So frustrating. Why do we care? The media still goes to O'Hanlon for comment. You know what? Go the the three Election Central threads on this topic and you'll see a real, well thought out debate on the whole thing. You'll see a bunch of "average" people dealing with the complexities of the issue in more detail than O'Hanlon has.

I know this sounds like dumb blog triumphalism, but... seriously... We hashed this out well before O'Hanlon showed up with a sound bite.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

Heh, I agree. There are also some great comments on the matter in Tapped's comment section and Matt Yglesias' comments sections.

That being said, lets actually praise Anne Kornblut here more than anything else, for reporting on the "what" of the policy rather than exclusively the "how" of the politics.

What's truly damaging to our democracy is not when Obama actually gives answers to questions (right or wrong), nor is it when Hillary attacks those answers (whether or not her attack is absolutely freakin crazy). What hurts is when we get articles that report exclusively on the attack and fail to give any insight into which position has any merits.

Bravo to Kornblut for doing just that.

By comparison, check out political point scoring piece for an example of what we should be decrying.

he leading Democratic candidates for president sparred with each other over the issue of nuclear weapons Thursday and the result was pure heat.

In another broadside indicating the increasingly heated race for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., implied Thursday that comments made by Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., were careless and unpresidential.

Sen. Clinton was referring to Obama's statement earlier in the day that he had ruled out using nuclear weapons against al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Clinton also suggested Obama's high-profile speech earlier in the week in which he said would be willing to invade Pakistan to attack high-profile al Qaeda targets, given actionable intelligence, was inappropriate, further evidence that she is painting her challenger as unprepared for the job of commander in chief.

That's meta, "cover the candidates' spin without discussing the underlying substance" crap. Its disgusting. And its the vast majority of what we get.

Maybe we don't like O'Hanlon. Maybe we hashed it out just as well, if not better, than he did. But at least Kornblut though it appropriate to go ask somebody with some level of cache (nationally) on the issue about his take. That's admirable

O'Hanlon should be acknowledged with having the good sense to see that using nuclear weapons against terrorists is foolish.

Picture a terrorist with a nuclear weapon strapped around his body being lectured to by Uncle Sam that he'll be be destroyed if he uses it.

O'Hanlon should be credited with having come up with an honest position. This shouldn't be so surprising. Even Hawks, on rare occasion, can originate thought and not emulate lick-spittle courtiers of the war industry.

Yeah, I just had written her a letter through the WaPo website praising her, so that post was basically already written.

On the topic of O'Hanlon, though...oh my. Don't get me started. I'm not convinced the guy isn't a hack.

Shorter O'Hanlon:

Blind pig, acorns, etc.

Well, what we're seeing here is someone who's actually challenging a) establishment conventional widsom, b)the Beltway press, and c)the American voting public

How?

He refuses to offer the platitudinous "Presidential" answers that are establishment conventional wisdom. That's a direct challenge to said CW. However, that's also a challenge to the press to then report what he actually said, and not some ridiculous caricature of it, and investigate whether what actually said has any merit. And finally, its a challenge to the voting public to sift through all the bad reporting out there and actually read what he said, listen to him, and try to evaluate his policies and values on their own terms.

In short, he's trying to do exactly what he promised to do, which is raise the political discourse. He doesn't always do that (calling a Clinton "Bush-Cheney-lite" isn't exactly raising the discourse, heh, no matter how much pleasure those on the left derive from hearing it made public by a credible source). However, I do think he's starting to get traction on this. It took a lot longer to get this type of coverage on the whole "meet with dictators" flap, as the press totally knee-jerked their way through that.

Its heartening, IMO. Already, we have an article on slate praising him for answering these questions, and not just dodging, an article discussing the merits of his position in the Washington post (as linked to in the EC post at the top of this page), people like Joe Klein and Wolf Blitzer imploring their readers/listeners to go actually read his full FP speech in its entirety, etc.

Its major progress IMO. I plan on sending any reporter who covers these things the right way my gratitude when they do.

Obama should tell O'Hanlon to go fuck himself.

Nope, that's not how US policy currently stands. We're quite public with the use of nuclear weapons against those countries with nuclear weapons who then use them against us. Bush has said he wants to add a nuclear response if a state harms us with WMD of the chemical or biological kind--not sure if he's made that our official poicy, but I assume he has.

You'll just have to explain your view of US policy that would permit an American nuke landing on Paki or Saudi soil. That's against current US policy. Maybe worthy of discussion but not current--or past--policy.

Heh, touche. I've been manipulated! That's evidence for both of us, I think.

You're right though, he didn't actually call Hillary "Bush-Cheney lite", though I did take it that he certainly implied as much. However, stand alone, his comments are spot on, and they were reported as him flat-out name-calling (when he didn't).

of course obama is right.

the issue isn't what's right or wrong. it's what you say in public.

