Kevin,

The whole thing is a minor dust-up being blown out of proportion by Clinton supporters and establishment media who feel a need to "support" Hillary or are looking for a fight to drive August ratings. The Clinton camp wants to put some distance between themselves and Obama, and given some recent polling numbers think they are succeeding.

I have been looking for videos produced by Hillary supporters (not her campaign staff, but rank and file voters) and I can't find any. I have a question for you, is there any real deep support for Hillary? Does anybody, anywhere see her as a candidate they back enthusiastically.

If anybody finds a Clinton supporter produced campaign video, please send me post the link.

Obama just flatly didn't say anything like this at all. The only thing he said was that "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will." That's it. Nothing about reducing our support for Musharraf

Uh, Kevin, GWB has backed over backwards to support Mush and let him have his way, and that includes not getting AQ when the getting was good. Obama, OTOH, is making it clear that under his Presidency, there will be *limits* to any support, and exactly where those limits will be.

Ask yourself this: Based solely on what Obama and Clinton have each said about nukes this week, which of them would be better able to engage the rest of the world in an American-led effort to revive nonproliferation?

Then tell me this spat doesn't matter.

It's too bad neither of these candidates stand a chance of winning the presidency.

good point disputo. this will play well for obama in the general election, even though there is no subsantive difference between Hillary and him on this point. Even bush has laid out the same policy. he just won't follow through on it.

One of these candidates is dovish, the other is hawkish.

I suppose you can call that "tone," but I put a whole lot more weight on the underlying tendencies than that.

Finally, I see nothing but idiocy when it comes to threatening nukes, or "leaving them on the table." We have a lot of nukes, and any half-thinking person knows that we can, and will, use them if we need to. We just don't need to, and it isn't weak or stupid to remind folks that Dems, unlike the GOP, are not interested in trying to find bad guys to turn into mushroom clouds. We would prefer not to, and we would prefer to talk instead of kill lots of people for no substantive security gain. At least some of us would.

there is no subsantive difference between Hillary and him on this point.

to clarify, i meant the "go after al qaeda in pakistan" point, not the "nukes against al qaeda" point, in which hillary looks better for the general (sadly) and worse for the primary.

I see you would all rather revisit an obvious non-story than address Hillary's lack of deep and enthusiastic support.

The best professional inside the beltway team in politics can only take a candidate so far. If she doesn't start ginning up some real enthusiasm the turnout in 2008 could be hopelessly low, and given her high negatives that means a Republican candidate could slip in.

In short, instead of trying to triangulate Obama into the dumper she might be better served by telling us why, besides a belief that she is going to win, we should get behind her.

[Kevin doesn't moderate. I do. And I banned you when you were posting as Manco. --Mod]

We live in a Bizarro world where the two biggest state sponsors of terrorism - Pakistan and Saudi Arabia - are molly-coddled by a fascist American administration that purports to be "tough on terrorism".

No wonder the trajectory of this great nation is steadily downward...

Disputo: "Obama, OTOH, is making it clear that under his Presidency, there will be *limits* to any support, and exactly where those limits will be."

Agreed. I think the Pakistani leadership is less concerned about an American missile strike taking out Al Qaeda inside Pakistan's borders than it is with this comment in Obama's speech the other day:

"And we must not turn a blind eye to elections that are neither free nor fair -- our goal is not simply an ally in Pakistan, it is a democratic ally."

In short, instead of trying to triangulate Obama into the dumper she might be better served by telling us why, besides a belief that she is going to win, we should get behind her.

We would all be better served. The problem is that the Dem elites and the MSM have already pretty much crowned her, and are starting to project a sense of inevitability.

I'd also like to see the HRC supporters on here start addressing the reasons why people should vote for HRC rather than smearing her leading opponent. Moreover, as you mentioned, her high negs are what worry me most about her chances in the general. I'd really like to see her campaign and her supporters start to address how she plans to chip away at those numbers. Somehow I don't think we can count on a large Trashhauler demographic of people who hate HRC but will vote for her anyway.

The point remains that Obama's statements, mis-statements, scratch-thats, clarifications, and re-clarifications make him extremely vunerable should he ever make the general election.

