Hannity and friends are repeating a mistaken interpretation of Hillary Clinton's words to falsely accuse her of changing her position in order to contrast with Barack Obama on national security, in the interest of sullying both their reputations.
Read on.
HANNITY: ...Right now, there's a battle going on between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, a question that came up in the debate the other night about whether we would sit down and talk with our enemies, people like North Korea and Iran and Ahmadinejad. And Hillary said that Barack Obama was naive and irresponsible for wanting to talk to some of these enemies.
First of all, what do you think of that back and forth? Because Hillary has changed her position on that just from three months ago.
Let's read what was posted in the real press about the exchanges:
The Obama campaign was quick to point to an April 23 quote from Clinton in which she said, "I think it's a terrible mistake for our president to say he won't talk to bad people." That, Obama representatives said, showed Clinton had changed her position.
Clinton advisers noted that the New York senator's full quote included a line that she would first "begin diplomatic discussions with those countries" before such meetings _ same as she said in Monday's debate.
"I never would have gotten out of the debate last night that there was any change in position," Albright said.
She emphasised that Obama had said he would meet with such leaders in his first year without preconditions.
This is part of the key--these statements aren't in conflict! In April, Clinton was talking about a President who's been in office six years and has had plenty of time to establish diplomatic relations but who has chosen not to do so. In the recent debate, she said she wouldn't assume she'd meet with them in the first year of her own administration, no questions asked.
Of course, "Mrs. Clinton pounced on Obama, calling him "naive" and "irresponsible" for saying he'd meet with leaders of rogue nations personally." Again, this is true only in the context of doing it without preconditions and within the first year.
Nuances to be debated, yes -- but we shouldn't let the Hannity arse-wipes of the world convince their legions of something that isn't completely true.