Who won the debate? Obama or McCain?

Spinning this talks without preconditions, all the spin about this, reminds me again all the finesse it took to spin WMD and intel in Iraq. Boy, that was no surprise, given the same old thing on just one little point, so obvious, yet so mysteriously spun again by you guys in favor of your man, Obama.

You are either just very dumb or intentionally twisting the truth to what you want it to be.

LATimes: Debate Shifts Perceptions Of Obama

Forget the top-line numbers -- note that the poll "indicated that the younger, less-experienced Obama has made strides since last week in convincing Americans that he can handle the toughest challenges facing the country, including the economy and international affairs. Obama was seen as more "presidential" by 46% of the debate watchers, compared with 33% for McCain. The difference is even more pronounced among debate watchers who were not firmly committed to a candidate: 44% said they believed Obama looked more presidential, whereas 16% gave McCain the advantage."

Not a single post-debate poll gave the advantage to Sen. McCain.

Dys, if you can prove that kissinger ever advocated a president sit down with a rogue leader without preconditions, be my guest. One simple rule, diplomatic contacts by anyone other than the president does not count. That was the point being argued between Obama and McCain. ci, the same challenge is thrown at you, or anyone on this forum for that matter. If you can't put up, then shut up.

Ira Chernus | May 23, 2008

Editor: John Feffer


George W. Bush made headlines when he celebrated Israel’s 60th anniversary by warning the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, against the “false comfort of appeasement.” The two words that sounded most loudly were the ones that Bush did not actually say: “Obama” and “Munich.”

The Washington Post’s Dan Balz summed up the general consensus: “More than anything said so far by John McCain, Bush's comments … signaled what the principle Republican attack line will be in the campaign against Obama.” The White House officially denied the charge even as it privately confirmed the strategy. And when reporters asked McCain to respond, he replied “Yes, there have been appeasers in the past, and the president is exactly right.”

The Obama campaign must have been delighted. The last thing McCain needs now is to have the least popular president in living memory become his campaign spokesman. But the charge of “appeaser” won’t go away. So let’s look at some facts, starting with the other name that Bush put front and center without actually saying it: Munich.
The Nazis Are Coming

In case anyone missed the connection, McCain made it clear when he told reporters that there have been appeasers in the past “and one of them is Neville Chamberlain.'’ In 1938, British Prime Minister Chamberlain met with Hitler in Munich and agreed to let Germany annex the Sudetenland, the predominantly German part of Czechoslovakia, to gain what he called “peace for our time.” Chamberlain has been scorned ever since as the greatest of all appeasers. Or at least that’s the conventional wisdom.

In fact, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt heard the news of the Munich pact, he sent Chamberlain a telegram with just two words on it: “Good man.” Roosevelt told his ambassador to Italy, "I am not a bit upset over the final result." His most trusted foreign policy adviser, Sumner Welles, predicted that the Munich accord might lead to a new world order based on justice and law. Half a year later, FDR still hoped to negotiate with Hitler by appealing to reason: "This situation must end in catastrophe,” the president wrote in a personal letter to the Fuhrer, “unless a more rational way of guiding events is found."

The idea that Munich represented not merely a mistake but a moral catastrophe did not emerge until later, when it turned out the Nazis were intent on war no matter what concessions they received. Once he was in the war, FDR started negotiating with another leader viewed by many Americans as evil incarnate: Josef Stalin. FDR may have shared their view. He justified his alliance with Stalin as “holding hands with the devil.” But if that’s what it took to promote American interests, Roosevelt did not hesitate to do it.

Negotiating with the evil enemy became bipartisan policy under Dwight D. Eisenhower. Ike’s popularity rating soared when he met with Soviet leaders Khrushchev and Bulganin in Geneva in 1955. That set off an almost continuous round of disarmament talks, which continued when the Democrat John F. Kennedy became president. Kennedy also made sure that summitry with Soviet leaders became a bipartisan institution. Richard Nixon won wide praise for extending it to China, though he was criticized from the right for edging too close to appeasement. A few years later, most of those same right-wingers were praising their leader, Ronald Reagan, for his own summitry with the Soviets.

In the (July 2007) debate, Obama was asked if he would be willing to meet " without precondition " in the first year of his presidency with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea.

"I would," he responded. . . .

. . . .In a separate interview with the newspaper, Obama said: "What she's (H Clinton) somehow maintaining is my statement could be construed as not having asked what the meeting was about. I didn't say these guys were going to come over for a cup of coffee some afternoon.". . . .

and then subsequently:

Obama adviser David Axelrod said on Tuesday that Obama would not just meet blindly with such leaders but only after diplomatic spadework had been accomplished.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/24/politics/main3094391.shtml