The GOP will eat him alive with the material he's provided them in this past week.

We live in a Bizarro world where the two biggest state sponsors of terrorism - Pakistan and Saudi Arabia - are molly-coddled by a fascist American administration that purports to be "tough on terrorism".

No wonder the trajectory of this great nation is steadily downward...

The Conservative Deflator on August 4, 2007 at 2:10 PM

Talking about Bizzaro, but I think Newt Gingrich might agree with you.

AP: Is there any circumstances where you'd be prepared or willing to use nuclear weapons to defeat terrorism and Osama bin Laden?

OBAMA: No, I'm not, uh, there has been no discussion of using nuclear weapons and that's not a hypothetical that I'm going to discuss.

AP: Not even tactical?

OBAMA: No. I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance. Uh, if involving you know, civilians... Let me scratch all that. There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's not on the table so...

=======

Obama began to discuss a "tactical nuke hypothetical". He asserted (and I believe this is accurate) that he would be against using nuclear weapons against civilians (to "get" OBL, i.e.). I think when he mentioned that he was thinking in terms of *non-tactical* city-killer nukes. Then I think he realized that he was responding to the "tactical" question and that there would *also* likely to be a lot of civilian casualties using tactical nukes as well. Then he realized that he was opening up a new can of worms by bringing the picture of civilians being killed by a tactical nuclear weapon to get a terrorist target-acceptable yes or no?

Kevin, you simply haven't been following the debate between Obama and Hillary as it has developed.

You're certainly right that Obama and Hillary did not need to have substantive differences based merely on what Obama said, for example, about nukes in Pakistan. Anyone looking at those comments honestly see that the man said something he immediately regretted having said, and then tried his damnest to backtrack (whence the "scratch all that" remark.)

The problem is, Obama basically wasn't man enough to admit the obvious, namely, that he had misspoken. Instead, his campaign launched into a clear acceptance by Obama of the legitimacy of the very remarks he had at the time immediately backtracked on.

In fact, they came out and said that they would not be bound by the "conventional" ways of Presidential diplomacy, and that Obama was actually breaking new ground with the sorts of assertions he was making.

Really, the difference, at bare minimum, is this: Obama stands by the full correctness and appropriateness of his asserting what he did about nukes, as well as the assertion he made about attacking in Pakistan if there's actionable intelligence and the Pakistani government won't do anything, as well as the assertion that he would meet leaders of rogue countries without preconditions. He clearly fully embraced the exact language and manner in which all these statements were made.

Now I don't see how these can possibly be said to be merely matters of style, at least not in any useful sense, although how far his "unconventional" approach really is willing to go God only knows.

As a particularly obvious example of the real consequences of the differences here, consider that only yesterday there was a protest in Pakistan over Obama's remarks about the possibility of attacking in Pakistan, and an American flag was burnt in anger. Are we really to dismiss this as of no meaning whatever? Clearly, again, Obama stands by his remarks just as they were made. Clearly, Hillary has, at minimum, shied away from such inflammatory talk.

Here is what I find on her remarks on the subject of attacking in Pakistan:

Clinton, in an interview with the American Urban Radio Network, stressed the importance of the Pakistanis "taking the actions that only they can take within their own country." But she did not rule out U.S. attacks inside Pakistan, citing the missile attacks her husband, then-President Bill Clinton, ordered against Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998. "If we had actionable intelligence that Osama bin Laden or other high-value targets were in Pakistan I would ensure that they were targeted and killed or captured," she said.

If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will."

The point is, how you conduct your diplomacy, what rules and language you endorse, have very real consequences. If one approach engenders completely unnecessary and fully avoidable outrage abroad, and the other doesn't, how are the differences really just a matter of style, and not in effect one of substance? In diplomacy, precise language and manner is at the very heart of what goes on. If you refuse to abide by the conventions of that long practiced art, and declare that it's all old hat, how can you pretend that you haven't introduced something very real and different into your foreign policy?

What appalls me most about Obama's behavior after his clearly wrongheaded and counterproductive remarks is how, instead of acknowledging his mistakes, he simply turned them into policy. He has quite literally blundered into his brave new approach to diplomacy.

