Centerfield

Yes, Obama has committed only to talking, but now talking with preparations for talking. I agree with you cmpletely. And like Kerry, Biden and others, Hillary stands by much of her original logic for voting for the resolution to approve force. Her positions are a bit more elaborate than talking. She also stands by Kerry's, Obama's, Edwards, Gore's, Biden's and other's declaration on Iran. It is there in the Senate Reocrd.

It's easy to oppose a war you don't vote on, then spin it differently about the time you give a keynote speech for Kerry on the mentorship of Lieberman in 2004, while talking tough on Iran. You even mention nukes. Hillary's actual record is fairly clear and it appears her gravest sin now in the light of the Left's base-control is that she trusted Bush, rather than promoted a cogent view based on the same information most other Democrats based their vote on. There are numerous policy statements Hillary gave concerning the mistakes in Iraq as far back as 2004, the importance of sanctions and American leadership in containing Iran, on Darfur, on Somalia, on Hamas, on Russia, on China and other hotspots. You propose such a strange observation about talking, it seems Colbertish.

We have been talking to Iran. We talk to the Russians and Chinese, NK and Pakistanis all the time. We have talked to Syria. I think you meant "why does talking to rogue regimes (legitimize them?" It doesn't if its not a joke or with criminals. should we talk to Ouds or Hamas that teaches children to kill Zionists? Should we talk to enmeies in a meaningful way with what preparation that habor terrorists or defy the international community? At least with the Soviets there was quid pro quo. And what do we do when said regimes refuse to talk? Should we continue to talk to the Taliban as the murder and inflame? How long should this talking take palce? How long should it continue? Will common ground be verified? What common ground should trump human rights Mr. Obama?

Why Hillary voted yes

What record does Hillary have?

A view from the Right as why Hillary is vilified on the Left

Serious questions demand serious answers. Do you support sanctions Senator Obama on Iran and what would you do to prevent a nuclear Iran in the next 18 months? Do you have a position of the role of terrorism in Iranian foreign policy?

What will you do to prevent militants and AQ from reestablishing their position in Iraq? What will you do to prevent conflict in Lebanon?

What role will Malley, Zbig, Lake, Rice have in deciding your policy? What role do they play now?

Senator Obama what do you mean by taking resources from Iraq and putting them in the "battle field of Pakistan"? How will you react to more deals for the Taliban and militants by the new government in Pakistan?

These are just a few questions that require far more committment than "talking". The are numerous paths. As you can see, Hillary usually provides positions Obama graviates to. Her record is quite open to review.

"And like Kerry, Biden and others, Hillary stands by much of her original logic for voting for the resolution to approve force."

I am not talking about agreeing with their vote per se, but rather their logic at the time. The logic behind the vote is a different question than "knowing what you know now, would you have voted for the resolution?" To my knowledge, Kerry, Biden and a number of others still stand by the "reasoning" they considered at the time of the resolution and all, believe the information at the time and the sanctions of dangers of ending, were sufficientto give GB the benefit of the doubt while expressing clear reservations.

Just a note.

There is a point here and I believe Patrick started in on the Broken Soul meme first, yes? If we can fix our souls, then maybe we have something to "talk" about.

Jeez Max, with 3 posts in a row, I would have thought you might have managed to counter at least ONE of the points I made. Hillary's speech was mostly vapid. And where it actually was substantive, it was common and uncontroversial.

I don't necessarily challenge the notion that voting to support the war resolution was at least defensible. That's why I've never called anyone an ass for it.

But recall how eager you've been to point out that invading Iraq showed in retrospect that sanctions were effective.

In retrospect, they also showed that our eagerness to invade was unwarranted, right? And that certainly does suggest that folks may have been more willing to take intelligence reports at face value than they ought to have been.

I mean, it made sense for you or me, citizens in such a spot, to say, well, I don't get to see the reports, so I have to trust they're good. But congressfolk. I mean, our intelligence was way off, and that's not the direct fault of congress, of course. But it still reflects poorly on the body that few folks took time to care about how thin the gruel was. That would have taken lots of hard work and bad publicity and courage.

You did aswell job belittling the notion of talk. Now if you could, as Hillary's great defender, please explain to me what's so great about preconditions. I still think the differences are cosmetic, and you have not refuted that.

The main contribution of pre-conditions, as far as I can see, is that if the other party meets them, it demonstrates a willingness (nay, an eagerness) to reach some kind of agreement. Otherwise, we'd just have to talk and see if we could manage to find some common ground.

In short, we'd have to actually persuade the other party, rather than going in knowing that they were eager to buy. Any salesman will tell you that the former requires much more work. Actually, most salesmen will tell you that the former is actually about finding new customers, while the latter is just letting people have something that both you and they know they already want.

