The actual question was:

"Would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea?....."

"I would," he answered.

I think a world leader should always be willing to talk, don't you?

At the rate Barack is going, his ability and willingness to bullshit anyone and everyone for the purpose of achieving his political aims will surpass that of Bill Clinton even before he's elected. This man's in a hurry.

The differences which seemed evident between Bill and Barack during the primaries were as exciting then as the similarities between them since the primaries have been disappointing.

I'm no longer confident — at all confident — that the Barack I used to regard as a potentially great agent for systemic change is any more invested, personally, in systemic change than was Bill. I thought I was supporting someone who wanted to change the system, and in at least some ways to change it radically. But it seems not.

If Barack has passed the test for anything in the past few months, it's that of Manipulator in Chief. With Bill we had triangulation. With Barack I'm looking forward to quadrangulation, quintangulation, and onward from there.

There's nothing inherently wrong with "angulation," which is just a way of creating consensus. But to what end? Bill triangulated to favour the centre and the right, and so succeeded in further marginalising the left. That's all I've seen Barack do since the primaries ended.

Billy: "No politician should be allowed to get away with 'explaining' away the fact that he said one thing to get nominated and another to get elected."

This should apply especially to his supporters, but if those here are any example, they don't even see the difference. With such blind support, what incentive does Obama have to do other than to continue to bullshit his way to the presidency?

flaccid

McJoker is getting the Clinton treatment by the media.

too bad it has been proven that AP kneels before Karl Rove:

http://mediamatters.org/columns/200807220006

oops - forgot the image (technical difficulties)

McCain whined about Obama not having been to Iraq for sometime.

Obama visits Iraq.

Since McCain whined about Obama not having visited Iraq, when Obama went there, the MSM decided that since McCain though that such a visit was very important, then they should cover it.

McCain now whines about the media covering Obama's trip, even though McCain was the original whiner that elevated the need for such a trip been a very big deal.

"Hey everyone, pay complete attention to the fact that Senator Obama has not been to Iraq recently.

Hey everyone, stop paying attention to the fact that Senator Obama has just visited Iraq." Senator Janus Whiney McCain

I'm glad Obama clarified, refined, changed--or whatever--his position on this one. The original statement, I'd suggest, reflected inexperience, which can be rectified. Nothing at all wrong with that.

But his blatant reversals on FISA, handguns, death penalty, campiagn finance can't be attributed to inexperience--these are opportunistic moves of a politician. (Not to mention the disjunction between his progressive rhetoric and his support for corporate energy concerns, his fundraising from lobbyists, his public opposition to progressive Democrats, his softening stance on NAFTA.) These are what the MSM should be challenging him on.

liam, you get an A+ for boiling it down to foreign influence in elections and in foreign policy decisions.

I want the media and the pollsters to let us know what the Greeks, the Poles, the Chinese, the Nigerians, the Brasilians in our fair country think about our upcoming election and the candidates?

I hear nothing from the "traditional" media about aforementioned.