This is the kind of change Obama’s talking about
I keep vowing to take a break from talking about Obama (and talking about Obama talking), but I can’t help it. He’s keeps saying things that cry out for commentary.
So if you’ve been wondering what sort of change Obama’s talking about, it’s this sort of thing:
Obama contrasted his plan to break nearly half a century of deadlock in U.S.-Cuba relations with the stated intentions of Republican rival Sen. John McCain. He said the Arizona senator “joined the parade of politicians who make the same empty promises year after year, decade after decade” when he promised Tuesday to maintain the status quo of refusing any dialogue with the Cuban leadership.
“Instead of offering a strategy for change, he chose to distort my position, embrace George Bush’s, and continue a policy that’s done nothing to advance freedom for the Cuban people,” Obama said…
After eight years of “disastrous” Bush administration policy, “It is time to pursue direct diplomacy, with friend and foe alike, without preconditions,” he said, adding that the time and place would be of his choosing.
Gee, I somehow didn’t notice our Cuban policy—which has been in place for almost fifty years—was the handiwork of the nefarious George Bush.
And there’s that “without preconditions” bit again. Oh, but soon he’ll be saying he didn’t say it. Or he didn’t mean it. Or at any rate that we’re not allowed to criticize it. That would be racist.
And lay off Michelle, while you’re at it.
Neo,
Me too. I keep telling myself, I’m not going to keep blogging about Obama but he keeps saying these kinds of things.
“George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists,…”
It is time to pursue direct diplomacy, with friend and foe alike, without preconditions.”
Flat contradictions, overt lies, and 1984 doublespeak about summarizes Obama’s candidacy so far. Oh yeah, and constant repeat accusations that if you challenge or criticize him, you’re a racist.
One hopes that when his heads stops spinning, it’ll be facing forward…
Sure is nice having the media in the tank… you can say anything… and not get called on it.
Madame Senator would be a fool to fold her tent before Denver burns… I mean until the body mass challenged lady sings at the convention.
Obama is a trainwreck.
I don’t think he really knows what foe means. What it means to have an enemy. That animus can be more serious than rage against the Republican.
I say the same thing…then he says something incredibly stupid, yet again. Then I can’t help it. It is like watching a car wreck. The other thing I giggle about until I can’t breathe is the minions who hang and swoon on his every word, no matter how inane, uninformed, arrogant and downright dangerous some of them are!
Not since Elvis have we had such entertainment!
If elected, Obama will need an entire Ministry of Truth to keep pace with all his lies that will need papering over. Fortunately he already has an army of willing apparatchiks in the MSM.
What has become of that fierce truth teller, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright? It was April 30th that Sen. Obama disowned his undisownable pastor. Since that day not one public word have we heard from Rev. Wright, who on April 29th gave every indication he would courageously speak the truths of God and Man, no matter the damage those truths might do to the popularity of his former congregant. Why so silent? How, in order to do honor to the truths he knew that day, can he remain silent? Will he return to the public one day to vindicate those truths? Will that day fall before the next national election day?
You don’t need to read any stinkin bill in congress to draw a big paycheck for voting here, and you don’t need no stinkin American/World history to run for POTUS on the democrat ticket. Hussein O is living proof of that. Is there a third grader in the country that doesn’t know more about the history of the World and especially the United States than Hussein O?
I’m black (actually half white, half Arab) and the white chicks want my body and the white guys envy me. What else do I need? I’ll get the rest under the desk in the oval office. Knee placement prints are already established. My VP (if Shrillary) will get first chance, well it doesn’t matter what sex, they’ll get the chance. Proven in the back of a car while doing coke in 1999.
The good rev has a book coming out in October. Why should he blow his wad now?
Hi Vince! 🙂
Hi Barb !
I don’t think he really knows what foe means. What it means to have an enemy.
You nailed it, NJ. When the worst “enemy” one has experienced is the gentleman from across the aisle in the Senate, it can be hard to understand that there are people out there who actually want our blood. Literally. Who would stop at nothing to destroy us. Who are not amenable to negotiations. For all his faults, McCain understands this. I think Hillary might, too. Obama? I haven’t seen one shred of evidence that he does.
Sorry about the bold. One of these days, I’ll figure out how to use the HTML codes…
I think you’re right to caution against diving into talks without preparation, but totally wrong to suggest that we ought to place preconditions on talks with our adversaries. Preconditions generally speaking mean talks will never occur — it’s not a “tough” negotiating stand, it’s merely stonewalling. Preparations, on the other hand, at lower levels, I DO think is a reasonable critique of Obama — though I think it is a critique he is already reacting to and incorporating into his thinking.
Stonewalling is what some guys definitely deserve. In more professional language this is called isolation, and in certain circumstances it is more powerful tool of diplomacy than talks. Who said the diplomacy always means talks? To its advantage, a superpower do not need to talk with everybody at any moment. And wisely choosing when and to whom have a talk is a leverage to pursue its interests.
Recently I read a lesson in diplomacy which Baloo the Bear gives to Mowgli, who, beeng ignorant and naive, made a blunder talking with Monkey-People:
“They boast and chatter and pretend that they are a great people about to do a great affairs in the Jungle, but a falling of a nut turns their minds to laughter and all is forgotten. We of the Jungle have no dealing with them. We do not drink where monkeys drink; we do not go where monkeys go; we do not hunt where they hunt; we do not die where they die. Hast thou ever heard me speak of the Bandar-log, till to-day?”
