The Occasional Observer

Looks like the press won't be in the bag for Obama on his foreign policy concept to talk to rogue leaders without preconditions. I mentioned the other day that he had already begun backpedaling on this issue, and if the two latest shots from AP and NYT are any indication, he's going to have to cycle even faster.

Obama's finding himself more and more on the defensive on this issue of talking with rogue leaders. The campaign's surrogates have slowly been walking back his initial declarations and the RNC and McCain folks have been pouncing hard on him. The issue is one the Obama campaign still likes -- because it allows them to tie McCain to Bush’s foreign policy -- but it will have to deal with a couple of challenges today. The first is a critical AP article: “Obama gets cheers at his rallies when he declares there is nothing to fear, and potentially much to gain, from talking to enemies as well as friends. But U.S. diplomacy is not that simple and neither is his position.” The other is a New York Times op-ed noting that Kennedy’s meeting with Khrushchev in ’61 didn’t turn out all that well.