The Blog @ Spolitics

Atlantic Praises Obama for Something NYT Says He Never Did

by Heywood U. Reedmore -- May 10, 2008 at 9:04 pm | In No, Seriously | No Comments

According to the New York Times:

An examination of Mr. Obama’s numerous public statements on the subjects indicates that he…does not advocate immediate, direct or unconditional negotiations with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president.

Of course, as any one who has followed the campaign knows, that is incorrect (or purposely disingenuous).  In the YouTube debate, Obama said he would commit to meeting with Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-Il, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro without preconditions and in the first year of his presidency.  As Matthew Yglesias points out in the June ‘08 issue of The Atlantic, most thought it was a gaffe Obama would back-pedal away from, but his campaign reaffirmed the position and highlighted it as a key difference between him and the “conventional wisdom” that led us into Iraq.  He commended Obama for finding a distinct foreign policy “voice.”  By the looks of it, Yglesias wrote too soon.  From the same Times article:

Susan E. Rice, a former State Department and National Security Council official who is a foreign policy adviser to the Democratic candidate, said that “for political purposes, Senator Obama’s opponents on the right have distorted and reframed” his views. Mr. McCain and his surrogates have repeatedly stated that Mr. Obama would be willing to meet “unconditionally” with Mr. Ahmadinejad. But Dr. Rice said that this was not the case for Iran or any other so-called “rogue” state. Mr. Obama believes “that engagement at the presidential level, at the appropriate time and with the appropriate preparation, can be used to leverage the change we need,” Dr. Rice said. “But nobody said he would initiate contacts at the presidential level; that requires due preparation and advance work.”

If Yglesias had just a waited a couple of weeks longer he would have learned that Obama does, apparently, intend to reverse course on the stance.  And the New York Times is bending over to pave the road.