Well, who knew that such a primary issue fuss could break out over a voter-submitted debate question about hypothetical meetings with unsavory dictator types from Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria and other such hot spots.
For those who have been on vacation or haven’t been keeping score, the very public spat between the Hillary and Barack camps emerged Monday night at the I/Me/We/Us/YouTube debate and has evolved into broadsides about who has the right stuff to be president.
Is Obama “irresponsible and frankly naive” as Clinton asserted about Obama answering that he would meet without pre-conditions — a rather radical rejection of the Bush administration’s plan or using diplomacy as a ‘with us or against us’ club. Clinton answered the same question in a manner you would expect her to — it played to her strengths to say she wouldn’t meet anyone without all sorts of pre-conditions and other such diplomatic ground work.
Obama chose to fan the flames by going after Clinton for being “irresponsible and naive” to trust George Bush in the first place about the Iraq war — and her diplomatic approach was just more of the same type of thinking. He followed yesterday morning in Concord, saying he “didn’t want Bush-Cheney light” type of diplomacy.
Ouch! Hard to imagine anything more insulting to an intelligent, accomplished and self-respecting Democrat.
Of course there was more.
On CNN yesterday afternoon, Clinton responded with some annoyance: “Well, this is getting kind of silly. I’ve been called a lot of things in my life but I’ve never been called George Bush or Dick Cheney certainly. We have to ask what’s ever happened to the politics of hope?”
In the spirit of the campy Batman show of the 1960s, that was a Bam! Pow! smackdown.
After talking to both camps it’s clear that both have claimed victory laurels and both have gone out of their way to explain to me why this was a defining moment of difference between the candidates. The Obama camp believes the country is hungry for his new and necessary approach for a post 9-11 world and while the Clinton camp believes her experience and leadership and political savvy are the keys to guiding the ship of state in an uncertain world.
This first real showdown was inevitable given the stakes and the sheer amount of media and public attention these two camps get. The media frenzy in the wake of this was fueled by the fact that there’s not that much happening but the day-to-day grind of the campaign — this spat was clearly more interesting to write about than say, the latest town hall meeting in Exeter or Des Moines. (This is why the campaigns of Chris Dodd and Joe Biden didn’t let this fester too long before speaking them out calling them both wrong — the Clinton/Obama hard ball exchange was the media equivalent of an lengthy eclipse for these guys.)
But me thinks this too much ado about what is essentially a style preference in service of a common goal — repairing the damage by the past 6 1/2 years of Bush-inspired inaction and lunacy. Perhaps I am wrong and there’s more than I can see but anybody with a modicum of historical awareness knows there isn’t a one-size fit all approach to diplomacy.
Experience or audacity?
How about a lot of both.
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