Why not just copy-and-paste Dana Perino's (disingenous) comments at the WH press briefing.  It will save you some time.

James,

You are such a nudnick.

His justification is that he has to pander to Jewish voters. Is this good enough for you?

I'm sure he'd be happy to meet with the duly electred representative of the Palestinian State...oh wait...

The relevant point, Mr. James "Contentions" Kirchick, is that Obama has indeed said that he would not negotiate with Hamas. And meeting without preconditions does not ipso facto imply any sort of negotiations (though I opposed Obama on this and much else). While I have the floor, you Commentaryiat people have done really well - the Bushies have likely brought into existence more jihadists than there previously were. Some toughness.

"JFK never met with Ho Chi Minh."

No. But he met with Khrushchev.

mini me, devoid of logic and substance again. Neville Bush has been a huge appeaser of North Korea, how many tons of food and barrels of oil do we send to prop up that evil regime all so they don't sell nuclear WMD's to other nations? I suppose when Bush appeases tyrants, it is hardheaded diplomacy.

Don't get me wrong, I think our "appeasement" of North Korea is one of the few areas of success that the Bush administration has had. At first, they tried the take no prisoners approach and it failed miserably, it was only after they actively engaged with diplomacy that they had success. Yes, North Korea has the bomb, (something he promised would never happen, but why nitpick) and yes we do prop them up, but considering the alternative (a desperate for money North Korean regime and potential regional conflagration) we have gotten off cheap.

Of course, such simple truths have escaped Fall-out boy Kirchick.

As soon as the comment stopped making any logical sense I scrolled down and I was correct Kirchick.  Why does TNR insist on publishing this guy?  Is it to make Marty seem like a reasonable commentator?

Well, give the boy a medal for writing a post without his usual grab-bag of averbs and adjectives.  An improvement.

As for historical accuracy, context, perspective, journalistic integrity, etc. - a raspberry would be too mild.  If I hear one more comparison with Hitler and Stalin ...

James is right, you nattering nabobs!  How dare you think that the White House would play politics with foriegn policy?  Moreso, you should all be ashamed of yourselves to think that the Bush White House would ever even unintentionally say something that is untrue.

James, do you know what the difference is between "terrorist organizations" and "state sponsors of terror"?   No.  OK.  Hamas' very existence is predicated on terrorism.  Iran and Syria's is not.  They sponsor it for a grab-bag of reasons, but mostly because they feel it is in their interests.  Talking to them with leverage is the only way, short of annihilation, to make them stop.  It isn't weakness.

Jacob, your nuanced and thought-provoking assertion has given me something to think about, as always.

Let me try to beat the firestorm of my fellow Obama supporters and say that this is a good post from Kirchick. Well done, kid.

Wrong on the merits, but a good post.

I just don't understand this pretense by opponents of diplomacy that, try as they might, they just cannot tell the difference between Hamas and the Iranian state. The former is a "political party" that won "elections" within the "government" of a non-state entity -- and that went on to stage a coup d'etat against itself in part of the "territory" of its "government." The latter is the established, sovereign government of a territorially contiguous state; Ahmadinejad represents but one of several competing parties elected within that government. Can Kirchick really not tell the difference between, say, the Labour Party of Britain and the government of Canada? Because that's the difference we're talking about here, as in fact he knows when he does not find it convenient to pretend, like his conservative fellows, to be too dumb to distinguish between political parties and states.

Beyond the obvious differences in corporate identity, there is the practical difference that matters: Iran, Syria, and North Korea have things we want and that they might conceivably agree to give us at a price we might be willing to pay. Hamas? Not so much. Hamas is not capable of offering us anything we want without ceasing to exist. So of course it makes sense to consider negotiating with those who have something we want but not with those who do not have anything we want.

As to the bit where Kirchick pretends that a state that sponsors terrorism cannot be distinguished from an actual terrorist organization, one must wonder: Can he also not tell the difference between the government of the United States, which supports the U.S. armed forces, and the armed forces of the United States? Supporting an army does not mean that a government _is_ an army, any more than supporting a terrorist group means that a government _is_ a terrorist group. A terror-sponsoring state might stop supporting terror and continue being a state. A terrorist organization that ceases terrorism ceases to exist. And the United States has in the past persuaded some terror-supporting states to stop supporting terror. Does Kirchick think America today is too weak or too stupid to repeat its own past success?

