervened in the area. Why? It was done with the knowledge (hope) that doing so would increase the likelihood of the Soviets intervening in Afghanistan.

Brzezinski is seen in many circles as a neoconservative, one who supported the war in Vietnam while working for Lyndon Johnson, one who armed the people in Afghanistan whom would later turn into the Taliban, whose plans to free hostages from Iran ended in failure under Presidenti Carter and who was there at the beginning of America’s new relationship with China that Democrats, like Obama, have been so quickly to call into question.

So far all of the reports on this I have read have glaringly omitted any of Brzezinski’s past so the announcement will undoubtedly be reported as a positive one. If liberal Democrats who are embracing the Senator take a look at this “foreign policy expert’s” credentials though they will find some interesting things that seem pretty antithetic to the kind of “change” in foreign policy they expect from Obama.