A note about Hillary meeting with hostile leaders...

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

There's a minor irony because she will be the Secretary of State, not president.

The whole primary controversy (which was a lot of nothing on both sides, truth be told) was about the wisdom of committing to meeting without preconditions on the head of state level.

Had Hillary become President she would not have met directly with 'hostile' heads of state without preconditions. She would have limited initial meetings to people like... well, like her Secretary of State.

But as Obama's SoS she is exactly the sort of sub-presidential level person who she argued should be having such meetings, whether in the Obama administration or in her administration or John Edward's administration.

Ironically, Hillary's view ("I will not meet with them") will prevail precisely by her meeting with them. And that will be how it plays out... if anyone really high profile meets personally with Achmenijad for instance (A giant IF in any scenario) it would be her, not Obama. (Likelier is her meeting with her equivalent in the Iranian hierarchy, which would itself be a pretty big deal and much more useful than meeting with a guy with no real foreign policy powers.)

Obama is WAY to smart, cautious and protective of his credibility to step into the dark, exposing himself to international humiliation through quixotic media-frenzy meetings with no clear outcome.

The whole primary issue was symbolic, not practical... a marker of dedication to diplomacy, not actual WH event planning. It is wise to remember how hard both campaigns worked to invent foreign policy differences to argue about because there was never really a dimes worth of difference between them in policy terms going forward. (Obama always supported designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, for instance, yet somehow that point on which he and Hillary agreed was central to a pretend primary 'disagreement' because it was in BOTH candidates' interest to have that faux disagreement at the time.)

[Whisp]

1. well of course, without Hillary Obama is a bubbling fool nothing

cripes.

[LostinVA]

2. The OP didn't say that at all -- he said basically the opposite

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. Hey, you're the only poster in this thread I can see

You're contradicting 'ignored' so I have no idea what you're responding to, but I'll go out on a limb and say your reading is correct.

:)

[Marrah_G]

7. HAHAHAHA...................me too!

[TwilightGardener]

3. "Preconditions" had nothing to do with who met whom first. You are mischaracterizing

the difference between them. Preconditions mean requiring a foreign country to, say, stop producing nuclear material or stop selling arms to terrorists or whatever before we'll deal with them. Preconditions have nothing to do with sending your Secretary of State or other top diplomats to establish diplomatic contact first (which Obama certainly didn't oppose, and which is the norm in the world of diplomacy anyway, no matter who's President).

[ProSense]

4. "So Hillary's view of the matter will prevail by her having the meetings." Wow!

I think you need to read this.

BTW, Obama is the President-Elect. To quote him: "change" from him.

[mkultra]

6. I alerted you for Hillary hate speech

thats a crime in 57 states *snicker*

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

9. Just want to note that I know what your screen-name means

But when President Obama is sworn in he will disband MK-Ultra, release the alien captives from Area 51 and probably move all the people at Guantanamo there.

[Captain Hilts]

8. Correct! There wasn't a dime's worth of difference between the two of their policies. nt