Letters to the Editor
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More Clinton Boosting
Why go out of your way to post a piece that spends most of its time guessing that Clinton is probably telling the truth?
In any case, Obama is right on this one. Not only should the President meet with nations we don't like, the President should do it in person. If we are threatening violence, or coups against nations, but don't think they're serious enough to engage face to face, then the USA is a piece of shit coward/bully.
Quick, name all the countries Venezuela and Iran have invaded in the last six years. How many coups did they back? To what locations outside their borders are they flying people to torture? In fact, I don't even know what Hugo Chavez has done to deserve such ire other than refuse to suck the dick of US corporations and accurately describe George Bush -- does that make him unworthy to meet face to face?
It seems we require no values from our leaders, only the ability to navigate the right-wing press and corporate agendas without appearing as vile and George Bush. Big deal.
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This whole discussion is stupid
Any professional negotiator knows that you don't bring the principals into a negotiation until an agreement has been reached at a lower level. Be it a company president or a country president, they don't negotiate, they ratify what has been agreed to (unless, of course, they themselves are amateurs).
However, the important point is that all negotiations are a matter of give and take. So far all I've seen of the American position is all take and no give.
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A flip flop
Its a flip flop. Hedging words and saying "we" stands for her administration etc is BS.
She deserves all the bad press she has gotten for this and probably more.
If shes so upset about this why doesn't she (or maybe we now means her campaign) step forward and clarify what she means exactly...oh but wait that would mean she could no longer live in the obscurity of not giving a direct answer and be held liable for the consequences of her choices as she does to others.
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Re Jeffrey P. Harrison
Maybe other, low-level folks nail out the details of agreements, but visiting heads of state you are threatening, face to face, shows that you aren't just a big-state terrorist.
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Just so long as she's willing to recognize
(if she becomes president) that the US needs to stay as far out of the negotiations between the Koreas as possible. There the US being on the sidelines is a very good thing. Since the cease-fire (there was never even a truce) was not signed by the South Korean government, the North has held, with justification, that the South was a US puppet and refused to negotiate on that basis. Currently, with the South keeping as much distance from the US as possible, negotiations are proceeding better than they have in some time. However, the conservatives, who prefer closer ties with the US, may win the December presidential elections, in which case Kim Jongil will likely get his back up again.
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Inconsistent? Yes.
Is it possible that Clinton has had a change of heart since then and that she now supports both government-to-government diplomacy and personal meetings among the leaders?
It's not that she had a change of heart: it's that she was dissembling when she implied anything different after Obama's debate remark.
Of course she'd be willing to meet with foreign leaders - she's not a mindless ideologue. But the initial criticism of Obama was just an attempt to score points with the "no diplomacy" crowd, not a reasoned policy position.
Therefore, while the criticism of her now is somewhat backward, she has certainly invited it with her own behavior.
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We can figure it out
"We" more often than "I"? Are you joking? Are we stupid?
Why try to tell us what to make of her zig-zags? It's all there in its glorious shiftiness for us to read, and process. Are we sheep to be led to the WR's own truth, when we have our own eyes and ears?
I'm reading this as her being less than honest, but what else is new?
No, I don't think she has changed her mind at all, she is just shifting and weaving to try to match the views of the overwhelming majority of this country who wants real CHANGE in foreign affairs - and Clinton has already demonstrated plenty that she ain't it.
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Thanks...
...for telling us what Hillary actually meant. It might be nice, if you also included the fact that she is full of shit for playing semantic games in order to allow you and the MSM to paint Obama as "naive" or "inexperienced," and to conflate her eight years of sitting on her ass in the White House as governing experience.
I can understand why a Democrat would prefer her to George W. Bush (who, BTW, will not be running again) or Rudy Giulani. Why any Democrat would prefer her to ANY Democrat currently in the race remains a mystery. She's a moderate Republican circa 1975, as far as her politics go.
Oh, and she really doesn't need your help in flooding the media with her message. Even Fox News and Charles Krauthammer are in the tank for her, at least as concern the primaries. She's the only one, to use Krauthammer's phrase, these warmongering fascists could "live with."
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If she flip-flopped, so what?
This whole business of trying to smear candidates as flip-floppers is simply ridiculous. It's a tactic begun by the right wing, and if we engage in that tactic ourselves we're continuing to let the right dictate the rules of the game. Instead of internalizing that tactic, we should mock it for the shallow nonsense that it is, and do all we can to root it out of political discourse.
In real life, "flip-flopping" is commonly known as "changing your mind." That's a good thing; it demonstrates a vibrant, flexible intellect. I like candidates capable of learning, of growing, of yes, changing their minds when circumstances warrant. If Hillary has changed her mind on the issue of negotiations with Iran, good for her. Of course we should negotiate with Iran, or with any other nation with whom we disagree. If Hillary has indeed adopted that sensible position, I'm delighted.