Obama or Clinton? Who'd Be the Better Diplomat?

Posted by Guest Blogger at 5:51 AM on July 25, 2007.

This post, written by Steve Benen, originally appeared on The Carpetbagger Report

The interesting, and unexpected, political flap of the day is Hillary Clinton's decision to go on the offensive against Barack Obama, following an interesting exchange from last night's debate.

First, a little context. A questioner asked whether, "in the spirit of...bold leadership," the candidates would 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, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?" Obama went first.

"I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration -- is ridiculous. (APPLAUSE)

"Now, Ronald Reagan and Democratic presidents like JFK constantly spoke to Soviet Union at a time when Ronald Reagan called them an evil empire. And the reason is because they understood that we may not trust them and they may pose an extraordinary danger to this country, but we had the obligation to find areas where we can potentially move forward. And I think that it is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them."

Then the question went to Clinton.

"Well, I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year. I will promise a very vigorous diplomatic effort because I think it is not that you promise a meeting at that high a level before you know what the intentions are.

"I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes. I don't want to make a situation even worse. But I certainly agree that we need to get back to diplomacy, which has been turned into a bad word by this administration. And I will purse very vigorous diplomacy.

"And I will use a lot of high-level presidential envoys to test the waters, to feel the way. But certainly, we're not going to just have our president meet with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and, you know, the president of North Korea, Iran and Syria until we know better what the way forward would be." (APPLAUSE)

It was indicative of what we've seen a few times in these debates. Obama and Clinton both offered answers that were well received, but Obama spoke in general terms about broad themes, while Clinton focused on the details.

The surprising part, however, was Clinton's campaign going after Obama on this today.

Indeed, Clinton referred to Obama's comments as "irresponsible and frankly naive," which is pretty strong language given the circumstances.

Clinton supporters characterized [Obama's response] as a gaffe that underscored the freshman senator's lack of foreign-policy savvy while Obama's team claimed his response displayed judgment and a repudiation of President Bush's diplomacy.

"I would think that without having done the diplomatic spadework, it would not really prove anything," former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said in a conference call with reporters set up by the Clinton campaign.

Obama's team summoned Anthony Lake, who was national security adviser in President Clinton's first term and now serves as a foreign policy adviser to Obama.

"A great nation and its president should never fear negotiating with anyone and Senator Obama rightly said he would be willing to do so -- just as Richard Nixon did with China and Ronald Reagan with the Soviet Union," Lake said.

I think by any fair measure, Clinton's answer last night was more complete and demonstrated a more detailed understanding of international diplomacy. Obama seemed to be speaking to the broader notion of the U.S. dealing directly with rivals and enemies, but Clinton recognized some of the dangers involved with these kinds of diplomatic overtures. The question specifically alluded to negotiations "without precondition" and within the "first year" of the candidates' presidency. I got the sense Clinton was probably more sensitive to the details than Obama was.

Clinton's campaign seems anxious to take advantage of what they perceive as a gaffe, but this is trickier that it sounds. For one thing, frontrunners generally don't go out of their way to go on the offensive against a candidate trailing by quite a bit in the polls.

For another, the criticism from the Clinton campaign seems predicated on the notion that Obama would be reckless and careless diplomatically. As Matt Yglesias put it:

[O]f course, if you construe what Obama said to mean that he intends to jet off to Pyongyang without any advance work having been done, I suppose that really would be "irresponsible and frankly naive," but that hardly seems like a fair assessment.

Agreed. Hillary's team emphasized today that they'd do all kinds of legwork before Clinton engaged in any kind of diplomacy with a country like North Korea. But the attack on Obama suggests he wouldn't do the legwork, which hardly seems realistic.

In all, I think Clinton did a nice job with the response last night, and delivered a better answer than Obama did. But today's follow-up might be a little too heavy-handed.

Tagged as: clinton, obama, foreign policy, election08, youtube debate

Steve Benen is a freelance writer/researcher and creator of The Carpetbagger Report. In addition, he is the lead editor of Salon.com's Blog Report, and has been a contributor to Talking Points Memo, Washington Monthly, Crooks & Liars, The American Prospect, and the Guardian.