July 26, 2007, 7:01 pm
Clinton-Obama Commander Duel: Part 4
By Kate Phillips
thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com
In case you were breathlessly awaiting the latest round in the Obama-Clinton smackdown over the future of foreign diplomacy, if the Democrats were to move into the White House, you don’t have to wait any longer. (And even if you weren’t, we’re going to tell you anyway, because this Democratic back-and-forth has had legs as the trailing sound bite of the week, infused with quite a bit of campaign hype and interpretation as to who has the most serious street cred to strut the epaulets of commander-in-chief.)
On CNN late this afternoon, in an interview with John King, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton used the cameras to issue another put-down of her Democratic rival’s answers on a diplomacy question about meeting with rogue-nation leaders during Monday night’s CNN-YouTube debate. Mr. Obama had offered up that he would be willing to meet with leaders like Kim Jong il of North Korea, while she said she would not. Transcript of that Q&A here.
(To catch you up: The first post-debate critique came from Senator Clinton, who for the first time, lobbed a very direct criticism at Mr. Obama. She called his remarks “irresponsible and frankly naive.” He countered yesterday, using the same terms to describe her 2002 vote authorizing military force in Iraq.)
And earlier today, Mr. Obama, in a conference call with reporters and at a rally in Concord, N.H., went a bit further. During the conference call, Mr. Obama was asked whether he would equate her debate answer with a milder version of the Bush administration’s diplomatic actions, or lack of, toward nations like North Korea. The Times’s Jeff Zeleny reported this comment:
“I don’t just believe it, I think that’s the record,” Mr. Obama replied to the question about Mrs. Clinton being Bush-lite on this issue. “The Bush administration’s policy is to say that we will not talk to these
countries unless they meet various pre-conditions. That’s their explicit policy.
“You’ll have to ask Senator Clinton what differentiates her position from theirs,” Mr. Obama added. Then, he went on to say: “If that’s not what she means, then she should say so.”
Mr. King quoted Mr. Obama’s statements from the rally today, in his interview to draw a response from Mrs. Clinton: “He says this, ‘I am not going to hide behind a bunch of rhetoric, I don’t want a continuation of Bush-Cheney. I don’t want Bush-Cheney Lite, I want fundamental change.’ ”
Mr. King asked Mrs. Clinton: “Are you Bush-Cheney Lite?”
Oh, shucks, Senator Clinton seemed to suggest on CNN, “this is getting kind of silly.’’
But then she ratcheted up her attack on her rival, with a pretty sharp choice of words:
“You know I have been called a lot of things in my life, but I have never been called George Bush or Dick Cheney, certainly. You know you have to ask, whatever has happened to the politics of hope?’’ (Our emphasis.)
“I have been saying consistently for a number of years now, we have to end the Bush era of ignoring problems, of ignoring enemies and adversaries. And I have been absolutely clear that we have 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 Ahjmenanjad. I think we have to be absolutely clear that we are going to engage with the world, that we are not afraid to have diplomacy. But, I know that diplomacy takes a lot of hard work. It takes a lot of planning and it takes many many people to be involved before we give a visit with the president without any precondition whatsoever.’’
Now, given that this round-for-round among the two heavyweights in the Democratic field has dominated the news, or at least the talking points this week, other candidates have been weighing in along the way. Mitt Romney likened Mr. Obama’s stance to that of appeasement toward the Nazis by Neville Chamberlain, according to our earlier post by Michael Luo from Iowa.
And from Iowa today, another Democratic contender, Senator Chris Dodd, weighed in, saying the two were either being “overly simplistic” or “overly rigid.”
“I have helped resolve conflict from Latin America to Northern Ireland, and with experience you learn that neither of those approaches serves the interests of the United States.
“Diplomacy is essential both to repair our nation’s fractured world relationships and move forward with a more global perspective to our foreign policy. However, there are some leaders - like Iran’s Ahmadinejad, who denies the Holocaust ever took place - which cannot and should not be diplomatically rewarded with visits from the American president.
“Unfortunately, this false debate, which has now lingered for days, has become just another personal argument among politicians and that’s lamentable given the stakes in this election. There is nothing new about this kind of politics and it certainly doesn’t demonstrate a readiness to lead the nation when our reputation around the world is in tatters.” |
