JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

The view from the Middle East

By Uriel Heilman · November 4, 2008

How is the U.S. election being seen in the Middle East?

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Political tidbits: Obama up big among Fla. Jews, Shulman gaining on Garrett? (UPDATED)

By Eric Fingerhut · October 23, 2008

• Did the Great Schlep work? A new Quinnipiac poll has Florida Jews going 77-20 for Obama. That number would put Obama in line with Jewish support of the Democratic candidate in the last few presidential elections – and that’s in a state where a lot of resistance to Obama among Jewish voters had been reported a couple months ago. UPDATE: According to the Quinnipiac Polling Institute, the Jewish sample in the poll was 87 people, or 6 percent, which gives it a sizable margin of error of plus or minus 10.5 percent.
• “Blind Rabbi” Dennis Shulman and incumbent Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) have their first debate, and it’s not friendly. The candidates clashed over Israel and health care, reports the New Jersey Jewish News.
• Meanwhile, Politico speculates that the GOP is worried about losing Garrett’s seat, although a party spokeswoman denies it. For his part, Garrett just started running a television ad calling Shulman “too extreme for New Jersey” and sent out a mailer accusing Shulman of supporting “talking to terrorists.”
  Shulman’s campaign responded by calling Garrett “desperate” and comparing him to Karl Rove and Michelle Bachmann
  
• The head of Vote From Israel claims the deciding votes in a close presidential election could come from the 42,000 U.S. voters living in the Jewish state, reports the Jerusalem Post.
• Some Jewish Democrats complain to the Forward that the Conference of Presidents circulated invitations to John McCain’s “tele-town hall” meeting on Sunday.
  
• Howard Fineman blogs at Newsweek that Jewish donors frightened by Sarah Palin were one reason Barack Obama raised so much money in September.
• If John McCain won’t bring up Rev. Jeremiah Wright as a campaign issue, then Jonathan Mark of The Jewish Week doesn’t trust McCain to speak out against anti-Semitism as president.
  
• The economic crisis is dampening enthusiasm for McCain among the Russian Jewish community, reports The Jewish Week.
• And some in the Jewish community see the economic crisis forcing increased engagement with Iran under a new president, writes Jim Besser in The Jewish Week.
• The Forward reports on the Obama campaign’s courting of the Brooklyn Orthodox community at a sukkah in Williamsburg.
  
• Whitefish salad, nova, bagels, latkes and a couple black and white cookies were on the menu when Obama visited a South Florida deli with Reps. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) on Tuesday afternoon, reports Jake Tapper at ABC News.
• How does an editor decide whether to publish a letter that contains false information about the presidential candidates? The Jewish Week’s Gary Rosenblatt explores that issue.
  
• Larry Yudelson, in the Jerusalem Post, finds problems in McCain’s repetition of the phrase “Judeo-Christian values.”
• Eitan Haber, in YNet, is not excited, to say the least, about a Barack Obama presidency and it implications for Israel.
  
• Obama adviser Dan Kurtzer is optimistic about Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in an Obama presidency, according to the New Jersey Jewish News.
  
• Alan Dershowitz’s research assistant objects to the Harvard law professor’s endorsement of Obama, in the Jerusalem Post.
• Washington Jewish Week talks to some young Jews who made The Great Schlep.
• Could Wyoming have a Jewish member of Congress? Some polls say it’s possible, according to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

3 Comments | Share This | ads, barack obama, Congressional races, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida, Iran, Israel, John McCain, Local races, New Jersey, New York, polls, Presidential Race, Sarah Palin, Tidbits

Political tidbits: Obama effigy found in Ohio, McCain townhall reaction

By Eric Fingerhut · October 20, 2008

• A man hangs an Obama effigy in his front yard – with a Star of David on the top of his head – and freely admits he doesn’t want a black man as president. The Huffington Post has the video from a local TV station in Ohio.
• John McCain isn’t going to bring up Obama’s relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but won’t ask the Republican Jewish Coalition to stop putting him in their ads, according to Newsweek.
  
• McCain turned down an opportunity from Rabbi Shlomo Riskin yesterday to talk about Wright at a Jewish “tele-town hall meeting.”
• M.J. Rosenberg rips Riskin for spending years living in Israel and yet presuming to advise U.S. presidential candidates on strategy, at TPM Cafe.
• Jim Besser of The Jewish Week felt the McCain meeting seemed too staged.
• Menachem Rosensaft on McCain’s “pals” like Phil Gramm and Randy Scheunemann, in the Huffington Post.
• Here’s the National Jewish Democratic Council’s newest print ad, making the case that Obama-Biden will protect Israel and achieve energy independence.
  
