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Posted
Wednesday, June 04, 2008 3:42 PM
| By
Christopher Beam
After Obama’s speech at AIPAC this morning, ABC News noted
what appeared to be new language on the subject of meetings with Iran:
“But as President of the United
States, I would be willing to lead tough and principled
diplomacy with the appropriate Iranian leader at a time and place of my
choosing – if, and only if – it can
advance the interests of the United
States.” [E.A.]
ABC describes Obama’s position as “evolving” ever since his original
statement in the YouTube debate that he’d be willing to meet with the leaders
of Iran, North Korea, Syria, Cuba, and Venezuela “without preconditions. “But
now,” ABC writes, “Obama has put a major condition on his willingness to meet
with Iran: he will meet only
if such a meeting advances the interests of the U.S.”
Isn’t this sort of circular? Would a U.S. president ever meet with another leader if
he didn’t think it advances the interest of the United States? You could argue he’s
wrong, but it’s not like Obama has any other
reason to sit down with Ahmadinejad.
This is all part of a larger debate about whether or not
Obama is walking back his original stance. ABC has argued that Obama’s stance
has grown “nuanced” and pointed to surrogates parsing words like
“preconditions” ("I would not say that we would meet unconditionally,”
said Tom Daschle) and “leader” (not necessarily Ahmadinejad, said adviser Susan
Rice).
But the Obama campaign insists
that his stance has been consistent all along. According to them, it turns on
one word: “willing.” The campaign points out that the YouTube questioner asked Obama
whether or not he would be “willing” to meet with those leaders—a distinction
from saying he would meet with them. He
said, “I would.” Of course, that could mean either “I would meet with them” or
“I would be willing to meet with them.” The Obama camp says it’s the latter. Back
in November, the senator told
Tim Russert, “I did not say that I would be meeting with all of them. I said
I'd be willing to.”
This is pretty high-level (or maybe it’s low-level) parsing.
But picking apart words seems to be the main method of campaign warfare right
now. See the McCain camp bickering
over tenses when it comes to “pre-surge levels,” or Obama stressing the
difference between “preconditions” and “preparation.” But when nitpicking is
the norm, the campaigns are forced to nitpick back. Who knew the job of communications
director also included etymologist, lexicographer, and semanticist?
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