Lord knows the issue has been parsed to death around here. We all know what was said. Many here have taken it on face value - as if it truly were a debate on diplomacy. I think that is naive. Neither Clinton, nor Obama or Edwards substantively disagrees on this issue. Every single one of them agrees we ought to be talking to our potential enemies and friends alike.
What we saw wasn't debate and disagreement. It was political theatre. Hillary Clinton saw an opportunity to enhance her "ready on day one" theme and simultaneously reinforce the meme that Obama was too green and untested for the job. So she took it. And John Edwards...well he either saw an opportunity to help hammer the nail into the man in his way and took it, or he legitimately agrees with Hillary's rather silly worries about propaganda and thinks that worrying about things that Kim Jon or Fidel might say to the press are worth delaying talks that might help us reduce pressures with those countries. You decide what you think he did there.
But none of that is what bothers me. That is politics. Points to Clinton and possibly Edwards for thinking on their feet. No...what really pisses me off is us.
More after the jump.
Imagine for a moment that this was a debate between your nominee and Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney:
Question: In 1982, Anwar Sadat traveled to Israel, a trip that resulted in a peace agreement that has lasted ever since.
In the spirit of that type of bold leadership, 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?
Your Candidate: I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration -- is ridiculous.
Now, Ronald Reagan and Democratic presidents like JFK constantly spoke to Soviet Union at a time when Ronald Reagan called them an evil empire. And the reason is because they understood that we may not trust them and they may pose an extraordinary danger to this country, but we had the obligation to find areas where we can potentially move forward.
And I think that it is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them. We've been talking about Iraq -- one of the first things that I would do in terms of moving a diplomatic effort in the region forward is to send a signal that we need to talk to Iran and Syria because they're going to have responsibilities if Iraq collapses.
They have been acting irresponsibly up until this point. But if we tell them that we are not going to be a permanent occupying force, we are in a position to say that they are going to have to carry some weight, in terms of stabilizing the region.
Rudy/Mitt/Fred: I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year. I will promise a very vigorous diplomatic effort because I think it is not that you promise a meeting at that high a level before you know what the intentions are.
I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes. I don't want to make a situation even worse. But I certainly agree that we need to get back to diplomacy, which has been turned into a bad word by this administration.
And I will purse very vigorous diplomacy.
And I will use a lot of high-level presidential envoys to test the waters, to feel the way. But certainly, we're not going to just have our president meet with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and, you know, the president of North Korea, Iran and Syria until we know better what the way forward would be.
Okay. If this exchange had happened as I've described it, does anyone here doubt that this entire community would be screaming at the top of their lungs, "IT WASN'T A PROMISE...HE/SHE SAID WILLING!'? Would anyone here have a hard time recognizing that the word "promise" was inserted after the fact by Rudy/Mitt/Fred? Would anyone here have the slightest problem understanding that the word "precondition" does not mean "without preparation"?
No. We would be screaming at the media for not pointing out the debate trick that had been pulled.
Well folks...in this case we are the media. Our job is to act as watchdog for these exact kinds of manipulations when they employed by Rush or hannity or Bush or Cheney or Rudy, Fred or Mitt. But sadly some of us have our heads so far up our chosen candidate's asses that we refuse to acknowledge what is obvious in the name of scoring one for our guy or girl.
Well screw that folks. If that is what we are doing here than we might as well pack it in. We are either committed to truth or we are committed to bullshit.
What are you committed to?
UPDATE:
It should be mentioned that the debate was followed by Clinton's charge that Obama's remarks were naive. While her words above may have allowed her to argue that her answer had nothing to do with his, the naive charge does not stick unless his "willingness" is taken as a "promise" and the words preconditions are expanded to mean "diplomatic preparation." At that point, if there was any doubt that her words were meant specifically to mischaracterize his, all of that doubt vanished.