Hillary Rodham Clinton Loses the Matthew Yglesias Primary

Hillary Rodham Clinton attacks Barack Obama

QCTimes.com / Clinton, Obama trade barbs in Quad-City Times interviews: The controversy springs from a question at the YouTube debate asking whether Obama would be willing to meet, without precondition, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea. Obama, an Illinois senator, said he would and called it a break with the Bush administration's diplomatic policies.

Clinton, in the debate, said she would pursue vigorous diplomacy but she wouldn’t make such a promise without knowing the other countries’ intent. “I don’t want to be used for propaganda purposes,” she said. In a telephone interview today, the New York senator went further. Of Obama’s comment, she said: “I thought that was irresponsible and frankly naive.”

Her campaign later circulated a memo to reporters saying it was a “mistake” to commit to presidential-level meetings without precondition "with some of the world's worst dictators" and portrayed her remarks as showing her depth of experience...

In so doing, she loses the Matthew Yglesias primary. He says:

Matthew Yglesias: [This is] unfair and also reflective of a pretty weird and wrongheaded underlying worldview... this... notion that the US can be mortally wounded by perfidious leaders having their photos taken with important American politicians, or that engaging in high-level diplomacy with a country is a reward we offer for good behavior rather than a standard method of relating to the world...

I don't think this was a terribly smart thing for HRC to do.

Comments

[jeff hoffman]

"I don't think this was a terribly smart thing for HRC to do." That may be true but if we can get her for minimum wage it's a deal.

[jeff hoffman]

Politicians in general don't know when to quit pandering their audience, they don't seem capable of setting boundaries or recognizing the lone idiot as such publicly. Hence the earnestness with which the briefs vs boxers question was answered by her husband, and with HRC on youtube the simple answer yes to "Would you work for $5.85/hr". It would be nice to see someone comfortable in their own skin- you know saying something like "and would you like fries with your next supreme court nominee?" Instead the cardboard nature of the persona is illuminated. The knee jerk juxtapositioning against one's adversary's remarks gets over the course of a campaign likewise somewhat tiresome and overreaching. It's as if they have a compulsion to take a stand irrespective of how ill-defined the scenario in question. These people act like students put on the spot in a classroom, compelled to have an answer irrespective of the question, rather than at least attempting to engage in dialogue. Stultifying.

[andres]

Sorry Brad, I can't agree. HRC's position is the wrong position on principle, but principle doesn't win elections. Given the disaster in Iraq, rising fuel prices, and general incompetence, Cuban Americans in Florida might just vote for a Democratic president, or just fail to vote Republican, provided the Democratic president maintains an anti-Castro stance to the hilt. Since Florida is a swing state, this is a hugely important consideration.

And yes, call me a cynic, but at this point I want effective politics before effective policies. The first necessary step to cleaning up the disasters this country has suffered (in Iraq, New Orleans, and its international reputation) is to have a non-Republican president in 2009. And with that general viewpoint I'll take HRC's more realistic campaign politics over Obama's better foreign policy. That doesn't necessarily mean HRC is my preferred Democratic nominee, but on this issue she is right and Obama is wrong.

[andres]

And before any Cuban Americans reading this thread accuse me of encouraging hypocrisy by the Democratic candidates, I should mention that I hate the Castro dictatorship no less than any other dictatorship. The question of what are the best policies to overthrow this dictatorship is another topic of its own.

[dave]

The problem with all this smart politicking is that at some point you need to break with the outgoing Administration's disastrous course, and none of the frontrunners have shown any determination to do that except on what's now the softball issue of Iraq (though Obama's come closest while parroting the bellicose "all options" line on Iran). The choice in 2008 of Bush Lite vs. a home-grown Blair doesn't exactly set the pulse racing.

This election should be about making that break, 1932-style - the best chance Democrats are likely ever to have. Instead it looks like business as usual, with a slightly more human face. We had that under an earlier Clinton, whose Secretary of State considered half a million dead Iraqi children "worth it". The world deserves better.

[glenn]

I doubt anything can derail the HRC freight train at this point - yes, I know, it's well early. But one gets the sense it's destiny. That being said, I'm backing Obama. He's the first politician - oh, I hate to use that term for him and lump with the remainders - in years who actually makes me hope again. And after years and years of disappointment and disenfranchisement, hope feels very, very good. Barack Obama, alone, gets me excited again about our future.

