| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Ubiquitous" |
| Date: |
31 Jul 2007 06:33:16 AM |
| Object: |
Obama the Jawmonger |
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are feuding, and it's getting entertaining,
as the New York Sun reports from Concord, N.H.:
In an appearance here yesterday, Mr. Obama electrified his
grassroots supporters by using his toughest language yet against
Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Obama stood by his pledge to meet with the
presidents of Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba during his first year in
office if elected president. . . .
"It is no longer sufficient to trot out the old formulas, the
old tired phrases. If we want fundamental change, then we can't
be afraid to talk to our enemies. I'm not afraid of losing the p.r.
war to dictators," Mr. Obama said to prolonged applause. "I'm
happy to look them in the eye and say what needs to be said...
I don't want a continuation of Bush-Cheney. I don't want Bush-Cheney
lite, I want a fundamental change." . . .
Senator Clinton addressed Mr. Obama's charges in an interview
on CNN. "Well, this is getting kind of silly. I've been called
a lot of things in my life but I've never been called George Bush
or ***** Cheney certainly. We have to ask what's ever happened
to the politics of hope?" said Mrs. Clinton. "I have been saying
consistently for a number of years now, we have to end the Bush
era of ignoring problems, ignoring enemies and adversaries. And
I have been absolutely clear that we've got to return to robust
and effective diplomacy. But I don't want to see the power and
prestige of the United States President put at risk by rushing
into meetings with the likes of Chavez, and Castro, and
Ahmadinejad."
Partisan bloviation notwithstanding, Mrs. Clinton clearly has the better of
this argument. To be sure, Obama has a small point: There are times when it
makes sense to talk with one's enemies. The most commonly cited example is
President Reagan's negotiations with Mikhail Gorbachev probably helped America
win the Cold War.
But "losing the PR war to dictators" is a real danger. It can have dire
consequences (think Jimmy Carter) or even catastrophic ones (Neville
Chamberlain). Obama's insouciance about this (and about other things),
combined with his party's general softness on foreign policy, lead us to worry
that he's another Carter far more than we would dare hope he's another Reagan.
On a related note, the New York Times reports that during the debate, when
Mrs. Clinton was responding to Obama's answer on this subject, she said:
"We're not going to just have our president meet with Fidel Castro and Hugo
Chavez and, you know, the president of North Korea, Iran and Syria until we
know better what the way forward would be."
It sure sounds as though she couldn't remember the names of Kim Jong Il,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Bashar al-Assad. This doesn't disqualify her from the
presidency, of course, but remember how much grief George W. Bush took in 1999
when he failed a pop quiz on world leaders' names?
.
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