And BTW, who was the last guy we know who just obviously said to himself, I'm not going to pay attention to all that diplomacy stuff coming out of previous administrations and the State Department and all their so-called "adults", I'm just going to speak my mind?

Why, I think his name was George W Bush.

Seems like a plausible interpretation to me, Doc, but the whole thing leaves me wondering why tactical nukes would ever be preferred over regular ole missiles in the scenario being sketched. Them things kill plenty good already, don't they? It's no surprise to me that a candidate would be caught off guard -- the very suggestion seems batshit crazy. Juan Cole (via Eschaton) raises the very good point that a highly publicized discussion about leaving nukes on the table completely undercuts our insistence on nonproliferation. A show of hands please: how many think this bit of theater is going to tamp down Iran's nuclear ambitions?

Oh no! Obama made our enemies mad at us!

Seems like a plausible interpretation to me, Doc, but the whole thing leaves me wondering why tactical nukes would ever be preferred over regular ole missiles in the scenario being sketched. Them things kill plenty good already, don't they?

I assume that they are talking about the so-called bunker-buster tactical nukes which drill down and essentially explode underground, as opposed to "airburst over the enemy troops" tactical nuke.

Contrary to Kevin Drum, rather than trying to bury this issue, I think there are substantial differences between Hillary and Obama on the degree and frequency of massive force to be used in interventions, given her public record. I worry about Hillary when she seems very anxious to establish her Magraret Thatcher or Madeleine Albright ruthless streak credentials For example:

When she ran for the Senate in 2000, she mocked Republicans (such as Caspar Weinberger and Colin Powell) who think "we should intervene with force only when we face splendid little wars that we surely can win, preferably by overwhelming force in a relatively short period of time." On the contrary, she said, we "should not ever shy away from the hard task if it is the right one."

For an interesting comparison about the willingness to talk about the nuclear option, it is worthwhile to look at the Vietnam war where Obama's position surprisingly isn't so dissimilar to what LBJ came to believe.

Is there any explanation yet for why the reporter:

1. Asked this totally new question. This is a good thing in and of itself. I love reporters staying away from the beaten path. I need my daily foreign policy 08 fix worse than anyone I know. And candidates reveal so much more when they are unprepared.

2. But.. then the reporter insisted with "even tactical?". Insistence in and of itself is great. I don`t have time for weasel words. But are there any tactical nuke warranting structures/bunkers in Afghanistan/Pakistan that we don`t know about?

The wik list the folowing uses of tactical nukes:
* Against a large ground force (Bin laden doesn`t have soviet size armies, even on his best days )
* Against a fortified (and very very deeply burried!!!!) underground bunker
* Against remote and/or heavily-defended target locations difficult or impossible to reach with conventional weapons (Maybe if bin laden or some Pashtuns develop air defense radar and more anti air missles then the ones the US gave them)
* Against a carrier fleet or any collection of surface vessels
* Against a large amphibious invasion force

So only if a terrorist crawls into a government style bunker is there a potential case for tactical nukes. If these countries had any serious bunkers then why have the people lobbying for new bunker buster nukes not warned us bout them? http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/511/how-many-rogue-state-hard-and-deeply-buried-targets

Lets remember that an earthquake toke down plenty of buildings in the region and after that people froze to death in makeshifts huts on a regular basis. The big bad wolf could blow down most of the building here so why the nukes? And if you do need them, what would terrorist be doing inside what is presumably a government bunker anyway???? Sounds like you wanna go after the government first and deal with those few terrorist later.

But then the reporter toke step 3. screwing up the reporting. this is after after having time to confirm the supposedly stunning quote, say of the record.

Anyone known what journalism school teaches that? Is it Pat Robertsons? Maybe the reporter meant to ask if Obama would use Nukes *in retaliation* for a nuke on the US. But then it still sounds presumptuous to assume big differences between the candidates.

So the question is rather weird and out of the blue. Kinda like "would you nuke Osama in Luxumburg?". The big difference of course is that Afghanistan and Pakistan are tucked in between half of the worlds nuclear powers.

