That was Obama's best moment and it is the number one reason I will never cast a vote for Hillary Clinton.

Wasn't this Teddy Roosevelt's foreign policy motto:
"Talk softly - but carry a big stick"?
Looks to me as if Obama understood this wise strategy, and Hillary, like most of the GOP, doesn't; these guys prefer to talk loudly and carry a small stick.

sigh...

Greg, I was just about to commend you for the post, and then you had to go an put in the sentence about your view that Obama is being reductive. What's reductive? He did not say that Hillary would be a continuation of Bush - he said her statements were reminiscent of those made by the current administration and we don't need that kind of language now. I think you're being very reductive with his statements and hearing things that simply aren't there.

Greg, i would hate to have your job. i dont envy you at all.

Hillary would be a continuation of Bush. She's so totally bought into the neocon obsession with over commiting our resources in the middle east, I don't see any difference at all. She says she'll end the war in Iraq out of one side of her mouth and then promises blanket commitments to the entire region out of the other. I guess it depends on what the definition of "war" is.

God, Russert's trying to get him to say he would abide by the decision of the supers if they decide to band together to back Hillary (of course, the chance of that happening is nil). Obama refused to take the bait (good!) and gave very good answers. Russert is such a moron!

Obama said he would do the same thing but used different rhetoric.

She won this issue like she wins all the rest .

Move on and stop whining about Greg.

Hey Getalife -

If you don't know the difference between "obliterate" and "act forcefully", you should just log off now.

I agree with Greg that it would be reductive to equate Clinton with Bush on foreign policy. (The difference, as I see it, is that Bush actually believes in what he's doing--what a maroon--while Clinton just puts this crap out there to get elected.) But Obama didn't say that Clinton = Bush, just that her saber-rattling was a continuation of Bush's.

Let's give Greg a break this morning, and focus on what Obama said: "It is important that we use language that sends a signal to the world community that we're shifting [away] from cowboy diplomacy."

THIS is so vitally important. So much of the world thinks of the U.S. as a giant ignorant bully. And oftentimes with good reason. If we are ever to build effective coalitions and solve international problems, we have got to get past the neocon thinking.

Unfortunately, the saber-rattling is much easier to package and sell to a nation that doesn't do nuance.

I think Greg has been quite fair in this post. Can't accuse him of anti-Obama bias. Au contraire, he seems to be taking Hillary to task.

His "(though Hillary's tough Iran talk certainly does make it easier to simplify matters in this fashion)" places his "reductive" in context here, IMO.

though Hillary's tough Iran talk certainly does make it easier to simplify matters in this fashion

Hillary simplified it. Let's not pick nits about how Barack is characterizing Hillary's message. She's the one who went for the big "Obliterate" sound bite. Her tough talk was calculated and she doesn't need to be defended against interpretation over it. She said what she meant to say. It was taken the way it was meant to be taken. If that makes her look like she wants to continue Bush's "Bring it on" foreign policy, she and all her supporters had better point the finger right back at her.

Or is it now time for her to flip back to the 'soft and gentle' Hillary who's just struggling to find her voice?

So where's all the outrage from Obama supporters? Here's a case where Obama has gone negative, and it isn't in response to a negative attack against him. He's comparing Hillary to Bush. Obama supporters have been complaining endlessly about how negative Hillary is. Obama has always been careful to paint his own negative attacks against her as a response to her attacks on him. But here we are with another negative attack against Hillary that wasn't provoked by anything she said against him. For example, he called her Annie Oakley when she talked about guns. Now she's George Bush when she talks about Iran. And yet what lesson do his supporters take from this? That he's hypocritical? No. They think this shows that he really is a new kind of politician who wants a new kind of dialog. Such nonsense.

Greg - you are really incredibly biased! Can you quote the last post where you were critical of Hillary's comments?
I view your roll to report the news and not to analyze it based on your bias. Where was your criticism when Hillary pandered to the gas tax, when Evan Bayh blamed the Clintons for the closing the magnet factory, Hillary going on the Oreilly show .... Once you start injecting your beliefs with one candidate - then you opened your self up to political bias.
In the future, I would appreciate it if you would limit your articles to some journalistic standards and let the READER decide about the post rather than trying to 'interpret' it for them.
Better yet, why don’t you find a job on the Hillary campaign since you appear to be such a big supporter of hers? That way, you can spin all day long and they will love you for it.

Greg, of the entire 1 hour interview on MTP you could only muster up one post about it (as compared with the three posts you did of Hillary's "town hall" meeting)? Maybe this is beating a dead horse, but he did have lots of other stuff to say during the program and I think Election Central readers would like to hear about them.

Greg, I think many of us are just trying to "out" you. It would be a whole lot easier on all of us if you'd just come out and endorse someone. Hiding behind the pretense of objectivity is what really grates on people.

National security is the issue that lost the last Presidential elections.

There are many factors that contributed to the last election loss... the primary one being that John Kerry's strength (military heroism) was turned into a weakness (lied about his heroics). I still feel queasy when I picture those Republican conventioneers with purple heart band-aids... support the troops indeed.

You seem to think like Hillary: in order to be considered a foreign policy expert, you have to be a hawk. You have to promote unilateral adventurism while simultaneously threatening enemy "rogue states" with atomic weaponry if they try anything stupid.

The problem is, we have had 8 years of hawkish adventurism, and U.S. history shows that we the people do have an isolationist streak. History also shows we don't take kindly to threats and being threatened. It is one thing to say that you will respond swiftly and mightiliy to defend an attack on your allies... it is another to say that you will obliterate them. The first way of speaking is tough and diplomatic. The latter way of speaking is infantile and should be reserved for professional wrestling.