[p.lukasiak]

for quite some time Yglesias has been showing signs of acute Joekleinitis --- a disease brought on by proximity to powerful and influential people, resulting in extreme narcissism characterized by shift in focus from the failings of Republican/conservative policies to the failure of fellow progressive to think exactly like he does.

In its final stages, Joekleinitis has rotted the brain to the point where terminal Broderism renders the patient incapable of any rational critique of conservatism whatsoever.

[Hal]

Do we need to be reminded? Hillary says not what she thinks or what she ought to think but what she thinks people think she ought to think. She grandstands, she plays to the audience, she wants to be all things to most people and she is shameless about it all. She was pro-Palestinian when she was First Lady. She became pro-Israel with a vengeance when she moved to New York. Enough said. You get the idea.

[bakho]

Whoever the Dems nominate is going to be subjected to Swift Boat attacks. It will require a politician who knows how to fight back and fight back the way Clinton did in 1992 in order to win. Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, none of them fought back with vigor. It is impossible to make Fox News or the MSM like any Democrat other than Faux liberals like Combs. The key is to strike fear and respect and to continually attack the media the way GHW Bush staged his attack on Dan Rather while at the same time hammering the weaknesses of the oponent.

[Maynard]

Hillary's more right on this one than Obama. The President should meet regularly with heads of truly important and/or friendly countries. The President should stand up before the cameras with the likes of Fidel Castro only if there is some clear benefit to our country of doing so. Practically speaking, this means that the meeting must ratify some kind of agreement reached beforehand by our diplomats. Send the Secretary of State to Iran without preconditions? Sure. Send the President? Why on earth would you?

I'm beginning to think the difference between Obama and Hillary is not that Obama is principled and Hillary is not; it's that Hillary has had much more experience in the corridors of power than Obama, and therefore has adopted a more nuanced and moderate perspective, especially on foreign policy. I guarantee you that by Obama's second term he will have mellowed in precisely the same way as Hillary has.

[Lewis Carroll]

Andres,

There's only one problem with your analysis, and that is that, as far as 'electability' is concerned, the only thing worse than not staying within the *acceptable* bounds of discourse on dealing with dictators is being exposed as a phony 'flip-flopper':

Via Atrios, Senator Clinton in April:

"The Administration announces it will propose timetables or benchmarks and the Iraqi Prime Minister denounces them. President Bush says we are adjusting tactics but Secretary Rumsfeld insists we are staying the course. The Administration tells Iran and Syria they're responsible for helping keep the peace but won't talk with them about how to do it. We continue to deny evident reality, proceeding with few or no allies and precious little direct communication with people who matter. No wonder the American people think that we are adrift.

...

We have to keep all options on the table, including being ready to talk directly to Iranians should the right opportunity present itself. Direct talks, if they do nothing else, lets you assess who's making the decisions -- what their stated and unstated goals might be. And willingness to talk sends two very important messages. First, to the Iranian people, that our quarrel is with their leaders, not with them; and second, to the international community, that we are pursuing every available peaceful avenue to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

...

But I have thought for a long time we made a mistake not talking directly to North Korea. North Korea's neighbors have long supported direct U.S. --North Korea talks on security matters. In the past, such engagements have prevented the development of plutonium bombs and the testing of long-range missiles. Kim Jong Il needs to hear a single, unified message: choose between nuclear weapons and aid from South Korea, China, and the international community. You cannot have both. Right now, we seem to be relying too much for my taste on China's good will to restrain North Korea. But at the end of the day, Pyongyang will have to hear this message directly from us."

The spin writes itself: she was for talking directly with dictators before she was against it.

[Lewis Carroll]

Andres,

There's only one problem with your analysis, and that is that, as far as 'electability' is concerned, the only thing worse than not staying within the *acceptable* bounds of discourse on dealing with dictators is being exposed as a phony 'flip-flopper':

Via Atrios, Senator Clinton in April:

"The Administration announces it will propose timetables or benchmarks and the Iraqi Prime Minister denounces them. President Bush says we are adjusting tactics but Secretary Rumsfeld insists we are staying the course. The Administration tells Iran and Syria they're responsible for helping keep the peace but won't talk with them about how to do it. We continue to deny evident reality, proceeding with few or no allies and precious little direct communication with people who matter. No wonder the American people think that we are adrift.

...

We have to keep all options on the table, including being ready to talk directly to Iranians should the right opportunity present itself. Direct talks, if they do nothing else, lets you assess who's making the decisions -- what their stated and unstated goals might be. And willingness to talk sends two very important messages. First, to the Iranian people, that our quarrel is with their leaders, not with them; and second, to the international community, that we are pursuing every available peaceful avenue to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

...