Just think trough trough the scenario: Obama bombs Pakistan, Musharaf notices mushroom cloud outside his window. He either:
A. Blames the US (Great, trough potentially terrorist Islamist might get Pakistani nukes plus a couple of tens of thousand of lives to avenge)
B. Blames India, nukes India... (And you thought those train bombs made your stomach turn)

And thats assuming Russia and China stay out of this. It isn`t that long ago that globalsecurity.org had a India Pakistan nuclear war countdown clock.

So I would say Obama`s response is quite thoughtful. "there has been no discussion of using nuclear weapons and that's not a hypothetical that I'm going to discuss." could loosely be translated as "what the f#$% are you talking about? Is there a nuclear policy fight I am not aware of?"

Quite a sensible response. Especially if you compare it with the candidate who still considers retaliation against Mekka. Following up a terror attack by making sure the US economy will collapse and *never ever* see OPEC oil again. I guess its heartwarming to see that the US is still democratic enough to let *anyone* run for president.

Lots of windy commenters on this thread, including Kevin himself. A bit of unsolicited advice - If you can't make your point in two paragraphs, you probably don't have one.

Kevin,

I'm sure your not surprised I disagree with you again - this is another case where process is substance. If you go back and read Bill Clinton's "Sista Soulja" comment you would see it's an even milder rebuke than this was, but it rightly set off shock waves because it showed a Dem politician willing to commit lese majeste in the presence of Jesse Jackson...Here we have Obama telling our sumbitches, definitely including the Saudis and the Egyptians, that he is going to continue the neocon realignment of US policy with our stated values, and your realpolitik protections have limits.
As for his thinking-out-loud about nukes, I would speculate that he was weighing the hypothetical value of some type of bunker buster [not against civilians] but realized that kind of nuance gets him in trouble, just as it did with his willing-to-meet-the-dictators statement.

I'm impressed by both of them, but I don't think this is just about tonality. Clinton really does have more experience and this is one place where it shows: She's more careful about what she says.

Obama just flatly didn't say anything like this at all. The only thing he said was that "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will." That's it. Nothing about reducing our support for Musharraf and certainly nothing about reducing our support for the House of Saud.

Not taking action without the approval of the Musharraf regime for fear of destabilizing that regime is part of our support for that regime. So, your position is self-contradictory: Obama cannot take the position you describe (which, in fact, he did take) without also saying that he would reduce our support for Musharraf.

Whether one interprets Pakistan as a special case, or Obama's position as one that would be generally applicable across the globe, of course is another question, and, even if it is generally applicable, what it means for our relations with the House of Saud requires even more interpretation. But, certainly, with regard to Pakistan your claim is incoherent.

frankly0: What appalls me most about Obama's behavior after his clearly wrongheaded and counterproductive remarks is how, instead of acknowledging his mistakes, he simply turned them into policy. He has quite literally blundered into his brave new approach to diplomacy.

As a blanket statement that seems a stretch. There may be disagreement about the tone and substance of Obama's statements about Pakistan, but they were part of a prepared speech. In that speech, his disdain for "all that diplomacy stuff" appears to be targeted at the Bbush administration, not historical norms. And while a couple of his statements in the AP interview were certainly clumsy, there hasn't been any indication (?) of a new policy based on those statements.

That said, HRC shows more polish in foreign affairs (not much of a surprise). OTOH, she's had the luxury of responding to Obama's remarks. As corpus juris said above, "...instead of trying to triangulate Obama into the dumper she might be better served by telling us why, besides a belief that she is going to win, we should get behind her."

Great comment, Frankly0.

I must mention that Obama's adviser, Harvard Professor Samantha Powers, made the nuclear issue MUCH worse in her article about Obama and Conventional wisdom.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/8/3/1636/24752

Keep in mind that the thesis of the article is to contrast Obama's foreign policy with the CW, with the clear implication that HIllary, Biden et al. are CW thinkers, read this:

"Barack Obama’s judgment is right. Conventional wisdom is wrong. It is wrong to propose that we would drop nuclear bombs on terrorist training camps in Pakistan, potentially killing tens of thousands of people and sending America’s prestige in the world to a level that not even George Bush could take it. We should judge presidential candidates on their judgment and their plans, not on their ability to recite platitudes."