Most people realize and understand (a large majority, actually) that the current atmosphere of cowbow diplomacy and reckless threats have actually made the world less safe.

North Korea has acquired fissionable material and has medium ranged missiles.

India and Pakistan have ballistic missiles, and both nations have sweetheart deals with the US to continue proliferating.

Iran will eventually pursue a clandestine nuclear program of a diplomatic solution is not reached.

Do you want to know the reason? The reason is because US policy has made nuclear proliferation inevitable. If you obtain nukes, you become an ally, or in the case of North Korea, a negotiator at the table. We now give food and money without any strings attached to North Korea... they tell us that they haven't expanded their nuke program, but we have no inspectors to verify this.

So, the example we set to the world is: get the Bomb, or be invaded. Once you acquire a nuclear weapon, we treat you with kid gloves. Otherwise, you are defenseless and will be attacked.

If you refuse to meet with the leader of Iran (as Hillary does), you can not make the necessary headway to lessen regional tensions. Iran continues to wage a proxy war against us in Iraq... how much of that would change if we could actually reach a strategic accord with them? Right now, Iran has a vested interest in bringing us down because they (rightly) see their very survival on the line. Iran isn't going to become moderate because we threaten and intimidate them. Extremism begets extremism, temperance begets temperance.

So Hillary's foreign policy is not tough, it is reckless and dangerous. Obama's is tough and will save lives.

You seem to think that the only way to beat Republicans is to become them... well, I for one am not a pod person. I believe that the way to beat Republicans is to distinguish your essential sanity in the face of their proven insanity. They have had eight years to prove that the neoconservative global empire built on inflated mortgage speculation is a colossal failure. The biggest failure in our nation's history. Just because we believe we are the greatest nation to ever exist, a beacon to all others, does not give us a universal license to commits reckless acts of assholism.

In short: Go Obama

Greg, if I may...

My issue with your reporting, though I've kept it to myself, is the injection of your opinion into them. I'm a former English major and writing minor, and I know first-hand that there is no way to remove bias or predispositions entirely. I also know that for every ten people who accuse you of being a Clintonista, there are at least six who take issue with anything you say that is supportive of Obama.

If I want opinion, I can read comments and surf the MSM. The beauty of TPM for me has been its insistence on reporting the facts of the case with minimal editorial. That's why Josh's model has been so successful-- you guys dig out stories that everybody else is burying or feigning ignorance about, and give us the story behind the story. When I read Josh's posts, the closest to opinions I hear are "I'm not an expert on this, so I'd like to hear from experts on this, but it doesn't quite sound right to me."

Understandably, Josh has an innate inability to take sides that most can't match, but I prefer to see an attempt at it.

The other issue for me is that as a writer, I feel your work should speak for itself. Your avatar is friendly, but the more you spend time responding in the comments section, the less credible it seems to me. I think people may be a little harsh with you about your opinions, bias, and such, but commenting on your own writing is what reader-bloggers do, not the people that get paid to write. Remember "A Thousand Little Pieces?"

May I suggest taking Hillary at her word? She voted to invade Iraq. She continues to believe it was the right thing to do. Now she's talking about obliterating Iran and taking military action to defend the Saudis, Jordan, etc. If you sincerely believe that this is the best approach to Mideast policy, you should vote for her. Personally, I think it's the worst possible approach. And Hillary is making it increasingly impossible for me to vote for her. Whether I like her or dislike her, I simply can't support the policies she is proposing. I believe her ideas would make America less safe, and would further diminish our standing in the world.

She has made herself a non-alternative to McCain.

With respect to Greg's post I think the way he defined Obama's assessment of Hillary's positions as reductionism set up the last paragraph to appear as criticism and that is what tripped Obama Supporter's (of which I am one) buttons.

But another point has clarified itself in the ensuing discussions and it is something I have been commenting on and noticing for a while.

Part of what is going on between Obama and Hillary is a push/pull to see where the Dem Party will be. Hillary is, and has been for some time, more of a centrist, to wit her hawkish foreign policy position. This is one of the main reasons I support Obama. I am to the left of "progressive" and I like Obama's positions more than Hillary's.

I think this is a legitimate debate to have: do we want the party to stay in the center or move back toward a more progressive tradition?

What I find interesting is that I am fairly certain that many of Hillary's supporters also consider themselves progressives but in their fervent support of Hillary they seem to ignore or turn a blind eye to her hawkish behavior. A person I work with who considers herself a feminist actually denied to me that the Bin Laden flash in her PA campaign add was "fear mongering."

The same person denies that Reverend Wright has become a lightening rod for racism. My own analysis is twofold: First, Hillary has been too far to the right on foreign policy always for my politics. Second, I think she has lost her perspective in the furor of campaigning, and she seems to have taken many of her supporters with her.

Perhaps this is easier for me to recognize because I am not really a Dem, but rather a leftist who considers human rights to be the greatest single issue and I support Dems because they are closer to that. I support Obama because of his positions, his integrity and honor.

If he starts ranting like Hillary does I would be hard pressed to continue my support for him.
(I might add my confidence is high that he will not.)

I say this as an Obama supporter.

"Cowboy diplomacy" is exactly the kind of language Obama doesn't need to be using right now. It sounds elitist and isn't going to help him with the kind of people he needs to impress most.

Cowboys cling to their guns and religion (and what's wrong with that?), but they're also honorable and never pick a fight that isn't their own or isn't for a really, really good moral cause.

Gotta wonder... would "gangstah diplomacy" be racist? If so, how can "cowboy diplomacy" be okay?