Finally, the real world is not kindergarten. If we give a lollipop to little Johnny, we are not obliged also to give lollipops to every other child in the class. If the United States wants to negotiate with Iran but not Syria, or Syria but not Hamas, or Iran and Syria but not Cuba, we have the right to do as we please. We need not invent some principle to divide "good" bad guys we're willing to engage from "bad" bad guys we are not. The only standard that matters is whether engagement with a particular state might serve any actual U.S. national interest. If so, we should talk. If not, then not.

blackton,

Good point. The North Korea progress came only after Bush swallowed his ridiculously oversized pride (while denying it, of course) and reverted to the Bill Clinton admin's approach.

dbhuff,

You mean Mahmoud Abbas?  The same guy Bush is meeting with tomorrow?  Yes, I'm sure Obama would be happy to meet with him.

Everyone is being wilfully obtuse here.  In the custom and practice of American (and every other country's) foreign policy, the executive meets and negotiates with his counterpart as the executive leader of the other country.  Some of these leaders are in power by undemocratic means (such as Assad and Kim-Il Sung), but they are the undisputed executive leaders of their respective countries and, if the US decides to initiate diplomatic dicussions with those countries, that's where they go.  Hamas is not the legitimate executive leadership of the Palestinian Authority, any more than Hezbollah is the legitimate executive leadership of Lebanon, the Mahdi Army is the legitimate executive leadership of Iraq or, frankly, the Democratic Party is the legitimate executive leadership of the United States.  Hamas won a legislative election, didn't like the resulting power-sharing arrangements with Fatah, and seized half of the Palestinian Territories in an armed coup.  If a state has a legitimate executive government, that's who you talk to; talking to anyone else is a de facto recognition of another faction as that country's government.  That's why Obama's position is perfectly consistent and legitimate.

One can make a reasoned argument for diplomacy when dealing with a state - even one that supports terrorism - based on the general precept that the leaders of a state can be expected to behave in certain ways, especially to protect their own regime and territory.  While this might not always be the case (I'm talking to you Saddam), it at least provides the possibility that diplomatic pressure can bring incremental change.  Hamas has no state and has not shown a compunction to behave in what, for a state, would be a rational manner.  Therefore, there is a logic to meeting with Iran but not Hamas.  You might disagree with that logic in the particular, but it is unfair to say that there it should make "little difference" to Obama.  

This may be too obvious, it seems worth noting that what Obama almost certainly meant was not so much that he and Achmadinnerjacket would sit down together over an expresso in Starbucks, but that he thought that the U.S. should open up the possibility of negotiations with Iran without declaring the potential result of such negotiations to be the precondition for negotiating in the first place.  So the FDR/Truman/JFK analogies don't hold water.  The direct "hotline" between the White House and the Soviet leadership was set up under JFK.  It was intended to avoid dangerous incidents and accidental escalation -- imagine that!!

It also might be worth saying that Chavez and Ahmdinnerjacket aren't entirely without some democratic credentials, although they either came through a constricted electoral system or are trying to make their system more constricted.  We might do well to retain "dictator" for the genuine article.

ironyroad is right.  Ahmadinejad is not a dictator by any stretch.   His power is more and more limited as Khameni increases his power.  It's that kind of "thinking" that gets us into trouble.  I don't know- I think it might be helpful to understand the world rather than segment it off into comfortable categories.   Call me old-fashioned.

"The urge to negotiate with the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Khaled Meshal, Kim Jong Il, Bashar Assad, Hugo Chavez and other dictators is now a widely popular position in the Democratic Party (except, it seems, with Hillary Clinton), and Bush has every right to criticize those advocating it. "

Yeah, but he has no right to equate it with giving away the Sudetenland scot-free to Hitler. It's outrageous to say that simply talking to Ahmadinejad (full disclosure: something I don't support) is

"appeasment." This is the Bush bunker mentality that has weakened our clout overseas and made a mess of anything we touch. Jamie, I'm not one of those who makes a living attacking you but be realistic here.

"That "Hamas is not a state. Hamas is a terrorist organization" should make little difference to Obama."

No, you're wrong. Hamas does not have a seat at the UN. Furthermore, we have direct beef with Iran (IEDs in Iraq, nukes), whereas Hamas is Israel's problem. If the Israelis don't want to meet with Hamas, why should the US undercut its ally and meet with them. To quote Obama, "we don't nuance well in politics and we especially don't in Middle East politics."

Kennedy didn't offer to meet with Ho Chi Minh, and meeting with him might have been pointless. But had Truman (or any senior American official) met with him shortly after WW2, we all might have been spared Vietnam. IIRC, that was the first issue brought up in the Pentagon Papers: "Could Ho have been an Asian Tito?" (i.e., Communist but not part of the Soviet bloc).

And let's not forget Nixon going to China. Was Nixon weaker because he engaged a dictator of a hostile country in diplomacy? I'm going to go out on a limb and say no.

Rhubs: great post as usual.