But I have thought for a long time we made a mistake not talking directly to North Korea. North Korea's neighbors have long supported direct U.S. --North Korea talks on security matters. In the past, such engagements have prevented the development of plutonium bombs and the testing of long-range missiles. Kim Jong Il needs to hear a single, unified message: choose between nuclear weapons and aid from South Korea, China, and the international community. You cannot have both. Right now, we seem to be relying too much for my taste on China's good will to restrain North Korea. But at the end of the day, Pyongyang will have to hear this message directly from us."

The spin writes itself: she was for talking directly with dictators before she was against it.

[me]

"Whoever the Dems nominate is going to be subjected to Swift Boat attacks."

Kerry says he blew it and should have fought back hard.

Look at poor Max Cleland.

But, maybe this time it will backfire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykux7o5YvEM

Not going well eh Mutt, I mean Mitt.

[rilkefan]

Lewis Carroll, that comparison makes zero sense, since the question was about the president personally talking to foreign leaders. Which is presumably why Obama's campaign is backtracking on this.

[tom f]

Maynard: "Send the Secretary of State to Iran without preconditions? Sure. Send the President? Why on earth would you?"

HRC 04/07 gives a few reasons:

..."And willingness to talk sends two very important messages. First, to the Iranian people, that our quarrel is with their leaders, not with them; and second, to the international community, that we are pursuing every available peaceful avenue to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power."

What is the argument against non-conditional talks with other nations? Since the argument will necessarily lack supporting evidence, it will doubless rely on mystification and obfuscation: "irresponsible", "naive", "propaganda purposes" (that one's particularly rich; a refusal to talk is just as likely to generate propaganda points in Tehran or Pyongyang, as far as I can tell). Bush-league rhetorical fallacies mostly of the ad-hominem variety.

[tom f]

Andres: "I'll take HRC's more realistic campaign politics over Obama's better foreign policy."

The day when appeasing political opponents through triangulation and convictionless moderation was a winning strategy has passed, if it was ever here to begin with.

Today, as I believe in the past, ideological "integrity and conviction"-TM are just as politically pragmatic as ideological appeasement and the "third way"-TM.

[Lewis Carroll]

Rilkefan,

I disagree. Her exact words earlier, regarding speaking with foreign leaders was:

Earlier this year, Senator Clinton claimed: "I think it is a terrible mistake for our president to say he will not talk with bad people. [Associated Press, 4/23/07]."

She specifically rebuked *the President* for saying he won't talk with *bad people*. So the comparison is apt.

[Lewis Carroll]

Rilkefan,

I disagree. Her exact words earlier, regarding speaking with foreign leaders was:

Earlier this year, Senator Clinton claimed: "I think it is a terrible mistake for our president to say he will not talk with bad people. [Associated Press, 4/23/07]."

She specifically rebuked *the President* for saying he won't talk with *bad people*. So the comparison is apt.

[rilkefan]

Again:
"The controversy springs from a question at the YouTube debate asking whether Obama would be willing to meet, without precondition, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea."

You can't, or anyway without applying O'Reilly-level logic, call Clinton at all inconsistent here.

[Lewis Carroll]

Except the point I'm making is that it's exactly O'Reilly-level parsing that makes Obama being willing to meet *without preconditions* with those leaders substantially different from being unwilling to "talk with bad people" have "Pyongyang hear directly from us".

So to me, it's the defender of HRC here who is doing the thin slicing. (Also understand that if HRC was the nominee I would certainly vote for her, so this claim is in no way based on partisanship)

[Lewis Carroll]

sorry, the second part of that should be "being WILLING to "talk with bad people" or have "Pyongyang hear directly from us".

[Lewis Carroll]

sorry, the second part of that should be "being WILLING to "talk with bad people" or have "Pyongyang hear directly from us".

[Hal]

However you parse it the sense of the dispute is that Clinton, like Bush, would refuse to talk (even via surrogates or reps) with "bad" regimes, while Obama would. I don't think the disagreement hinged on the "personally" issue.

[Justin X]

The Clintons are highly skilled at the triangulation dance. This latest dust-up with Obama fits the pattern.

Out of one side of the mouth, she declares her willingness to talk in order to appease the anti-war base of the party. Out of the other side, she breathes fire about not talking with “dictators” in order to show to the hawks of the DLC and the Israel lobby that she is one of them.

