Morning Update: How to Engage Rogues
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) on ABC’s This Week again raised Sen. Barack Obama’s willingness to negotiate with countries like Iran and Syria without preconditions. She said her administration would meet with those countries, but at lower diplomatic levels initially because the president should not “put the prestige of the United States on the line to meet with these people unless you have some idea of what is going to happen.”
Clinton also defended her apparent change of position on drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants. When she indicated backing for such a measure in New York, she said, she was trying “to support my governor as he tried to do something that is admittedly controversial.” Still, she said, “I said at the time it was not something that I supported.”
On Face the Nation, McCain criticized the Democratic candidates for wanting to withdraw from Iraq. “If we do that, al-Qaeda wins and we see chaos and genocide in the region,” he said (PDF).
Also on Face the Nation, Obama again criticized past comments by McCain that Washington should contemplate a troop presence in Iraq of up to 100 years if necessary. “John McCain suggested that we should be there 50, 60, 100 years. I think that’s not the kind of change that the American people are looking for,” he said.