• And here’s the Republican Jewish Coalition’s new television ad, using Hillary Clinton to criticize Obama for saying he’d meet with the leaders of rogue states.
  
• Every church and synagogue in the United States is going to receive the anti-radical Islam film Obsession, according to Marketwatch. It’s coming enclosed with a new right-wing, anti-gay marriage and anti-abortion publication called The Judeo-Christian View, which is backed by a couple Orthodox rabbis and charges that Obama’s support of partial-birth abortion is akin biblically to child sacrifice.
• Daniel Pipes plays the Muslim card, claiming that Obama wouldn’t get a security clearance if he becomes president.
  
• Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) tells CBS’s “Face The Nation” that Sarah Palin has “really disturbed” the Jewish community in Florida, according to UPI.
  
• Richard Heideman and Steve Grossman face off as surrogates for McCain and Obama in Boston, reports the Boston Globe.
  
• Adam Brickley, one of Sarah Palin’s earliest fans in the lower 48, has gone from being an evangelical Christian to a “messianic Jew,” notes the New Yorker in a Palin profile.
  
• Our daily look at the Florida Jewish vote today comes from the Chicago Tribune.
• The Jewish Press endorses John McCain.
  
• “Family Guy” briefly compared McCain and Palin to Nazis last night, according to Hollywood Today.
  
• Sarah Silverman talks to Katie Couric.

1 Comment | Share This | ads, barack obama, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida, hillary clinton, Iran, Joe Biden, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Massachusetts, Nevada, NJDC, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Presidential Race, Primaries, Sarah Palin, syria, Tidbits

Unsolicited advice to the next president

By Lisa Hostein · October 8, 2008

Both presidential candidates made the requisite references to Israel in their debate last night. As they ponder more thoughtful policies in the Middle East, here comes analyst Martin Kramer with some unsolicited advice: Focus on Iran and the Persian Gulf and don’t worry too much about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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Get me rewrite: New Israel question needed

By Ami Eden · October 8, 2008

Israel popped up at the end of Tuesday night’s town hall-style debate, when one audience member asked:

“If, despite your best diplomatic efforts, Iran attacks Israel, would you be willing to commit U.S. troops in support and defense of Israel? Or would you wait on approval from the U.N. Security Council?”

With all due respect to the questioner, there are much better/more relevant ways to measure each candidate’s support for Israel and the willingness to put U.S. troops at risk in defense of the Jewish state (not to mention their general views on securing U.N. authorization before American military action). Now, before I go on, it’s only fair to point out that during a previous Democratic primary debate, one of the highly paid professionals – ABC’s George Stephanopoulos – asked a similar and equally off-the-mark question to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

The pressing question is not what a candidate would do after an Iranian attack on Israel, but what a candidate would do – or permit/help Israel do – to prevent an Iranian attack. For example, both Joe Biden and Sarah Palin have been asked in recent weeks the very relevant question of what an Obama or McCain administration would do if Israel decided to launch a preemptive strike against Iran. Of course, as I noted earlier, they both offered the same implausible answer: The United States needs to defer to Israel on such matters about its own security.

Why implausible? Because the United States controls Iraq’s air space and, depending on whom you believe, the fallout will include Iranian strikes against Western and oil-producing targets – so I think it’s safe to say that the next president will have some input on the decision-making process, probably long before any attack were ordered.

As for last night’s answers, read the transcript (second-to-last question) or watch the video:

If you happen to bump into either of the candidates, or will be posing the questions at the final debate, here’s what you can ask with regards to Iran:

* Senator McCain, why, if you favor stiffer international sanctions on Iran, have you not urged your fellow GOP senators to stop blocking such measures from being approved in the U.S. Senate?

* Senator Obama, your surrogates have been suggesting that when you talk about direct high-level talks with Iran, you don’t necessarily mean with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s Holocaust-denying president who continues to predict Israel’s downfall. Would you meet with him or not?

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We won’t let the UN stop us

By Eric Fingerhut · October 8, 2008

Both John McCain and Barack Obama said last night that they wouldn’t wait for the United Nations Security Council to give its approval before sending troops to Israel in the event of an attack by Iran. Here’s the transcript:

Shirey: Senator, as a retired Navy chief, my thoughts are often with those who serve our country. I know both candidates, both of you, expressed support for Israel.