Irony: Why is it that practically every post in response to JK has to begin with a variation on "this may be too obvious to point out"?

Jacob: a pointless post as usual.

OK, so this is what gets me: "Bush has every right to criticize those advocating it."  Right, not in the Knesset, not on the 60th anniversary of the establishment of Israel, not in the middle of a Presidential campaign, not by wilfully distorting the original position ... oh well, what's the point.

Bone: Old-fashioned.

rozenson: "Jamie, I'm not one of those who makes a living attacking you ...".  Yup - I used to say that too when I defended him against the "Mini-me" epithet.  But the boy don't learn - and eventually his adverbs got to me.  Good luck.

Except it has been Bush's policies that have expanded the power of Iran in ways that were impossible seven years ago. It's also our Iraqi friends - the same ones we prop up in Baghdad - that have closely allied themselves with Iran. What am I missing? The Bush Adminstration is like a slot machine that keeps paying out to Iran. But hey, fact free as usual from JK. Big surprise.

right on the money Benjamin81 - Kirchick's post is incredibly dumb.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Keep your guns aimed at the other side, Jamie. You're brilliant when (and only when) you do.

There's one and a half voices instantly recognizable on the TNR blogs. The half would be any movie post (that's going to be Orr). The one would be any post that slowly sounds completely and totally insnae. Of course the Obama campaign jumped on this- they're trying to make this election about Bush and it's a direct insult to their approach. JFK and FDR didn't face Minh or Hitler because they were you know, AT WAR WITH THEM! (and hey, not dealing with Minh really worked out well, didn't it?

If you're going to war with evil, than go to war. If you want to talk, talk. But the Bush policy of ignoring countries they don't like hasn't worked out too well- as your fellow editor pointed out his recent book "US vs Them"

Way back when, what Obama SAID was, he felt it could be useful to talk with world leaders, even those whose values or govornments we despise.

Yes, it's possible to equate "talking" with "negotiating", and from there jump straight to an assumed "appeasement".

But...

"Talking" is not the same thing as "negotiating".  Talking must precede negotiation, but it does not imply it.

Obama's point, which seems simple enough to understand for some people (but apparently not for others), is that if you refuse to even talk, then you have from the start cut yourself off from ANY possibiility whatsoever of reaching the stage of negotiation.

Going further: appeasement is not negotiation.  Negotiation implies dialog aimed at working out a reasonable compromise or trade for equal value.

Appeasement is "OK, you say you get Czechoslovakia, and I get a piece of paper?  GrrrREAT!  You've got a deal!!"

Negotiation is, "OK, how about you take your missiles out of Cuba, and we'll take ours out of Turkey.  Is that a deal?"

Hamas is a political organization / political party, that engages in and supports acts of terror, which puts it in the same class as the old IRA, or the PLO.

Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization.  It IS pointless to engage in dialog or negotiation with a terrorist organization, because a terrorist organization's whole raison d'aitre, is terrorism itself.

That the Hamas'es of the world, and the Al Qaeda's of the world, have some things in common is beyond refute, but nevertheless they are not the same, and because of that, different approaches are justified with the one versus the other.

In point of fact, Bush's bullsh-t jingoism aside, there ARE examples throughout history where negotiation with a "political organization that has supported acts of terror", HAS proved productive, and HAS led to an end of violence.

Bush is obviously not familiar with such history, but a lot of people who live in England and Ireland are because they've experienced the before and after firsthand.

Very in keeping for him to make a statement like this, since he seems to fancy himself a Winston Churchill cut from modern American cloth.  But in doing so he's clearly missed making another distinction:  Churchill was a courageous, brilliant, articulate man of letters, with a keen understanding of human nature and a vast knowledge of history, whereas Bush is none of these things.

This particular post from Kirchik, seems barely distinguishable from anything Bush might say.  I sincerely hope for TNR's sake that he is capable of better in the future.

President Bush's thinly-veiled shot at Barack Obama was, in the words of Obama's spokesman, "an

To the editors:

Can you please relocate Jamie Kirchick to "the Spin" - sorry, the "Spine"? Until Marty was appropriately segregated from the reasonable people I always had to scroll down to see if a post was written by him so I could simply skip his arab-hating rants and other nonsense. Now I find the same impulse with James Kirchik. Not because I disagree with him but because he's so slippery and dishonest in the way he addresses issues that it's simply not worth wasting one's time on his writings.

Thank you for considering my proposal.

Looks like Jon "Slugger" Chait has decided to give young Jamie another character buidling ass whuppin...