She is proving her true colors as a very doubtful and unreliable prospect for leading us out of the quagmire in foreign policy that seven years of Bush-style “diplomacy” has got us into.

[rilkefan]

It seems to me that the question was a bit uninteresting but nevertheless entirely clear and specific, and Obama made a very minor gaffe by answering a different, more general, more important question instead without saying he was doing so. Clinton (and Edwards) then gave the obvious answer to the narrow question, and Obama's camp later had to retreat a bit on what he meant. And Clinton's earlier statement is just the straightforward metonymy that everyone uses and presents the position that everybody here holds.

You can wish a different question had been posed, or that Obama had answered with a bit more awareness of the political danger of not paying attention to its clear if silly intent, but it's just a tiny misstep which no one will remember next week.

[rilkefan]

From HRC's answer at the debate:

"... we need to get back to diplomacy, which has been turned into a bad word by this administration. And I will pursue very vigorous diplomacy, and I will use a lot of high-level presidential envoys to test the waters, to feel the way."

She's not going to personally talk to KJI in the first year of her presidency as a courtesy. Obama's not going to either, as his adviser Axelrod said after the debate: "he was not promising summits with all of those leaders."

[andres]

tom f:

"Andres: "I'll take HRC's more realistic campaign politics over Obama's better foreign policy."

The day when appeasing political opponents through triangulation and convictionless moderation was a winning strategy has passed, if it was ever here to begin with."

I sympathize and even _mostly_ agree with the above, but I keep getting reminded of a saying about consistency and hobgoblins. Contrary to what most people seem to think, I believe the coming presidential election will be close, if only because the Republican nominee will carefully distance himself (if only in rhetoric) from Bush and Cheney (McCain is the only exception, and so far his odds of nomination are deteriorating), and because the majority of middle-income "flyover" America doesn't want to see a _disorderly_ evacuation from Iraq, which is what the Republicans will paint any Democratic winddown proposal as being.

I agree with Lewis Carroll ("Off With Her Head, the selfish, pandering she-so-and-so from Wellesley...")I do not want to see any unnecessary pandering in order for the Democratic nominee to win, but I think HRC or any other Democratic nominee can still secure the important anti-Castro vote in Florida by taking a more nuanced anti-Castro position, something to this effect:

"While I am in principle in favor of maintaining a dialogue with foreign dictators in order to improve US national security, Fidel Castro is an exception given that we have nothing to talk about; he is not endangering US security but he is oppressing and brutalizing his own people, and therefore no possibility of dialogue with him exists."

Something like the above, I think, is the best way to maximize political chances in Florida without appearing to be an amoral Romneyesque panderer. Take your pick.

[bakho]

The debate point itself is not important. How well and how hard Obama fights back is a good indication of his potential against the GOP. This dustup is nothing compared to what the DEM nominee will get in Fall of 2008 when the great rightwing echo chamber is at full blast. If Obama cannot fight off HRC, he won't be able to fight off Rove and his protogees.

[Justin X]

It is time to break the vicious cycle of pandering to the anti-Castro “gusanos” in Florida for the sake of winning the Florida vote and then becoming forever afterwards locked into the delusionary strategy of trying to force “democracy” down the throats of the Cuban people by seeking to overthrow the Castro regime and refusing to “talk” to them.

It is exactly this sort of absurd and self-defeating policy, lasting now for almost 50 years, that the principled approach outlined by Obama seeks to leave behind and holds out the hope of lifting America’s position in the world out of the devastating quagmire that Bush-style "diplomacy" has created.

Moreover, those who continue to advocate support for this moribund electoral strategy to win the Florida vote are badly out of touch with the times, failing to see the opening that now exists for a new approach because of the vastly changed demographics and dynamics of voters in Florida ((well documented, for instance, by surveys done by scholars at U. of Miami and FIU).

[John M 307]

Why do Republican talking points slip in without challenge?

"... the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea."

When I was a child, Sesame Street had a song about one of these things not belonging. Consider the following lists:

Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Albert Einstein, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot

Serial killers, rapists, homosexuals, torturers, suicide bombers

I hope one gets the point about the leader of Venezuela being included with those others.

[andres]

John: it is undeniably true that Chavez has been democratically elected no less than three times in Venezuela. It is also undeniably true that he is shutting down opposition news media, is amending the Bolivarian constitution yet again in order to run for another term, and is presiding over a collapse of the Venezuelan economy that is causing its middle class and business leaders to leave the country, leaving only his own constituents.

