Countries always have had to talk to other countries especially their enemies. I invite anyone who questions this statement to review the history. Read the texts from the Egyptians, Assyrians, Hittites, and Babylonians on their relations with their neighboring kingdoms. Read the Romans - Caesar, Suetonicus, Pliny the elder, Cicero. As a side note, it was Cicero who said - Nervos belli, pecuniam infinitam - the sinews of war, an unlimited supply of money. You could then proceed to Machiavelli's The Prince and Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Then... well hopefully you get the idea and I haven't gotten past the 1700s. Anyone who thinks you don't have to talk to thine enemies is either a dangerous fool or blinded by imperial hubris - who I would also call a dangerous fool.

When I hear idiots like McCain and Shrub (there's a reason why he was a 'C' student) ask resoundingly stupid questions like "What do we have to talk to these people about?", I want to scream at the monitor/TV set/Radio - Ask 'em why they're doing this, that, or something else, ask 'em what it would take to get them to stop, find out what we can do that might ameliorate the situation, etc. etc and for God's sake don't be blinded by your own preconceptions. There's lots and lots of stuff we can talk to these guys about. Unfortunately, I've also been a professional negotiator in business. As such, I recognize that several elements must be present before a negotiation can be successful. First and foremost of these elements is the acceptance that your interlocutor has legitimate, valid interests that they will be defending. This element is not currently present on the American side. The American side is dominated by an imperial arrogance that essentially says that if a country's interests run counter to American interests, they are illegitimate. If the country in question declines to relinquish their "illegitimate" interests, they risk sanctions, economic or otherwise (the list of these countries is too long to include here), a coup (Iran, Vietnam, and, most recently Palestine and probably others), the creation/arming of insurgent groups and/or the countries enemies (Iraq against Iran, the mujahadeen in Afghanistan when it was occupied by the Russians, the countras in El Salvador, and others), or, if all else fails, trump up some excuse and just attack them ourselves (the list of countries we've attacked in the last 40 years is also pretty extensive). This approach works better if you haven't sold your soul for oil and you're living within your means. I've often said that we may be the most powerful nation in the world but we aren't more powerful than the rest of the world.

Lest ye think I would only excoriate the Republicans ... Three Names is a rank amateur. Nobody with two brains to rub together agrees to negotiations with preconditions. Those aren't negotiations, those are dictating of terms. Three Names has the imperial arrogance to think that we can do that at this point. Regrettably, she's wrong. And Mr. Obama's complaint that Hamas controls Gaza is amusing. I assume that the fact that Hamas was democratically elected by the Palestinian people is merely an inconvenience. Somebody in the State Department forgot to tell the Palestinians which group was the correct group to elect. Of course, it didn't help matters that the government of which Mr. Obama is a part attempted to foment a coup in Palestine by arming the Fatah which pissed Hamas off so much they took over Gaza. Really, the irony of the US trying to overthrow the democratically elected government in elections we insisted on is pretty breathtaking. We seem to have lost our touch at pulling off all our old tricks.

And finally, two countries have peace treaties with Israel. Those two treaties were obtained by talking. Not by rigid silence or demanding preconditional concessions.

I think this is a tempest in a tea pot. There are common monikers used to identify people whose name you don't know and those monikers are different depending on what part of the country you come from. To be blunt, in my opinion, to take offense when none is meant is usually mean spirited or egocentric or both. Mr. Obama has sweetie, coming from a more formal environment, mine is ma'am.

But I've learned that you can almost always find somebody who will take offense regardless of what you call them (including their names). So I devised a solution. A few years before I retired, the company I worked for went on this rant about sexism and racism and, as usual, your intent was unimportant. All that was important was how the other party took it. Since I knew there were plenty of people in this world like you who will take offense at a word regardless of intent, I was pretty pissed about it. So thereafter, you became either a Labor Unit or a CBLF (Carbon Based Life Form). Non-sexist. Non-racist. Dead Accurate. Ridiculous? Yup. Somewhat dehumanizing? Yup. But you asked for it and you got it. I was just makin' sure. And the fact that I was pissed and the company ranting helped.

And Three Names is a lousy one. She's probably one of the best examples I can name of a politician who will say whatever she thinks you want to hear and then do whatever she wanted to in the first place. Not something I find desirable in a politician.