My boss didn't like what I wrote about Barack Obama's YouTube debate performance--that is, his promise to meet with the thuggish leaders of North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and Venezuela in his first year as president (should he be elected). But what's fortunate is that at The Nation website I get to have my say, and then editor Katrina vanden Heuvel can have hers. She writes,

David may well be right that Obama's opponents will try to exploit his response. But from a foreign policy point of view was Obama's response so wrong and Clinton's so right? Her husband's administration generally followed Hillary's approach; during his two terms President Clinton did not meet with Fidel Castro or with Hugo Chavez or with the leaders of Iran, Syria, and North Korea -- while generally pursuing a policy of trying to isolate these countries. But what did the Clinton approach actually accomplish? The respective regimes of Castro in Cuba and Chavez in Venezuela have only grown stronger, and more influential in Latin America. Although Syria was forced to withdraw its military forces from Lebanon last year, the regime of Bashar Assad is as firmly entrenched in power as was his father's. And in spite of the odious politics and qualities of Ahmadinejad, Iran carries more weight in the Middle East than it did doing the early 1990s while American power and standing has declined considerably....

In signaling that he was willing to meet with the leaders of these countries, Obama was signaling that the United States has the confidence in its values to meet with anyone. But he also signaled a certain humility that reflects the understanding that the next president must reach out to the rest of the world and not merely issue conditions from the White House and threaten military force if it does not get its way.

Well, my point was that this was indeed a blunder because it could be used against Obama. Moreover, one need not promise to meet with these heads of state without any conditions in order to eschew Bush unilateralism and to reach out to the rest of the world. Hillary Clinton and John Edwards got the question right. They vowed to mount diplomatic initiatives that could lead to top-level talks. The choice is not a presidential meeting with Kim Jong Il or an invasion of North Korea. And let's make the question a simple one: if there was nothing wrong with Obama's answer (as he gave it), should he continue to say the same thing? Does anyone believe that promising to meet with Ahmadinejad right away will win Obama more votes than it will cost him? I doubt we will hear Obama reiterate this promise. Why? Because he knows the answer to that simple question.

By the way, after the debate, Obama's campaign disseminated a memo saying, "On issues of national security, Obama made clear that making America safer would require using tough diplomacy with countries like Iran and North Korea that have seen dramatic expansions of their nuclear programs during the seven years of the Bush presidency." During the debate, though, that's not how Obama put it. He did not call for "tough" diplomacy and did not raise the issue of Iranian and North Korea nukes. Certainly, "tough" diplomacy does not entail offering presidential meetings before the negotiating begins.

I write the above and the original piece as someone who is not rooting for Obama to fail. But it's clear to me he's going to have to be both bolder in his overall campaign strategy and more careful in his responses to questions about foreign policy, an area in which he has good instincts but not a lot of working experience.

THOSE WHO CAN'T DO.... The back of the front section of Tuesday's Washington Post contained a full-page ad for a Get Motivated seminar scheduled to be held in Washington in September. For $49, you will be able to hear Steve Forbes, Dr. Robert Schuller, Sugar Ray Leonard and Zig Ziglar share their secrets of success. (Steve Forbes: First, be born to a millionaire.) Also on the list of speakers is Colin Powell. The ad says, "Drawing from his experience on the world stage, Gen. Powell shows you precisely what it takes to be a leader, providing strategies for 'taking charge' during times of great change." Moreover, the ad promises that Powell will teach you "How to Improve Processes, Organizations and People," How to Forge Winning Alliances," and "Keys to Creating Diplomatic Solutions."

Hmmm, forging winning alliances and creating diplomatic solutions? Making organizations work better? Seems to me that Powell should have taken courses in all this before becoming Secretary of State and enabling George W. Bush's war in Iraq, which Powell now says he tried to talk Bush out of. (Which means he failed when it came to perhaps the most important task of his career.) Powell, I'm assuming, will receive tens of thousands of dollars for relating pearls of wisdom to the I-wanna-get-motivated crowd. Perhaps he ought to donate his fee to the families of those American soldiers wounded and killed in Iraq.

Posted by David Corn at July 25, 2007 11:04 AM