For many (though thankfully not most) left-of-center commenters, it is a reflexive stance to support a foreign leader provided that he's against the US government. Not surprisingly, they've been disappointed over and over again when Castro, or Khomeini, or Ortega, and now probably Chavez, turns out not to be the democratic reformer that they dreamed about. It's time to give this knee jerk habit a rest.

[Lewis Carroll]

Rilkefan,

I think that reasonable people can disagree about the degree to which Clinton's past statements and Obama's at the debate represent similar sentiments, as evidenced by the multiple views expressed here by commenters who I consider reasonable.

However, that brings up the meta point, one which I was really addressing when responding to Andres and one which bakho alludes to here as well. That is that if the views are arguably similar enough that we here can reasonably disagree on them, then that represents ample material for 'flip-flopping' charges by knuckle-draggers later on, which is highly relevant to Andres' comment about the political utility of various positions.

Now you and I know that if the Wurlitzer will attempt to paint reasonable changes in e.g. Senate voting decisions that took place under vastly different circumstances as some kind of dishonest inconsistency, then think of the fodder provided by what even some members of the reality-based community consider a somewhat inconsistent position.

If this seems like a victory for simple, non-nuanced thinking, you may be correct. But unfortunately we need to think in terms of winning before we can actually accomplish anything. Hence my comment was more about the political reality than about the degree to which Clinton was really being inconsistent or disingenuous.

[rilkefan]

"Hence my comment was more about the political reality than about the degree to which Clinton was really being inconsistent or disingenuous."

I readily admit I am less able to assess the political reality than actual reality. It seems to me that Obama is more in danger of a flip-flopping charge here, esp. with Richardson disagreeing with him today. Clinton can rely on what seems to me the irrefutable and obvious-enough-for-the-hoi-polloi-and-even-the-press argument that her position is and always has been that diplomacy is important but the prestige of the presidency shouldn't be used senselessly.

How HRC manages to negotiate her vote for the AUMF, the continuing disaster in Iraq, and the movement to withdrawal on the one hand, and how Obama manages to reconcile his "new politics" with the need to appear strong and principled on the other, seem to me the interesting points, not MY's sometimes iffy reading comp.

[andres]

Although this debate is winding down, I would like to address the arguments made by Justin X, especially as they did more than a little to tick me off. Justin's position reminds me of the blinkered ideological intransigence of so many left-wing political parties around the world which has cost them any number of elections and even provoked military coups.

The Cuban American vote in Florida is not necessarily a negative, and I find Justin X's view of Cuban Americans as "gusanos" is more than a little stereotypical--most Cuban Americans are not "gusanos" in the sense of advocating violence, terrorism, or even embargo to overthrow Castro and turn back the clock in Cuba to 1958, and to call any Cuban American a gusano is akin to accusing a white southerner of being a Klan member without any factual evidence. What Cuban Americans of all stripes want is some sort of return to democracy and civil rights in Cuba, and I'm not surprised that they will turn their backs to any candidate who they think might legitimize Castro.

And foreign policy-wise, the US does not _need_ to hold a dialogue with Castro. The Cuban government is not building nuclear reactors, does not harbor Al-Qaeda style terrorists, and is not threatening any of its neighbors with military aggression, so it simply doesn't have the priority that North Korea, Iran, and Syria do. There is therefore no foreign policy "loss" in refusing to speak with the Castro regime the way there is in refusing to negotiate with Kim Jong Il or Iran's government.

Cuban Americans may no longer be the largest minority in Florida, if they ever were, but I think it is a mistake to write them off as unreconstructed right-wingers who will never vote Democratic. I fully grant that embargo and diplomatic non-recognition are totally counterproductive in bringing an end to the Castro regime, but such policy is better reversed _after_ the Cuban American community has been convinced that it is counterproductive.

Ok. Hopefully I've made my case that I'm not in favor of pandering, but that I am strongly urging that the Democratic candidates lean in favor of pragmatism in order to get elected and prevent Republicans from perpetrating even more catastrophes. If that means bending principle even though there's very little if any actual damage done, so be it.

[Lewis Carroll]

"I readily admit I am less able to assess the political reality than actual reality."

Well, given that my original comment was about the POLITICS of it, that would seem to be the problem.

Again, my point was that Andres' point about the political value of *sounding tough* needed to be balanced against the political possibility of being portrayed as as inconsistent.

If you don't like the fact that HRC could easily be portrayed as such, take it up with the GOP and its various spinmeisters.