If, despite your best diplomatic efforts, Iran attacks Israel, would you be willing to commit U.S. troops in support and defense of Israel? Or would you wait on approval from the U.N. Security Council?

McCain: Well, thank you, Terry (ph). And thank you for your service to the country.

I want to say, everything I ever learned about leadership I learned from a chief petty officer. And I thank you, and I thank you, my friend. Thanks for serving.

Let – let – let me say that we obviously would not wait for the United Nations Security Council. I think the realities are that both Russia and China would probably pose significant obstacles.

And our challenge right now is the Iranians continue on the path to acquiring nuclear weapons, and it’s a great threat. It’s not just a threat – threat to the state of Israel. It’s a threat to the stability of the entire Middle East.

If Iran acquires nuclear weapons, all the other countries will acquire them, too. The tensions will be ratcheted up.

What would you do if you were the Israelis and the president of a country says that they are – they are determined to wipe you off the map, calls your country a stinking corpse?

Now, Sen. Obama without precondition wants to sit down and negotiate with them, without preconditions. That’s what he stated, again, a matter of record.

I want to make sure that the Iranians are put enough – that we put enough pressure on the Iranians by joining with our allies, imposing significant, tough sanctions to modify their behavior. And I think we can do that.

I think, joining with our allies and friends in a league of democracies, that we can effectively abridge their behavior, and hopefully they would abandon this quest that they are on for nuclear weapons.

But, at the end of the day, my friend, I have to tell you again, and you know what it’s like to serve, and you know what it’s like to sacrifice, but we can never allow a second Holocaust to take place.

Brokaw: Sen. Obama?

Obama: Well, Terry, first of all, we honor your service, and we’re grateful for it.

We cannot allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon. It would be a game-changer in the region. Not only would it threaten Israel, our strongest ally in the region and one of our strongest allies in the world, but it would also create a possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists.

And so it’s unacceptable. And I will do everything that’s required to prevent it.

And we will never take military options off the table. And it is important that we don’t provide veto power to the United Nations or anyone else in acting in our interests.

It is important, though, for us to use all the tools at our disposal to prevent the scenario where we’ve got to make those kinds of choices.

And that’s why I have consistently said that, if we can work more effectively with other countries diplomatically to tighten sanctions on Iran, if we can reduce our energy consumption through alternative energy, so that Iran has less money, if we can impose the kinds of sanctions that, say, for example, Iran right now imports gasoline, even though it’s an oil-producer, because its oil infrastructure has broken down, if we can prevent them from importing the gasoline that they need and the refined petroleum products, that starts changing their cost-benefit analysis. That starts putting the squeeze on them.

Now, it is true, though, that I believe that we should have direct talks – not just with our friends, but also with our enemies – to deliver a tough, direct message to Iran that, if you don’t change your behavior, then there will be dire consequences.

If you do change your behavior, then it is possible for you to re-join the community of nations.

Now, it may not work. But one of the things we’ve learned is, is that when we take that approach, whether it’s in North Korea or in Iran, then we have a better chance at better outcomes.

When President Bush decided we’re not going to talk to Iran, we’re not going to talk to North Korea, you know what happened? Iran went from zero centrifuges to develop nuclear weapons to 4,000. North Korea quadrupled its nuclear capability.

We’ve got to try to have talks, understanding that we’re not taking military options off the table.

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Alaska. Iran. 

By Ron Kampeas · October 7, 2008

Get the connection?

Umm, winter sports? Check. (Iran has some killer ski slopes, I hear.)

Indigenous religious beliefs tied to the apocalypse? Okay.

Crazed political leaders anticipating the demise of the United States? And forming a mutual admiration society? Whoa.

In fairness, the Salon story on the Alaska Independence Party’s oddball founder Joe Vogler and his chumminess with the Iranians covers a period predating Todd Palin’s membership in the party. (Palin, of course, is husband to the current Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential pick, Sarah Palin.) The party reportedly cleaned up its act after Vogler’s mysterious death and has since nominated candidates who comport with its new goals of making independence one of many options for Alaska.

In double, cross-your-fingers, tfoo-tfoo-tfoo fairness, though, Salon’s point is not that the Palins are insurrectionists: it’s that it’s easy to tie just about anyone in American politics to an unsavory character - and that the Palin-Vogler stretch is about as taut as the Obama-Ayers “palship.”