She is charging that other candidates would consider dropping nukes on Pakistan to get terrorists. On the Democrat's side, I can't think of any more sensational, inflammatory charge being made. She's wrong too: there is no CW that we should nuke terrorists.

As far as his threat to attack Pakistan, another point to mention is that since Obama has already said he will not respect Pakistan's sovereignty, he's guaranteeing that any security negotiations with Pak. will be seen as a sham.

Obama if flailing wildly in my opinion. I think he should just drop out.

cmdicely: Not taking action without the approval of the Musharraf regime for fear of destabilizing that regime is part of our support for that regime. So, your position is self-contradictory: Obama cannot take the position you describe (which, in fact, he did take) without also saying that he would reduce our support for Musharraf.

As a first order assessment, I agree. However, Obama appears to be making a clear distinction between the "Musharraf regime" and "Pakistan", and in that context there is no contradiction:

I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will.

And Pakistan needs more than F-16s to combat extremism. As the Pakistani government increases investment in secular education to counter radical madrasas, my Administration will increase America's commitment. We must help Pakistan invest in the provinces along the Afghan border, so that the extremists' program of hate is met with one of hope. And we must not turn a blind eye to elections that are neither free nor fair -- our goal is not simply an ally in Pakistan, it is a democratic ally.

to be fair,
I think its possible that I'm feeling anxious because Obama is radical, but not necessarily in a bad way.
What bothers me is that he seems to express big ideas in a rough way that leaves room for misinterpretation. I find that aspect just as worrisom as his actual words.

Marky -- Thanks for the link. I think that answers my question about whether Obama's AP interview statements have apparently become policy (5:46PM post to franly0). That said, I find little--other than the hyperbole about "hackneyed rhetoric"--to disagree with.

I find it incredulous that anyone has a problem with anyone openly disavowing a nuclear first strike, in any form, and for any reason, other than under MAD conditions.

Actually HAS, I think there is an excellent reason to have nuclear weapons on the table with Pakistan: I propose that MAD be augmented by saying that the use will never use nuclear weapons on a non-nuclear country. There has to be a strong incentive for a nation not to acquire nukes. This is one possibility.

Has: I've been hesitant to say this, because I don't want to encourage discussion to veer into wild speculation, but its pretty clear to me that there are scenarios other than nuclear MAD in which a nuclear first strike might be necessary: specifically, to destroy biological agents such as small pox which are being produced for distribution. A conventional weapon might just spread the disease.
This is extremely hypothetical, but it gives me reason to want nukes kept on the table.
Like I said before, let's not change rules that have worked for 60 years without good reason.

its pretty clear to me that there are scenarios other than nuclear MAD in which a nuclear first strike might be necessary: specifically, to destroy biological agents such as small pox which are being produced for distribution.

One of the Night of the Living Dead movies dealt with just this scenario....

Marky: I propose that MAD be augmented by saying that the use will never use nuclear weapons on a non-nuclear country. There has to be a strong incentive for a nation not to acquire nukes.

Agree. Although I'm not sure that's a very strong incentive... but we'll leave that for another discussion.

This is extremely hypothetical, but it gives me reason to want nukes kept on the table. Like I said before, let's not change rules that have worked for 60 years without good reason.

Reasonable, and that may be justifiable as a last reasort. However, I'd disagree that those rules have been in force for 60 years; for most of that period MAD was the rule.

Not to go OT, but we must keep in mind that Pakistan has a nuclear neighbor India, and that legitimizing the use of nukes for any reason short of MAD or an existential threat could have significant consequences.

I propose that MAD be augmented by saying that the use will never use nuclear weapons on a non-nuclear country.

It's already law. According to the terms of the NNTP, the nuclear signers (which includes the US, but not Israel, Pakistan or India, eg) are prevented from using nukes against a non-nuclear nation.

sorry, that should be NNPT

Disputo -- Would you provide a reference for that? AFAIK (sorry, don't have a link handy), the only NNTP signatory nuclear state that has officially disavowed use against non-nuclear states is China. The US--and I believe all other NNTP signatory nuclear states'--commitment is conditional.

yes... that would be the NNPT.