While I agree with your overall perspective, I do question, since the end of the Cold War, the "go it alone" ability of our President to commit our military without prior Congressional approval. I understand we might want to respond to a genocide or for humanitarian reasons. But should we not now require prior Congressional authorization for a limited and targeted intervention?

lol, such nuance! Even Senator Clinton disagrees with you on that. Afterall,you never make blanket statements about the use or non-use of nukes, right?

Haven't we had Presidents rule out the use of nukes before? Didn't LBJ do that in Vietnam? And wasn't the question about attacking AL QAEDA which, last time I checked, is not another country?

Obama did not just say Al Queda. He said terrorist in Pakistan and Afghanistan. I think the LBJ remark was one of the reasons why democrats are now seen as soft on defense. Obama is not helping the democrats look good on defense matters.

Nice post. Thanks for pointing out that he never called Senator Clinton's approach anything.

But, as you note, it's not reported that way--it's reported the same way his foreign policy speech was. Obama wants to invade Pakistan!!!!!!!!

Mopper9, you're right about Kornblut. She did do a good job on this--I still haven't forgiven her, though, for the valentines for Joe Lieberman that were pushed as reporting, though, last summer.

So explain to me how using a nuclear weapon makes any sense in hunting down terrorists.

Its simply not the right weapon for the job. As O'Hanlon explains. If we knew where the guy is, whatever a nuke could do, conventional arms or boots could do with much more precision, much less collateral damage, and without signifying to the entire world that using nukes are OK.

Or, as a poster on tapped put it:

So if I asked Clinton if she'd rule out using nukes on terrorist cells in England, would she give the same "can't rule anything out" answer? After all, deterrence doesn't work if you don't take anything off the table! And a five-man cell of would-be suicide bombers is totally going to be deterred by the threat of our turning London into nuclear ash!

Jesus Christ, people, this is absolutely insane. Obama's answer wasn't just the right answer, it was the staggeringly obvious answer.

Its simply an atrociously bad tool for the job. Not only do you end up with civilians dead, nuclear fall-out, etc etc, you have the PR stuff to deal with as well--you think the Iraq war was a recruitment bonanza for Al Qaeda? What do you think images of a mushroom cloud in Waziristan would do for their movement? And for what? Something that could be accomplished quite easily with conventional arms.

I mean, really, this isn't even controversial. Its obvious

"Any world leader that tells a foreign country that they would never us nukes against them is not only inexperienced, but is giving away a key strategic deterrent that has been used to keep the peace."

No one has, so I guess we're safe.

J. McCutchen

Not as expert as O'Hanlon by any means but Jon Stewart on the Great Demo Smackdown every bit as trenchant

Indeed, Obama is out to raise the discourse, but who will he reach? The members of the netroots who "hash things out" before the think tanks probably love to see this change in the way we discuss policy, but he may already have our votes.

A man once met and lauded Adlai Stevenson by telling him that he had the vote of every thinking man in America. Stevenson responded with, "Yes, but unfortunately, I need a majority."

Obama's use of language is welcomed, in my view, and long overdue; but I fear that it will be receieved as the high flown political rhetoric that is found in a University of Chicago constitutional law class.

I suppose it is here that I'm unsure: in hopes to become the country's greatest public servant, is it in a candidate's best interest to lead or relate?

Well Lee Hamilton agrees with Barack. Here is what he said in an editorial he wrote on July 30th:

According to a recently released National Intelligence Estimate, the United States faces a "persistent and evolving terrorist threat" and al-Qaida is as strong today as before Sept. 11. The most important and urgent action that we can take to keep America safer is to root out al-Qaida's sanctuary in Pakistan.

Al Qaida has rebuilt the base of operations it lost in Afghanistan across the border in tribal areas of western Pakistan. Key leaders, including Osama bin Laden and top lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri, are probably hiding in this rugged terrain. Training camps are used by the Taliban to support its insurgency in Afghanistan, and by al-Qaida to develop its capabilities. Plots in London have been traced back to Pakistan, demonstrating al-Qaida's operational control over a global network. We must remember that it was largely the sanctuary in Afghanistan that enabled bin Laden and al-Qaida to sponsor and carry out the 9/11 attacks.

Despite this direct threat, the United States has an agreement with Pakistan that prevents us from going after this safe haven. Our forces in Afghanistan are not permitted to pursue Taliban fighters once they cross the Pakistani border. Instead, we rely on the Pakistani government, led by President Pervez Musharraf, to target al-Qaida and the Taliban. Musharraf has resisted, relying on an agreement with tribes to do the job. Last week the Bush administration declared that Musharraf's strategy has failed.

The time has come to bear down on Musharraf. For years, he has captivated the United States by presenting himself as a secular moderate in a region beset by religious extremists. But his actions have not matched his rhetoric. He has promised to cease Pakistan's support for the Taliban and round up al-Qaida, but failed to deliver. He has promised to transition Pakistan toward open democracy, but continues to govern like a military dictator. Meanwhile, he has received $10 billions in U.S. aid since Sept. 11...

Yes, staggeringly so!  : )

He is co-sponsoring an antiproliferation bill with Lugar