So what would talks with no pre-conditions get us? Maybe nothing -- and expectations would need to be managed to reflect that. But it would vastly expand the number of places where we would have a chance to making progress on something. Not a certainty, of course, but at least a chance that wouldn't exist otherwise.

Dictionary:
government
(gŭv'ərn-mənt) pronunciation

n.

   1. The act or process of governing, especially the control and administration of public policy in a political unit.
   2. To do nothing while you're pretending you are doing something

Kritter you can read my response to "Brian" over at SF, especially about your confusion on the nature of sanctions and intervention in "Why I dint"

Preconditions? Here are some

And like I didn't call this one

Kool Aid drinkers will see nothing in this. Good for you. Obama is worried many Jewish voters will defect. Unfortunately for him, many Jewish voters are fairly inteliigent and can see through much of the Obama rhetoric. They have computers and can read Obama's AIPAC statemnt for themselves. Even past statements where that NEOCON OBama threatened to nuke Iranian nuclear facilities. Talk about pandering and flip-flopping......

Hey, this was a thread about silly Hillary. She is as silly as Obama is smart, yes? Just supplying context here Kritter.....

Max, are you actually saying that Cuba is a good example to support the notion of the effectiveness of refusing to talk with enemies? You can't be serious.

It's not clear to me what you object to in your second link. That Obama has stated mostly support for Israel sounds right to me. That he was also willing to demonstrate that he wouldn't pander to the most hawkish among the jewish lobby seems like just another good signal to me. Obviously your mileage varies, since you're trumpteting what amounts to a close parsing of the semantics he chose.

If you could see your way clear to stop suggesting I'm a kool-aid drinker, I'd appreciate it.

Well, if I go into the details I get accused of ranting. Obama's flip-flopping is obvious and like I said, he is putting some distance in between some advisors. Malley, Powers, Zbig. Great stuff. That leaves Lake and Rice?

And yes, call us Hillary supporters Likudites...LOL.

Even Obama said in the last debate "preparations" must be made in the case of Cuba. Did you miss that one? And Castro replied that nothing should change in Cuba. Castro that is, not his brother.

Preparations for talking to Iran (though we have talked on limited issues).

Again, words are cheap. Obama voted against sanctions on Quds while telling AIPAC he was in favor of tough sanctions. He talks about Iraq hurting our deterrence towards Iran, What is the policy besides talking? Explain Obama's remark about using nukes on Iran. Was that some pandering or what? Now he's mum on terminating Imad the terrorist? And how much talking has the UN done in disarming Hizb'Allah? Or getting Iran to halt enrichment and come clean? I guess these questions just come from a Lukid supporter. I wonder how Obama will asnwer that question when McCain asks.

Obama's just traniangulating and well, we know what Hillary's views are. Just read the record at the link above. She hasn't flip-floped around half as much. Give the importance of words, why should inspection of them not be valid? And as I said, Obama has stated many things. They are all as open to debate as the reason Hillary gave for supporting the resolution in 2002. No one's opposing the parsing of those words or strategies.

I guess this is something only the extreme Israel supporters reflect upon. This guy traveled with impunity between Iran and Lebanon stoking war and terror. I would like to know if the US should have talked to this guy or if his effort is worth defeating today, tomorrow or in 18 months. For starters, demand the implimentation of the UN mandate in Lebanon to disarm Hizb'Allah. Prevent Quds from creating a bigger terror threat. Real problems involve real answers and to call such position Lukid in nature is rubbish. Clinton supports the right of Israeli self-defense from taking out facilities designed to create the means to destroy her and the people who declare quite openly their desire to support such efforts. Lucky they hit Saddam's nuclear project, yes?

I can only remember the scene right now where Jack asks the Martians, "can't we all be friends"....and then zap. Clearly signals were important to JFK and Reagan. Nader's observations reflects the political tactics of Obama in this matter and we are left to wonder about the real strategies. Instead, some want to rail against Clinton with a unique measure, not the ruler we can place on Obama. That is the point I've been trying to make here.

All of Obama's positions fit in with his whole package cohesively, wheras Hillary lacks vision, and therefore she comes out disjointed ...every day 'a new way' and her policies do not weave in to the whole picture. Obama is a generational candidate; before him there was Reagan. Before that there was JFK. Before that there was FDR. McCain is solid too. Alot of people don't realise how he understood early on the need for Petraeus and a counter-insurgency strategy. Dubya didn't get it. Hillary doesn't get it. But Obama vrs McCain is the fight of the century.