If you have not read my piece "Would YOU Negotiate with Hitler?", then do so now. It will show you why both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are being naive and dishonest with the American public. (It will open into a new window so you can come back and finish this piece)
They are so busy trying to diss each other over this issue, they are both missing the larger picture.
You do not, I repeat, YOU DO NOT, even entertain the possibility, especially publicly, of sitting down at the table with anyone that forces their people to go onto national television to chant "Death to America".
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Appeasement doesn't work, Bill Clinton and North Korea should have taught us that lesson, in spades.
For the record, and I have stated this before, I do not blame Bill Clinton for that, it needed to be tried, but since it was tried and failed miserably, you would think that the top two contenders for the Democratic Presidency would have, at least, learned a good lesson from it.... but no, they didn't.
Now, Hillary did do better than Obama by saying she would not make that open ended promise to be used as enemy propaganda, but she also did not rule it completely out.
The spat started with Clinton, backed by former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, calling Obama on a lack of preparation for the substance of presidential diplomacy. Obama answered in the affirmative to the question from a bearded Californian about whether he'd be "willing" to meet the leaders of Syria, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba during his first year in office.
Clinton and Edwards responded sharply, in turn, that they thought committing in advance to such meetings was unwise, and Clinton in particular took the opportunity to offer Obama a lesson in diplomacy.
Would "not commit to it in advance", is a far cry from standing firm and saying NO.
In her desire to separate herself from President Bush's stance on this issue, she has once again shown us, that politics means more than brains and common sense.
Dancing around this subject does no one any good at all.
You do not even entertain the idea of meeting with someone that has but one desire and that is to see your destruction.
A man that has publicly stated his desire for armageddon, isn't exactly sane and rational, therefore, talking to him, knowing every word he has said in the past as well as what he will say to you in any meeting, are lies, gets you nowhere but looking weak on foreign policy and national security.
Now, they both are so worried about one upping each other, they are both painting themselves with that same "weak" brush.
Hillary did much better than Obama on this question, but she did not go far enough, which makes her look just as weak and pathetic as he did when answering.
Charles Krauthammer, whom I enjoy reading, says this is strike two for Obama and in his column he states this:
From the Nation's David Corn to super-blogger Mickey Kaus, a near-audible gasp. For Hillary Clinton, next in line at the debate, an unmissable opportunity. She pounced: "I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year." And she proceeded to give the reasons any graduate student could tick off: You don't want to be used for their propaganda. You need to know their intentions. Such meetings can make the situation worse.
(Emphasis mine)
The sentence I emphasized is the key for me... we KNOW at least one of these dictators intentions, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has declared on multiple occasions that he would like to see Israel wiped of the face of the map, and his famous, Death To America chants are recorded, documented and quoted in the piece I suggested you read at the beginning of this post.
That is Hillary's problem.
Refusing to acknowledge those "intentions", just so she can try to appeal to the far left of her base, makes HER sound as naive as Obama sounded at the debate.
They both missed the boat on this issue and their continued public battle over it, simply high lights that over and over again.
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