Well, according to wiki, I got that wrong:

The five [Nuclear Weapons States] NWS parties have made undertakings not to use their nuclear weapons against a non-NWS party except in response to a nuclear attack, or a conventional attack in alliance with a Nuclear Weapons State. However, these undertakings have not been incorporated formally into the treaty, and the exact details have varied over time.

I'm pretty sure I read otherwise, somewhere, but that may have been a minority interp of the treaty from some dirty hippie....

has407:

There may be disagreement about the tone and substance of Obama's statements about Pakistan, but they were part of a prepared speech. In that speech, his disdain for "all that diplomacy stuff" appears to be targeted at the Bbush administration, not historical norms. And while a couple of his statements in the AP interview were certainly clumsy, there hasn't been any indication (?) of a new policy based on those statements.

The new policy clearly based on those remarks was really expressed in a memo circulated after Obama's remarks by his campaign, written by his top foreign policy advisor. The link is here.

You will note that all three controversial statements are fully embraced. I think of it as the Grand Unified Theory of Obama Blunders.

This seems to be the memo that Kevin has not factored into his own assessment of Obama's current position on foreign policy.

And, while you're right that Obama's statement regarding the possibility of attacking in Pakistan was part of a prepared speech, that hardly means it doesn't qualify as a real blunder. As I pointed out, it has incited a protest in Pakistan in which the American flag was burned. That would pretty powerfully suggest that it was simply gratuitously and recklessly inflammatory. If George Bush had made such an utterance with such an effect, Democrats would be after his hide. Why Obama hasn't gotten far greater flack over this escapes me.

franklyO: "As I pointed out, it has incited a protest in Pakistan in which the American flag was burned. That would pretty powerfully suggest that it was simply gratuitously and recklessly inflammatory. If George Bush had made such an utterance with such an effect, Democrats would be after his hide. Why Obama hasn't gotten far greater flack over this escapes me."

Definitely. What we really want is a leader who's going to base foreign-policy decisions on the sentiments of Islamabad street mobs.

I agree totally with Reality Community. He is right. obama is an extreemly impressive and competent candidate who is being dismissed by the msm while they gush on every word that comes out of Hillary's mouth. The funny part is that she never really says anything. While they tout her 'experience; and her capabilities they refuse to acknowledge that she says very little of substance. A the YK today her answers to healthcare totally veered from anything approaching policy or substance. Just soundbite stuff the msm loves and proclaims her so wonderful.
At the same time they laugh at Obama as some green rookie because he refuses to kowtow to the establishment's failed policies and is calling for a change in them.
They call Hillary experienced because she borrows Bill's resume and because she tells the msm it is so. They dismiss all the years Obama put in at the state because Hillary tells them to.
All the while the msm is getting beat up by the people who loudly disagree with them and call them on the free pass and spin they do for Hillary while piling on Obama when he is clearly right and is bold enough to tell them their beloved cw is a failure.

HAS: You're probably right that scary bio-weapons scenarios haven't been a part of MAD, but in the broader, generous spirit of MAD, I think it fits in. MAD is a theory that heinous, civilization threatening acts can only be prevented by the threat of civilization-ending reprisal. It's all about peace.

Definitely. What we really want is a leader who's going to base foreign-policy decisions on the sentiments of Islamabad street mobs.

Well, junebug, if the crowds were big enough I'd certainly hope it would be something you'd factor into the weighing of options even if it were just to be a minor factor.

Though 'in your face' has it's attractions... I mean, I'd love to be in a position as a Canadian to be able to dismiss American sentiments entirely. "We're going to (fill in the blanks) and if you don't like it, tough shit." Alas, that seduction comes with a big warning label for us (Would that we could trade map positions with the Aussies).

My gut (as opp. to others' guts and I suppose about as useful/useless as a guideline) tells me that Obama would be less in your face than HRC in practice. And these Islamabad reactions seem very small indeed. Perhaps a faux pas for Obama. But perhaps not. Is Obama a possible agent for the sort of changes I'd like to see in American FP? I don't know yet. But there's a chance he represents something better than Hillary's 'Back to Bill' (ie. a heck of an improvement over the present but not the radical rethink of the consensus I'd like to see from you guys; the post-WWII world is over)

frankly0 -- Thanks for the link. As I mentioned to Marky, I don't have much to disagree with about the substance. However, the process by which that substance was formed is of concern, and the hyperbole is a bit much.