Hattip: TPM

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Political tidbits: Silverman talks about the “schlep,” new ads and more

By Eric Fingerhut · October 7, 2008

• Sarah Silverman talks to the New York Times about her video for “The Great Schlep.”
  
• The National Jewish Democratic Council’s new advertisement deals with energy independence, while the Republican Jewish Coalition’s latest is about Obama’s statement that he would meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “without preconditions.”
• Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff reveals that Barack Obama’s campaign returned $33,000 to two brothers in the Gaza Strip who had bought t-shirts in bulk from the campaign’s online store. They listed their addresss as “Ga.,” which the campaign thought was Georgia.
• Time’s Joe Klein asks “where’s the outrage” from conservative Jews over Sarah Palin’s church and Sean Hannity citing a “Jew-hater” as a source.
• The Cleveland Plain-Dealer explores whether Republicans can make inroads in the Jewish vote in Ohio.
• Joe Lieberman tells Chabad of Boca Raton, and the Palm Beach Post, that it’s OK to attack Obama’s associations, but that doesn’t mean McCain is trying to avoid issues.
• Lieberman introduces Palin at a big fundraiser in Palm Beach.
• Matt Littman, at the Huffington Post, wonders how many Jews Sarah Palin has met.
  
• Those pro-Obama videos from Israelis give a false impression of his support in the Jewish state, according to Shmuel Rosner in Commentary.

0 Comments | Share This | ads, Alaska, barack obama, Democratic convention, Florida, Iran, Israel, Joe Biden, John McCain, NJDC, Ohio, Presidential Race, Sarah Palin, Tidbits, Uncategorized

Political tidbits: Is Bubbie’s vote really that important?

By Eric Fingerhut · September 29, 2008

• Writing in The New Republic, Nate Silver explains “Why your Bubbie will not decide the election” – no matter how many grandchildren make The Great Schlep.
• Barack Obama tells a group of mostly Jewish donors in Detroit why he likes the Jewish New Year.
• Abba Spero, in the Jewish Press, compares John McCain and the rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto.
  
• Former New York Mayor Ed Koch hits the campaign trail in South Florida, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
• Cox News Service checks out the “army” the Obama campaign is building in Florida to sway Jewish voters.
  
• What will the “Palin Effect” be? Bradley Burston explores that question in Ha’aretz.
• Jeffrey Goldberg, blogging at The Atlantic, says Sarah Palin demonstrated ”terrifying ignorance” when asked about Hamas’s electoral victory in Gaza.
  
• The Wall Street Journal on campaign yarmulkes – and whether they’re appropriate for synagogue.
  
• Over at Ynet, Israeli Likudnik Yoram Ettinger compares the worldviews of the two presidential candidates – turns out he isn’t a fan of Obama.
  
• In the Huffington Post, Sherman Yellen argues it is “deeply offensive to any Jewish voter who cares about Israel” for the presidential candidates to “exploit” fears of an Iranian attack on Israel.
  
• Marilyn Henry, in the Jerusalem Post, examines the role of clergy and houses of worship in politics.
• Thirty-three pastors endorsed candidates from their pulpits yesterday, hoping to get sued.
• As Congress races to vote on the big bailout before Rosh Hashanah starts, here’s a look at House Democrats’ point man on the bill, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who quips that “it’s a well-known rule” that “God will only hear your prayers if you’re in your congressional district.”
• And some background on Eric Cantor’s role in the bailout drama, as one of the House Republicans who helped scuttle the original plan.

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The Iran debate exchange

By Eric Fingerhut · September 27, 2008

Friday night’s debate discussion about the Iran threat featured a lot of talk about Israel. John McCain cited some of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s ugliest rhetoric against the Jewish state as a reason not to talk to him, while Barack Obama defended diplomacy while also noting Israel was “our stalwart ally.”

Here’s some of the transcript:

LEHRER: New lead question. And it goes two minutes to you, Senator McCain, what is your reading on the threat to Iran right now to the security of the United States?

MCCAIN: My reading of the threat from Iran is that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it is an existential threat to the State of Israel and to other countries in the region because the other countries in the region will feel compelling requirement to acquire nuclear weapons as well.

Now we cannot a second Holocaust. Let’s just make that very clear. What I have proposed for a long time, and I’ve had conversation with foreign leaders about forming a league of democracies, let’s be clear and let’s have some straight talk. The Russians are preventing significant action in the United Nations Security Council.

