Hillary Rodham Clinton Loses the Matthew Yglesias Primary
Hillary Rodham Clinton attacks Barack Obama
QCTimes.com / Clinton, Obama trade barbs in Quad-City Times interviews: The controversy springs from a question at the YouTube debate asking whether Obama would be willing to meet, without precondition, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea. Obama, an Illinois senator, said he would and called it a break with the Bush administration's diplomatic policies.
Clinton, in the debate, said she would pursue vigorous diplomacy but she wouldn’t make such a promise without knowing the other countries’ intent. “I don’t want to be used for propaganda purposes,” she said. In a telephone interview today, the New York senator went further. Of Obama’s comment, she said: “I thought that was irresponsible and frankly naive.”
Her campaign later circulated a memo to reporters saying it was a “mistake” to commit to presidential-level meetings without precondition "with some of the world's worst dictators" and portrayed her remarks as showing her depth of experience...
In so doing, she loses the Matthew Yglesias primary. He says:
Matthew Yglesias: [This is] unfair and also reflective of a pretty weird and wrongheaded underlying worldview... this... notion that the US can be mortally wounded by perfidious leaders having their photos taken with important American politicians, or that engaging in high-level diplomacy with a country is a reward we offer for good behavior rather than a standard method of relating to the world...
I don't think this was a terribly smart thing for HRC to do.