I agree that the response in Islamabad to Obama's statements is less than wonderful, and I agree that his words might have been more carefully crafted. However, I'm not convinced it was a blunder. Or maybe just hopeful it was not a blunder...

If it was Obama's intent to send a pointed message to Musharraf et. al., now is the appropriate time to do so--when he is a candidate, and has more room to maneuver than as POTUS. Moreover, a public statement is the only means he has of delivering such a message, as any other channel would open him to charges of circumvention.

All of which is a long winded way of saying I'm conflicted... My heart very much wants a clear and feasible repudiation of the "our sunuvabitch" approach; OTOH, my head tells me that supporting sunnivabitch's and realpolitik still rule the day.

junebug: "Definitely. What we really want is a leader who's going to base foreign-policy decisions on the sentiments of Islamabad street mobs."

George Bush couldn't have said it better.

Bring em on.

Sorry, "open him to charges of circumvention" should be "open him to charges of attempting to privately cicumvent US foreign policy".

snicker-snack: My gut (as opp. to others' guts and I suppose about as useful/useless as a guideline) tells me that Obama would be less in your face than HRC in practice. ...

Spot on, and much better said than my clumsy attempt.

I get the feeling you folks spend so much time in your cocoon you don't realize how important this speech was for Obama with independents and apoliticals... before this dust up about his "in your face" too pro-American posture, he was being portrayed as the next George McGovern -- a candidate who promised to go to Hanoi on his knees if it would help end the war. The vast majority of Americans do not want a President who's ashamed to use American force when needed; attacking Osama's protectors, especially because it was politically incorrect, was the right antidote to that perception.

I agree with the comment way up ahead that when Obama said "scratch that" he realized that the comments he was making weren't clear at all.

You don't let anybody draw you into a discusussion of nukes. Don't discus it. Don't name a country. Don't use context.

But then his campaign decided they had to show tough strength and kept it up.

THAT's where Obama was wrong.

Evave2

snicker-snack: "Well, junebug, if the crowds were big enough I'd certainly hope it would be something you'd factor into the weighing of options even if it were just to be a minor factor."

American foreign policy has taken a deserved drubbing in the last five years, and while this matters, I think it takes a back seat to the substance of this particular issue. I don't have much sympathy for Pakistanis crying about territorial integrity if their leadership refuses to strike at mass murderers holed up in the remote hills of their country. Frankly, Obama's comment may offer the lesser of two evils for Musharraf; an American strike gets him off the hook for having to do it himself. In any event, and as Kevin has pointed out, this is rather a tempest in a teapot, since Clinton's position on this is no different from Obama's:

"'If we had actionable intelligence that Osama bin Laden or other high-value targets were in Pakistan I would ensure that they were targeted and killed or captured,' (Clinton) said."

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/8/2/worldupdates/2007-08-02T023102Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-287732-2&sec=worldupdates

franklyO: "As I pointed out, (Obama's comment about striking at Al Qaeda in Pakistan) has incited a protest in Pakistan in which the American flag was burned. That would pretty powerfully suggest that it was simply gratuitously and recklessly inflammatory. If George Bush had made such an utterance with such an effect, Democrats would be after his hide. Why Obama hasn't gotten far greater flack over this escapes me."

You might explain why you find it outrageous when Obama articulates this possibility, but perfectly reasonable when Clinton follows with the very same thing.

Some points to keep in mind, that are already being confused or misrepresented by either careless mediawonks or Obama's enemies:

1. Obama didn't say, that he wouldn't ask Mushie first about striking in Pakistan. He also didn't sya he'd topple Mushie or such. He said, if Musharraf wouldn't agree, then we'd strike (like in Waziristan) if we had a major target like Osama or maybe nuclear prep. site (terrorist, not Pakistani.) Now, what right-winger wouldn't get raves for saying that? So they can't honestly criticize Obama for that. If they mean, he shouldn't have said it, maybe - but what is a candidate supposed to do if asked about that, just give another mushy answer about Mushie? Maybe it was better to go ahead and say what most Presidents would actually do if enough danger existed, that's part of Obama's approach versus the same old doubletalk, isn't it?