Kirchick, words of advice: Don't even BOTHER to respond. It seems that Chait has had enough of your silly posts and has decided to beat you like a post. Not very sporting of Chait but I'm lovin' it...

oh and a little history blurb for young Jamie: LBJ wanted to talk to Ho Chi Minh, talked all the time about how, if he could get Ho into a room, he believed he could work out a dea. Read Caro.

I never realized that LBJ was an appeaser. Thanks George and Jamie for learnin' me on that there...

For the record, US presidents met with the leaders of the Soviet Union repeatedly:  Eisenhower and Kennedy with Krushchev, Nixon, Ford, and Carter with Breshnev, and of course Reagan with Gorby.  Nixon, that appeaser, even met with Mao, as used to be well known.  (Nixon to China, and all that.)  As for Truman and Stalin, well, try Googling "Truman Stalin picture" and see what you get.  Maybe TNR should hire a fact checker.  

According to news reports a few weeks ago the U.S. *had* been "talking with Iran" on numerous occasions, to discuss ways of cooperation to reduce violence in Iraq that threatened to destabilize Maliki's regime. Also, the talks were nothing new, they had been off and on for a year or more. Granted it's not the same as meeting face to face with Dr. A., but it does tacitly speak of a more complex diplomatic picture than the high level (or is it low level) verbal bashing Bush keeps returning to. But the Boss doesn't like ambiguity (it's un-Christian?)  and when the Boss speaks nothing shall contradict, or qualify.

Chris Matthews on appeasement - as he dismantles a right wing talking head.  Brilliant:

www.huffingtonpost.com/.../hardball-shoutfest-matthe_n_102020.html

Mark Green: "Kevin, when you're in a whole, stop diggin."

Matthews: "Talking is not appeasement."

Tomeg: Iran and the US have been meeting on and off since 1986 - remember Iran-Contra?  More recently, they have met officially on several occasions, in Baghdad.  And the US Administration is currently examining a "package" handed over by to the Swiss Embassy in Tehran.  

It is unlikely that Obama would meet with Ahmadinejad, largely for reasons that Irony has set out: the governmental structure in Iran is too fluid to admit of a proper discussion, because right now, no one knows who is in control of Iran's foreign policy.  Right now, it looks as if Laridjani, who was Ahmadinejad's rival in the presidential elections and Iran's chief nuclear negotiator until he was fired last year, is going to be Iran's parliamentary speaker, making him one of the five most powerful men in Iran.  And this same Laridjani is the same one who criticised Ahmadinejad's anti-Israel remarks in an interview in Germany, and has stated that under his leadership of the parliament, he would make Iran ready to talk to any country to negotiate away Iran's problems with the world.  Words, not actions; but calmer and saner words than we have had out of Iran for a long time, from someone who knows what he is talking about.  But, at the same time, contradictory words - which means that it is not the time to meet anyone from Iran.  Yet.

Obama's preparedness to meet with any leader if it is in the U.S.'s best interests doesn't mean he's champing at the bit to huddle with Ahmadinejad and Assad. I am not aware he has discussed any form of appeasement with his f-p advisers. Jackson and other regular guests over at the Spine are suspicious of Obama's intentions based on the fact that Brezinsky is listed as one of Obama's advisors. That may be significant or it may not but either way it doesn't prove much about Obama's views. He speaks for himself, quite articulately.

Geez, everyone is being so harsh on the Kirchick boy. Look, this is the internets, and sometimes you type a little faster than you think. Just change the order of the list in the last paragraph to this:

"And for the record, FDR did not meet with Ho Chi Minh, Truman did not meet with Hitler, and JFK never met with Stalin."

And suddenly it's a true statement. If a person makes a typo, but an easy correction like this makes his statement a true one, then the reasonable reader should assume the correction and carry on.

And in this case, it is simply incontrovertibly true that FDR never met with Ho, Truman never met with Hitler, and JFK never met with Stalin. Therefore Obama is an appeaser, and Bush is right to ridicule anyone who proposes talking with unfriendly regimes, especially when, like Obama, they're proposing talking to unfriendly regimes that we are already talking to.

Rhubs: priceless.

I know a lot of you love to hate on James, but really, you're seriously arguing that there's no conflict between Obama's "talk to Iran/not to Hamas" positoin?  You really are going on record with twists/controtions that Hamas is only a democratically elected government versus Iran, a not-quite-democratically elected government?  Anyone wanting to measure their nose, I have a ruler for you.  OF COURSE this position is to reassure Jewish voters and other supporters of Israel, just like his position on the mucking up the Justice Deptarment's oversight of the Teamsters is political.  Newsflash folks: your man is a politician!

lymon, read some of the other threads on this.   None of us our politicians.  I think we've explained in length the principles of this stand.  

James Rubin recalls a conversation with John McCain, circa 2006: I asked: "Do you think that American