As Mike and Noam predicted on Monday, Obama's position on meeting with dictators has evolved. The newer position doesn't jettison Obama's core principles, but it is more practical.
--Barron YoungSmith
Posted: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 10:22 AM with 5 comment(s)
This was an inevitable move. At the time that he enunciated his previous position on meeting with dictators, I told a friend that this was a preposterous position to take for a serious candidate running for the Democratic nomination. He agreed with me. Never mind the merits of Obama's initial stance, it was bound to be jumped on by the Republicans. I further told my friend that if I were advising the major candidates the first thing that I would tell all of them would have been to not appear weak on national security. Making such pronoucements within hearing distance of Republicans is like dangling red meat in front of wolves. The Republicans are great at demagouging on security issues. Obama belatedly has adjusted to this reality.
The Republican definition of weak on foreign policy issues is "Democrat." In the one instance where I would pull a Rove is for Obama to stick with his statement on doing discussions with dictators. When McCain and Bush fall off the cliff by trying to go to the right of Obama they will actually look ridiculous, as McBush did when they made the Nazi appeasement analogy.
I'm sorry, where exactly did his position "evolve"? This is what Obama had to say on the topic in early February:
"There has been no confusion. I have been absolutely clear on this. I will meet not just with our friends but with our enemies. I will meet without preconditions. That does not mean I will meet without preparation. It is very important before any meeting to make sure that there is a list of agenda items that we are going to be talking about. But the difference is with me, for example, meeting with Iran, I would not expect that they would give in on critical issues like nuclear weapons before the meeting. The objective of the meeting would be to ensure that they stand down and that we've offered them carrots and sticks." (CNN's "The Situation Room," 2/4/08)
I seem to recall him making statements like this (i.e., without precondition does not mean without preparation) back in 2007, but I can't find it now. Between this and Crowley writing about Obama "revising his assessment of the threat posed by Iran," can TNR stop so easily buying into the frame that Obama is changing his positions?
Barron flags this ABC piece about the Obama campaign's refinement of its dictator-meeting position
Principles? Does he have any?