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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (46416)	9/12/2008 9:20:52 PM
From: sandintoes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224738

And any part of our government they want.

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (46416)	9/29/2008 2:15:19 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224738

Le mot juste 26 Sep 2008 10:11 pm Barack Obama just stated that meeting with crazy authoritarian leaders without preconditions "doesn't mean you invite them over for tea." Coffee, perhaps. An afternoon lemonade. But no tea for Ahmadinejad until he stops with the nuclear weapons nonsense! meganmcardle.theatlantic.com Yes, let's review the history... From the NYT: “Would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?” asked Stephen Sixta, a video producer who submitted the question for the CNN/YouTube Democratic debate. Mr. Obama, the first candidate to respond, answered, “I would.” Well, that seems quite plain. And just to be sure, Mr. Obama helpfully clarified (same source): Several aides immediately thought it was a mistake and sought to dial back his answer. But on a conference call the morning after the debate, Mr. Obama told his advisers that he had meant what he said and thought the answer crystallized how he differed from his rivals. Now that is perfectly clear. "Without preconditions" means without preconditions, not "without full agreement to our agenda." If Mr. O had meant the latter, he had two chances to say it, and he did not. Posted by John \| September 28, 2008 4:23 PM meganmcardle.theatlantic.com Obama tried to make it seem like the argument against him was that he would meet with foreign leaders without preparation (preliminary lower level meetings and such) and defended himself with "of course I wouldn't do that". But that isn't the actual criticism. The actual criticism is "no preconditions", not "no preparation" or "no preliminaries". When you meet at the presidential level you not only give more credibility to the person you are meeting with, you also raise expectations that you are going to get something done, and so raise the risk that you will sign some bad deal to "make progress", or "improve relations", or "resolve the problem". Normally the presidential meeting should be to sign the agreements all ready worked out, or at least mostly worked out, at lower levels. That's not just "preparation", its also getting agreement on the preconditions needed before you have a presidential level meeting. You might possibly have no preconditions of low level or indirect talks, or minimal preconditions for very high (but below presidential) level talks, but you don't have the heads of state and/or government meet until a deal is done, or all but done.