"With all due respect to the frontrunner in the Democratic primary race, Hillary Clinton is wrong on this issue.
America has overdosed on the kind of pugnacious leadership that rejects talking to rivals and, yes, even enemies. Both Clinton and her debate rival Barack Obama know that any serious benchmark of American status, prestige, and moral credibility in the world has fallen precipitously under this administration and needs to be addressed.
Talking to rivals is not acquiescing to them, or appeasing them. Talking to our rivals is in America's own self interest. I'm not talking about a global feel good session -- but rather getting our own portfolio of interests back in some kind of reasonable shape. To do that, we need to be 'engaged' with those trying to take advantage of our eroding and eroded global position.
Let's hope that we may be able to nudge Senator Clinton and her foreign policy team away from a policy that seems laced with elements of a John Bolton-style, Jesse Helmsian pugnacious nationalism and towards a more Nixon-lite approach -- which in my book would demonstrate real 21st century style leadership. Nixon went to China and negotiated arms deals with the Soviets. Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Gorbachev ended the Cold War.
Will it be Hillary that changes the world and goes to Cuba? to Iran? to Syria?
Or will it be Obama?"
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002243.phpWhich do you prefer? Nixon-Lite or Bush-Lite?