Wow. Mr. Dickerson, this seems like quite a pass. I understand what you are saying, and appreciate your willingness to write so adeptly about the various aspects of campaigns and the dialogue between the campaigns. My feeling though is that saying "I" in reference to one's administration talking with Iran versus a direct mono-a-mono talk is liking splitting hairs. There is a difference, but it's pretty minor. If you are correct, and that is what Clinton is referring to, why would such communications by proxy be invulnerable to proproganda and Clinton's earlier logic? My feeling is that talking is talking regardless of whether or not a surrogate is sent.

is the fact we are talking about people that have openly declared "Death To The United States".

What is there to talk about? Where does the conversation begin? How do you talk to someone that's only desire is to see you dead?

In the first instance the question was whether the candidate would personally meet with the objectional foreign head of state within a specific time frame. Hilary's response then was an emphatic "No!" That's a question easily distinguished from whether you would negotiate with the objectionable state -- an act that always involves communication by proxy between leaders.

She never said in the first instance that she wouldn't negotiate with Iran, nor did she say in the current instance that she would personally meet with Iran's leader. Parsing the language here requires not jujitsu of either the logical or semantic variety...

Are all the civilized contries in the world supposed to reject the US every time a crowd of drunk hillbillies gets worked into a lather about France and how awful it is/they are?

Besides, they don't want YOU dead, sugar booger, just the US institutional presence in th Middle East. About you they do not give one shit. Sorry, but you're not that important in the international scheme of events.

Not jujitsu but perhaps hair splitting. This whole thing makes me want to puke.

We have gotten the politics we deserve, petty, infantile and a simulacrum of real representaive government.

I'll very much agree "petty [and] infantile" politics. But, the culprit here isn't Clinton. Rather, what we have here is an attempt to twist Clinton's words into meaning something that in context isn't meant... this is a very old debating tactic that's still around because... well.. it works...

Sadly it works because the average voter has an attention span measured in milliseconds.

Remember the flip flop label that Rove used against Kerry because he "voted for it before he voted against it". A lot of voters didn't spend the couple of seconds that it would take to realize that in order for a senator to vote twice against the bill would require that a majority of senators voted against it before they voted for it.

I like the idea of the youtube debates because the chance exists that we will get to ask what the candidates are thinking when they say stupid stuff.

I personally would like to know how Hillary would pay for some of her giveaways, without adding to taxes or the national debt.

By your logic we would not have conducted negotiations with the Soviet Union after Nikita's "we will bury you" speech.

Lets say Clinton or Edwards win the presidency. Congress then acts favourably on universal healthcare. But, lets say Congress funds the plan by rasing taxes on the middle class. Do we accuse the president of "flip-flopping" when the new legislation gets vetoed? This is exactly the Kerry vote switch scenario...

It would depend on how the republicans attempted to spin it. My guess is that it would be played that way. You'd be hearing the story on Hannity, O'Reilly and Limbaugh for maximum damage to the administration.

This is part of the reason why we don't get solutions that might be controversial.

The hypothetical I posed is exactly what Republicans did on minimum wage in the last session. They paired the minimum wage hike to a controversial corporate tax break. Then, when Dems voted against the bill[which ultimately failed for not even getting enough GOP votes] Republicans tried to spin the Dems as working against a wage hike...

I remember. The republicans have become the party of "win at all costs". They clearly care less about the good of the nation and more about the power of the party.

That is why switched parties in 2004.

>>My feeling though is that saying "I" in reference to one's administration talking with Iran versus a direct mono-a-mono talk is liking splitting hairs.

Fair point but it is upon these hairs that the two campaigns have set up their battle. My attempt was to figure out whether-- in the context of their ongoing argument-- Clinton had committed the reversal the Obama camp claimed.

Perhaps it seeems petty to others, but anyone who writes mano a mano as MONO-A-MONO is a cretin.

Does anyone else feel that the Democrats in general are less interested in dealing with the problem that Iran is, and more interested in teaching Bush some kind of "lesson" that fits there "Bush sucks" narrative.