2. There's no contradiction between Obama first saying that he'd meet with some unsavory world leaders, and he's against the war in Iraq, versus the threat described in #1. Meeting with the leaders doesn't mean you can't do something ugly once in a while around them, and such meetings happen partly to tell them what they can and can't get away with (it is rather strongly suspected that we told Pakistan after 9-11, they'd be toast if they didn't cooperate. I don't know how literal "toast" is here, but...)

Also, being against a given badly conceived and executed war is not being a peacenick, that would be contradictory about striking against real enemies in an effective way. Indeed, lots of Democrat's gripe against Bush's Iraq misadventure was that we should have finished up better in Afghanistan and maybe even made some incursions into Pakistan instead.

3. About saying no nukes, well...I'll pass on that, since there is a lot of deep gaming about what we should say. But even then, maybe lots of voters actually want to know what a candidate thinks. In any case, it's premature to rule out Obama as serious on defense and rule Hillary in as the required front runner.

tyrannogenius

Will the Obama supporters stop saying that Hillary said the same thing as Obama re unilateral attacks?
She didn't.

marky: "Will the Obama supporters stop saying that Hillary said the same thing as Obama re unilateral attacks? She didn't."

Obama, 8/1: "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will."

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post_group/ObamaHQ/CpHR

Clinton, 8/2: "... (Clinton) did not rule out U.S. attacks inside Pakistan, citing the missile attacks her husband, then-President Bill Clinton, ordered against Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998.

"'If we had actionable intelligence that Osama bin Laden or other high-value targets were in Pakistan I would ensure that they were targeted and killed or captured,' (Clinton) said."

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/8/2/worldupdates/2007-08-02T023102Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-287732-2&sec=worldupdates

Obama is trying to prove he is a LEADER.

He is mucking it up.

The race is between Clinton and Edwards.

Edwards, 8/2:

"My belief is that we have a responsibility to find bin Laden and al Qaeda wherever they operate," Edwards said on camera. "I think we need to maximize pressure on Musharraf and the Pakistani government. If they can't do the job, then we have to do it."

via Kos, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/8/2/83618/60782

(Sorry. The direct link offered up an error message.)

Obama is just making headlines to promote himself. Desperate falling behind Hillary calls for desperate PR stunts.

Junebug, I can't tell whether you are deliberately trying to muddy the waters to help Obama, or you are just stupid.
What HRC did NOT say explicitly is that she definitely will violate Pakistan's sovereignty, as Obama did.
I don't see anyone in Pakistan protesting HRC's remarks. That's because she wasn't stupid enough to say openly that she will not negotiate in good faith with Musharraf. Obama, by declaring at the get-go that the Pakistan govt will not be respected at his whim, makes good faith negotatiations difficult, if not impossible, should he be elected.

Marky: "What HRC did NOT say explicitly is that she definitely will violate Pakistan's sovereignty, as Obama did."

Provide the quotation in which Obama stated anything about violating Pakistan's sovereignty -- but be damn sure that Clinton didn't say the very same thing.

"... (Clinton) wasn't stupid enough to say openly that she will not negotiate in good faith with Musharraf. Obama, by declaring at the get-go that the Pakistan govt will not be respected at his whim, makes good faith negotatiations difficult, if not impossible, should he be elected

Provide, the quotation in which Obama stated that he will not negotiate in good faith with Musharraf, as well as the quotation in which he stated that he doesn't -- and/or will not -- respect the Pakistani leader (or any other national leader, for that matter).

If you don't like Obama, that's perfectly cool by me. But I'm going to call you out for the liar you are when you twist his foreign-policy positions & pretend that Clinton's aren't exactly the same when it comes to the matters in question.

Dipshit.

Junebug, anger management classes can sometimes be very effective. Perhaps some deep breathing and yoga would help dearie.

Oh, you misunderstand -- yet again. I'm perfectly happy to call bullshit. Perhaps you can use that helping hand to assist Marky in locating those quotes.