The Clinton/Obama Fight
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2007/07/the-clintonobam.html
by hilzoy
Now that the fight between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has
entered its fifth day, I thought I'd say something about it. The video
of the part of the YouTube Debate at issue -- about meeting with the
heads of Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, and Syria -- is here; a
transcript of the debate is here. (The relevant bit is about 2/3 of
the way down.) I've put a longer version of what I think actually
happened at the end of this post; my brief summary is: Obama said he
would be "willing to" meet with five unpleasant heads of state without
preconditions; Hillary Clinton acted as though he had promised or
committed himself to doing so, which he hadn't; the next day, she
called that supposed commitment "irresponsible and frankly naive",
which it wasn't.
As best I can tell, Clinton was trying to take what Obama had said and
make it fit a storyline about his inexperience; Obama then proceeded
to take what she had said and use it to reinforce his own storyline,
about the importance of judgment and the need for change. Reporters
and pundits on both sides seemed to think that Clinton was right, but
the American people disagree.
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