I have proposed a league of democracies, a group of people - a group of countries that share common interests, common values, common ideals, they also control a lot of the world’s economic power. We could impose significant meaningful, painful sanctions on the Iranians that I think could have a beneficial effect.

The Iranians have a lousy government, so therefore their economy is lousy, even though they have significant oil revenues. So I am convinced that together, we can, with the French, with the British, with the Germans and other countries, democracies around the world, we can affect Iranian behavior.

But have no doubt, but have no doubt that the Iranians continue on the path to the acquisition of a nuclear weapon as we speak tonight. And it is a threat not only in this region but around the world.

What I’d also like to point out the Iranians are putting the most lethal IEDs into Iraq which are killing young Americans, there are special groups in Iran coming into Iraq and are being trained in Iran. There is the Republican Guard in Iran, which Senator Kyl had an amendment in order to declare them a sponsor of terror. Senator Obama said that would be provocative.

So this is a serious threat. This is a serious threat to security in the world, and I believe we can act and we can act with our friends and allies and reduce that threat as quickly as possible, but have no doubt about the ultimate result of them acquiring nuclear weapons.

LEHRER: Two minutes on Iran, Senator Obama.

OBAMA: Well, let me just correct something very quickly. I believe the Republican Guard of Iran is a terrorist organization. I’ve consistently said so. What Senator McCain refers to is a measure in the Senate that would try to broaden the mandate inside of Iraq. To deal with Iran.

And ironically, the single thing that has strengthened Iran over the last several years has been the war in Iraq. Iraq was Iran’s mortal enemy. That was cleared away. And what we’ve seen over the last several years is Iran’s influence grow. They have funded Hezbollah, they have funded Hamas, they have gone from zero centrifuges to 4,000 centrifuges to develop a nuclear weapon.

So obviously, our policy over the last eight years has not worked. Senator McCain is absolutely right, we cannot tolerate a nuclear Iran. It would be a game changer. Not only would it threaten Israel, a country that is our stalwart ally, but it would also create an environment in which you could set off an arms race in this Middle East.

Now here’s what we need to do. We do need tougher sanctions. I do not agree with Senator McCain that we’re going to be able to execute the kind of sanctions we need without some cooperation with some countries like Russia and China that are, I think Senator McCain would agree, not democracies, but have extensive trade with Iran but potentially have an interest in making sure Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon.

But we are also going to have to, I believe, engage in tough direct diplomacy with Iran and this is a major difference I have with Senator McCain, this notion by not talking to people we are punishing them has not worked. It has not worked in Iran, it has not worked in North Korea. In each instance, our efforts of isolation have actually accelerated their efforts to get nuclear weapons. That will change when I’m president of the United States.

LEHRER: Senator, what about talking?

MCCAIN: Senator Obama twice said in debates he would sit down with Ahmadinejad, Chavez and Raul Castro without precondition. Without precondition. Here is Ahmadinenene [mispronunciation], Ahmadinejad, who is, Ahmadinejad, who is now in New York, talking about the extermination of the State of Israel, of wiping Israel off the map, and we’re going to sit down, without precondition, across the table, to legitimize and give a propaganda platform to a person that is espousing the extermination of the state of Israel, and therefore then giving them more credence in the world arena and therefore saying, they’ve probably been doing the right thing, because you will sit down across the table from them and that will legitimize their illegal behavior.

The point is that throughout history, whether it be Ronald Reagan, who wouldn’t sit down with Brezhnev, Andropov or Chernenko until Gorbachev was ready with glasnost and perestroika.

Or whether it be Nixon’s trip to China, which was preceded by Henry Kissinger, many times before he went. Look, I’ll sit down with anybody, but there’s got to be pre-conditions. Those pre-conditions would apply that we wouldn’t legitimize with a face to face meeting, a person like Ahmadinejad. Now, Senator Obama said, without preconditions.

OBAMA: So let’s talk about this. First of all, Ahmadinejad is not the most powerful person in Iran. So he may not be the right person to talk to. But I reserve the right, as president of the United States to meet with anybody at a time and place of my choosing if I think it’s going to keep America safe.

And I’m glad that Senator McCain brought up the history, the bipartisan history of us engaging in direct diplomacy.

Senator McCain mentioned Henry Kissinger, who’s one of his advisers, who, along with five recent secretaries of state, just said that we should meet with Iran – guess what – without precondition. This is one of your own advisers.

Now, understand what this means “without preconditions.” It doesn’t mean that you invite them over for tea one day. What it means is that we don’t do what we’ve been doing, which is to say, “Until you agree to do exactly what we say, we won’t have direct contacts with you.”

