I LOVED that clip! I am so looking forward to the GE. Obama is going to make mincemeat of McCain.

My thread did get invaded though by someone who wants us all to vote for McCain in the fall, so it's good to see it front paged too.

That's not debating skills, as he's not debating. My number 1 hope in the general, though, is that he DOES hone his debating skills, as they are in serious need of improvement.

He's his own worst enemy in that regard, in a way. He's so good on the stump and in front of crowds, you just assume he's gonna be a good debater. SO expectations are always high, then he gets there and - doesn't exactly stammer listlessly - but goes way too far in that direction. Makes me cringe.

Priority place for work, there, IMHO.

"Could well be will be a winning strategy"

Fixed that for you.

and I believe far from alone.

I agree - Mojo

Without Clinton's tough stuff, Obama would be a weak er nominee by far...

Clinton has him primed, focused, and determined to push through whatever obstacles are placed in his path.

She forced him to campaign in places he might not have. She forced that Wright thing to come out in March and not 5 days before the general. She enabled Obama to put together ground support in more states than he would have. And she made him demonstrate and perfect his ability to come back from attacks. Those are some of the ways that the prolonged primary season will benifit us in the Fall.

No, you are not alone.  What she did has helped make Obama into a better candidate, and I thank her for it.

Their attempts to fool us have been criminal, and I'm eagerly awaiting the investigations.  The tactics used to manipulate the media, from leaking reports then referring to those leaked reports as support on the air, to the military analyst scandal, are all actionable, and only the tip of the propaganda campaign of the Bush administration.

The tone has changed, and we can win the debate because the jingoism, the drumbeats of perpetual war, has faded, so the neocons just cannot shout us down this time.  The flak machines that we usually see come out to counter the democratic response are no longer effective...case in point, the imbecile Kevin James.

I'm looking forward to the Obama-McCain debates, and I hope Bush keeps spouting off too.  Having someone with his meager abilities and abyssmal approval rating go against Obama is only a good thing for us.

Listen again -- he pointed out that both Reagan and Bush's Secretary of State supported direct negotiations with Iran.  He's de-boning their arguments against his position.

... would undoubtedly support him.

Your opinion is fine, if you want it. But your facts are wrong.

And there are scads of experts, including Clinton supporter and Amanpour spouse Jamie Rubin, who in his McCain-crushing op-ed pointed out that OF COURSE you meet with your enemies. It's the option of conflict resolution other than war.

Frankly, if we stopped giving terrorists the PR pull of being bona-fide "enemies of the US" as if cave-rats like Bin Laden were somehow equal to the Soviet Menace, and instead treated them like the criminals and thugs they were, we'd a) get more support on the world stage b) stop this system where we attack these thugs, they get more powerful, and end up running the country. (See Iran (remember, Mahmoud started doing well when Bush took him on), Lebanon (Hezbollah), Gaza (Hamas) and Iraq (al Sadr.)

Frankly, at this point, I'll settle for anything other than what we're currently doing. How could it go worse?

Your entitled to it.

I think you're wrong.

That's my opinion.

I am very passionate about Obama's engagement position.  We have a history of sitting down with our 'enemies', and discussing differing positions, trying to forge consensus and common ground. When these discussions occur, generally, much of the global and fringe chatter dissipates and we find some agreement. See FDR/Stalin, WW2 ends; Nixon/China, China opens; Reagan/Gorb, Cold War ends. When did we become afraid of our own greatness? Since the Cold War, it seems we have stuck our head in the sand, and waited for the world to engage US. To me, what better way to show the true strength of the American experiment than to engage those that openly and vehemently despise you?

So - historically, we HAVE sat down with our enemies ... why is this any different?  Hamas disgusts me, but - they ARE DEMOCRATICALLY elected.  What to do ... but have a conversation?!?

It's disappointing to see Dems buying into the Neocon world view on this. Was Kennedy incoherent when he sat down one on one with Khrushchev? Was that raging leftist Nixon incoherent when he sat down with Mao? Surely, the leader of Iran is no worse than those leaders, in fact not even close! In retrospect, we view those as moments that helped increase our safety and push the dialogue with those countries forward.

