Several bloggers have noted that in his victory speech, Obama said, “I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did.”
And they have chuckled, noting that while Adolf Hitler and Franklin Roosevelt exchanged a few letters before the war, Roosevelt’s overall message to Hitler was a brief demand for unconditional surrender; after that he let the Arsenal of Democracy do most of the talking. (If that’s what Obama has in mind, maybe I’ve got to reconsider my assessment of him.)
As I’ve noted, all of the dictators who Obama pledges to meet with have, in recent years, met with a Democratic secretary of state (Albright-Kim Jong Il), a Democratic speaker of the House (Pelosi-Assad), a Democratic presidential candidate (okay, Kerry’s met with one of Ahmedinijad’s predecessors) and a former Democratic president (Jimmy Carter meeting with Chavez and Castro).
Since then, we’ve learned that the Syrians were building a secret nuclear reactor with the help of the North Koreans while Assad met with Pelosi.
And there is a report that next week Interpol will confirm the FARC documents that the Colombian government found in its raid, indicating that Chavez gave money to FARC, and FARC had obtained uranium for a dirty bomb.
Have either of these revelations prompted Senator Obama to rethink his I-promise-to-meet stance?
“Trust me, Speaker Pelosi. I promise I’m not building a nuclear plant with the North Koreans.”
UPDATE: Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal today:
A grand Enemies Tour awaits President Obama – Iran’s Ahmadinejad, Syria’s Assad, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, North Korea’s Kim Jong Il, an al Qaeda “diplomat” from Osama bin Laden, Sudan’s Hassan al-Bashir, Zimbabwe’s Mugabe, Burma’s junta.
If John McCain can’t talk the American people out of re-Carterizing themselves, what has he been preparing for all these years?