There’s a difference between preconditions and preparation. Of course we’ve got to do preparations, starting with low-level diplomatic talks, and it may not work, because Iran is a rogue regime.

But I will point out that I was called naive when I suggested that we need to look at exploring contacts with Iran. And you know what? President Bush recently sent a senior ambassador, Bill Burns, to participate in talks with the Europeans around the issue of nuclear weapons.

Again, it may not work, but if it doesn’t work, then we have strengthened our ability to form alliances to impose the tough sanctions that Senator McCain just mentioned.

And when we haven’t done it, as in North Korea – let me just take one more example – in North Korea, we cut off talks. They’re a member of the axis of evil. We can’t deal with them.

And you know what happened? They went – they quadrupled their nuclear capacity. They tested a nuke. They tested missiles. They pulled out of the nonproliferation agreement. And they sent nuclear secrets, potentially, to countries like Syria.

When we re-engaged – because, again, the Bush administration reversed course on this – then we have at least made some progress, although right now, because of the problems in North Korea, we are seeing it on shaky ground.

And – and I just – so I just have to make this general point that the Bush administration, some of Senator McCain’s own advisers all think this is important, and Senator McCain appears resistant.

He even said the other day that he would not meet potentially with the prime minister of Spain, because he – you know, he wasn’t sure whether they were aligned with us. I mean, Spain? Spain is a NATO ally.

MCCAIN: Of course.

OBAMA: If we can’t meet with our friends, I don’t know how we’re going to lead the world in terms of dealing with critical issues like terrorism.

MCCAIN: I’m not going to set the White House visitors schedule before I’m president of the United States. I don’t even have a seal yet.

Look, Dr. Kissinger did not say that he would approve of face-to- face meetings between the president of the United States and the president – and Ahmadinejad. He did not say that.

OBAMA: Of course not.

MCCAIN: He said that there could be secretary-level and lower level meetings. I’ve always encouraged them. The Iranians have met with Ambassador Crocker in Baghdad.

What Senator Obama doesn’t seem to understand that if without precondition you sit down across the table from someone who has called Israel a “stinking corpse,” and wants to destroy that country and wipe it off the map, you legitimize those comments.

This is dangerous. It isn’t just naive; it’s dangerous. And so we just have a fundamental difference of opinion.

As far as North Korea is concerned, our secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, went to North Korea. By the way, North Korea, most repressive and brutal regime probably on Earth. The average South Korean is three inches taller than the average North Korean, a huge gulag.

We don’t know what the status of the dear leader’s health is today, but we know this, that the North Koreans have broken every agreement that they’ve entered into.

And we ought to go back to a little bit of Ronald Reagan’s “trust, but verify,” and certainly not sit down across the table from – without precondition, as Senator Obama said he did twice, I mean, it’s just dangerous.

OBAMA: Look, I mean, Senator McCain keeps on using this example that suddenly the president would just meet with somebody without doing any preparation, without having low-level talks. Nobody’s been talking about that, and Senator McCain knows it. This is a mischaracterization of my position.

When we talk about preconditions – and Henry Kissinger did say we should have contacts without preconditions – the idea is that we do not expect to solve every problem before we initiate talks.

And, you know, the Bush administration has come to recognize that it hasn’t worked, this notion that we are simply silent when it comes to our enemies. And the notion that we would sit with Ahmadinejad and not say anything while he’s spewing his nonsense and his vile comments is ridiculous. Nobody is even talking about that.

MCCAIN: So let me get this right. We sit down with Ahmadinejad, and he says, “We’re going to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth,” and we say, “No, you’re not”? Oh, please.

OBAMA: No, let me tell…

MCCAIN: By the way, my friend, Dr. Kissinger, who’s been my friend for 35 years, would be interested to hear this conversation and Senator Obama’s depiction of his – of his positions on the issue. I’ve known him for 35 years.

OBAMA: We will take a look.

MCCAIN: And I guarantee you he would not – he would not say that presidential top level.

OBAMA: Nobody’s talking about that.

MCCAIN: Of course he encourages and other people encourage contacts, and negotiations, and all other things. We do that all the time.

LEHRER: We’re going to go to a new…

MCCAIN: And Senator Obama is parsing words when he says precondition means preparation.

OBAMA: I am not parsing words.

MCCAIN: He’s parsing words, my friends.

OBAMA: I’m using the same words that your advisers use.

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