Jamie Rubin and John McCain:

RUBIN: "Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?"

McCAIN: "They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."

So how does McCain win this debate now?

Here are some serious foreign policy/national security experts who support Obama's position:

Colin Powell, Brent Scowcroft, James A. Baker, Robert Gates. Anybody want to add anyone I missed?

Oh, by the way, Israel regularly talks with its enemies though they tend not to admit it publicly.

Can you explain why it's bad to negotiate with Iran, but is good to do so with North Korea?  I mean, they're essentially doing the same thing, which is pursuing nuclear weapons, right?  In fact, with their occasional firing of missiles into the Sea of Japan and by attempting to detonate a small nuclear device, you can make a serious argument that NK has gone considerably further than Iran in pushing the envelope.

So why one and not the other?      

Sane foreign policy is based on open communication - ESPECIALLY with one's enemies. This is such a basic precept of global affairs that I can only assume you are feigning ignorance out of spite for Obama.

Compare to McCain, unscripted... or even Hillary unscripted. No more or less uhs. You just don't hear them if you're not pre-dubious.

Exception to the rule: Wes Clark. Guy doesn't even blink. I imagine to him hummingbirds move in slow motion.

Just about all people who are careful with words say "uh." It shows they are thinking. And nobody likes a politician who shoots off at the mouth or drones memorized script.

I think at any given point a politician that has been campaigning almost non stop for five and a half months is going to look tired. Lord knows Clinton hasn't been looking all that fresh lately as well.

As to speaking... FWIW after nearly 8 years of Bush I think a weed whacker sounds better, again some days are better then others, true for any one.

After the first sentence I thought you were serious.  But after the third, I knew you were being sarcastic.

to have a discussion taken over by people who don't agree with you?  At least we have been a bit more polite than the people who comment on alegre and other pro-Hillary diaries.

No.  There is not pile on needed.  Youo are entitled to be wrong in your opinion.  This is America!

that says voters don't want direct talks with Iran.

That's exactly the mistake Clinton made, assuming that Dems have to cede the foreign policy argument to Bush when the Bush approach is incredibly unpopular.

Only if lies, corruption, incompetence, and failure, are advantages.

I actually do want a government that is willing to talk with other governments.  I find it encouraging.  I also think that this "they are evil, shun them, bomb them" mentality should not be accepted or repeated.

I don't want a president who is going to beat the republicans by becoming them.

I couldn't have said it any better.

There are some arguably material distinctions between Hamas and Iran. First, Hamas is the party elected to represent Palestine, which isn't technically a "state." They may not be a compelling distinction, but it arguably merits a different set of principles in relation to engagement. To be sure, it is always Hamas (a terrorist organization) that is referred to, not Palestine or some other non-partisan political description. Again, I wouldn't call it a compelling distinction, but I do think it's relevant.

Another distinction may be that Iran, N. Korea, etc. tend to be much larger powers with nuclear goals that potentially threaten the U.S. Moreover, Iran is involved in Iraq, which certainly involves our national security interests more directly.

Hamas' capabilities are considerably smaller and their hostile goals do not appear to involve the U.S. as directly.  

I personally have no problem with direct engagement with Hamas, so I'm inclined to agree with you for the most part. However, I do think lines have to be drawn to distinguish states from mere organizations. Hamas is probably somewhere in between a state representative and a terrorist organization, so it presents problems for those who wish to make categorical claims about how to deal with such different entities.

You aren't displaying a very deep thought process in connecting Hamas and Iran, as Bush/McCain also do.

Iran is a sovereign nation which is claimed to be developing nuclear weapons. And the current process of disengagement and bellicisity obviously isn't helping to stop them or encourage dissent in that country.

Hamas is a political organization that controls Gaza, because of that very same policy of disengagemnt and bellicosity which scuttled the peace process with the Palestinian Authority (who now seem like friendly moderates by comparison) and set the stage for Hamas's success.

Iran and Hamas are different and need to be dealt with accordingly.

If you don't like Obama, fine. But please don't use the lame and manipulative canards of Bush/McCain against him. Having to kick them to the curb every 5 minutes is such a wasteful use of time and energy.