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The biggest news of the day in the U.S. came on Capitol Hill, when the CIA briefed lawmakers about its evidence that North Korea had allegedly assisted Syria in the building of a nuclear reactor. But it barely caused a ripple in the 2008 presidential race, with the only real news on the trail coming via the revival of one of the more esoteric debates in the campaign: preconditions, or no preconditions?
The argument began in July, and refused to die, after Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama disagreed during a debate about whether, as president, they would meet with dictators without preconditions. Obama said he would. Clinton said she wouldn't. The other Democrats in the race at the time thought it was just plain silly. Chris Dodd called it "a false debate." Joe Biden spoke of "petty arguments."
The whole thing's a little like a circular firing squad. John McCain on Thursday took the North Korea news as an opportunity to attack Obama for his position. He'd previously hit the Clintons for their North Korea record when Hillary Clinton questioned the Bush administration policy. Of course, the Bush administration ended up getting a similar deal to the Clinton administration's, albeit via a very circuitous path. That didn't stop Bush from criticizing Obama's non-preconditions stance, arguing, as Hillary Clinton did, that meeting with such dictators "sends the wrong message." Has Bush met with such dictators himself? Of course he has.
And all of this is for an Obama position that is so subtle in its differences from Clinton's -- at least, the February version of his position -- that it's hard to tell the difference. |
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