‘No,’ said Mowgli in a whisper, for the forest was very still now Baloo has finished.
‘The Jungle-People put them out of their mouths and their minds. They are very many, evil, dirty, shameless, and they desire, if they have any fixed desire, to be noticed by Jungle-People. But we do NOT notice them even when they throw nuts and filth on our heads.’
This I also call a diplomacy – and a reasonable one.
Could someone from the Obama camp please explain to me what, in their view, we could reasonably expect to get from talks with either Raul/Fidel or the mullahs? All the argument seems to be over talk/no talk, but nobody that I’ve read has laid out an objective if talks were in fact held. Even with no “preconditions”, it’s nice to have an agenda. If we’re just going to talk for talk’s sake, without some goal in mind, we might as well save our breath, because I guar-an-tee that the other side will have a very clear goal in mind, and it won’t be to make us look good.
Right, no preconditions for talking to blatantly upfront, wholly dedicated and active deadly enemies… The only things the poison dwarf and Hugo want to talk to us about is our capitulation or compromise of our core values to their agenda. Issuing an ultimatum to these gangsters need not require a personal meeting with our Commander in Chief, the U.N. is already a more appropriate venue than these bums deserve… No preconditions for meeting has long been a hallmark of sham negotiations, which only ended in tragedy for many innocents, a list of which need not waste time and space here…
Obama is a new kind of leader. The kind that follows around despots wherever they may be.
The man is like a thug magnet!
Mitsu Says:
“Preconditions generally speaking mean talks will never occur”
Not at all. They mean your going to be close to signing a real agreement (that’s mostly been pre worked out at other levels).
Bill Clinton was well warned before his attempt to put Arafat and Ehud Barak together at Camp David not to go forward without agreement in advance. He ignored the warnings, the summit failed and the outcome was Intifada. Just as he had been warned would happen. Lots of people died as a consequence and the damage done, the hardening feelings created by these events remain an obstacle to peace to this day. Thanks Bill. We couldn’ta done it without ya.
Sounds like Mitsu’s in the tank for Obama.
The blunt fact is that negotiations are not some magic bullet for solving problems with international thugs like Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong-Il.
A summit with the president of the United States is a huge carrot that should only be offered if there is a high probability of success. Preconditions are one way of making sure some positive effect is gained.
Otherwise it’s a waste of the president’s time, it offers legitimacy to some of the worst actors on the planet and gains them time to continue to pursue their agendas, leaving the US to look the fool.
Mitsu seems to live in the leftist world where the only obstacle to peace is the United States, particularly President Bush and his “stonewalling.”
huxley Says:
“The blunt fact is that negotiations are not some magic bullet for solving problems with international thugs like Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong-Il.”
That’s a Hillary esq Freudian verbal confab. 🙂
The blunt fact is that a magic bullet… that could hit them both… would solve international problems… with thugs like them… and maybe scare a few others into better behavior.
“I think you’re right to caution against diving into talks without preparation, but totally wrong to suggest that we ought to place preconditions on talks with our adversaries. Preconditions generally speaking mean talks will never occur…”
Well, in WWII, we had a precondition of formally discussing surrender with the Japanese- that the Emperor be removed. We were also willing to let that go since we got everything else. and realized (thank you MacArthur) that it would be better to keep him in place rather than dethrone him. Now THAT’s negotiating. It is also NOT what Obama is talking about. Also, let’s be honest- we talk to everyone one way or another, through formal or informal channels, word gets around. The line that the Republicans are no talk warmongers is preposterous.
Besides, there have been plenty of times where talking has only gotten us in more trouble (Kennedy-Kruschev, April Glaspie-Saddam for instance).
The Japanese case is actually pretty interesting. We were pressing for unconditional surrender and the Japanese Cabinet knew that the war was lost, but they were afraid the Americans would come in and execute the Emperor. That was, by most historical accounts, the last stumbling block in the way of surrender. The war dragged on for months while this impasse continued, and the Japanese didn’t even surrender after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Finally, however, Roosevelt’s government came up with the face-saving approach of *referring to the Emperor* in one of their communiques, saying “the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied powers” which War Secretary Stimson later acknowledged was an attempt on the part of the United States to hint to the Japanese that they weren’t going to immediately get rid of the Emperor upon surrender. In effect, it was a conditional surrender made out to look like an unconditional surrender. The Japanese Cabinet seized on that phrase and correctly interpreted it as a hint that the Americans were willing to let the Emperor live after the war, and that was what broke the logjam.
I am not necessarily saying the Americans should have worked this scenario differently, but it is certainly arguable that the war could have ended sooner and perhaps without the use of nuclear weapons had the Americans been willing to negotiate sooner.
As for: what purpose would there be in engaging the Cubans or the Iranians? Perhaps none. However, if, as Neo I think wisely warns, preparations are made in advance, there’s no reason to think neogiations would necessarily be fruitless. it seems to me, for example, now that Fidel is gone, there is a possibility for liberalization within Cuba, motivated by economic incentives, which might help the Cuban people by democratizing their country. Of course, it could well fail and perhaps is likely to fail, but I don’t see reason to think it would necessarily fail.
As for Iran: there has been a strong anti-mullah sentiment in Iran and still is. Negotiations may not directly create immediate results but might moderate Iran’s political situation, making it possible for future liberalization to become more likely.