The O'Hanlon Primary

Your favorite think tanker and mine turns to Donald Lambro, chief political correspondent of The Washington Times, to channel his amped-up attacks on Barack Obama:

Michael O'Hanlon, a Democratic defense and national-security adviser at the Brookings Institution, also finds Obama's approach dangerous and sophomoric.

The freshman senator's eagerness for one-on-one talks with tin-pot dictators "would cheapen the value of presidential summits," O'Hanlon told me.

"You don't want a president using his time being lied to by foreign leaders. Hillary would be much more pragmatic. She has suggested midlevel talks with Iran, for example," he said. "Obama would look weak, and Hillary would not look weak."

Anyone who's pissed O'Hanlon off this much is okay in my book. However, as the correspondent who brought this article to my attention observed, this seems like an odd time and place to go after Obama so severely if the intention is really to earn Clinton's admiration. It looks in some ways more like pre-positioning for pro-McCain orientation in the general election.

Comments

a whore like O'Hanlon will go wherever he can get employment. If Idi Amin needed a National Security whore, and was willing to scrape the bottom of the barrel with O'Hanlon, Hillary's adviser would have been in Uganda.

Posted by della Rovere | February 14, 2008 8:19 AM

It looks in some ways more like pre-positioning for pro-McCain orientation in the general election.

Or, is it a sign that O'Hanlon and his liberal hawk ilk are going to try to make Obama pander to them should he become the nominee?

Posted by Philly | February 14, 2008 8:19 AM

O'Hanlon asserts that allowing Obama to be president will "cheapen the value of presidential summits" (which are not, by the way, currently trading at an all-time-high.)

What kind of persuasive argument is that supposed to be? Does O'Hanlon have examples in mind of world leaders who have been cheapened by excessive summitry? It's a lot like contending that gay marriage will "cheapen the institution of marriage." My friends, we must be ever-vigilant in our opposition to ambiguous moral cheapening!

Posted by James Gary | February 14, 2008 8:26 AM

As always, neocons are more concerned about "looking" weak than actually being weak.

Posted by Bill | February 14, 2008 8:28 AM

Some caution should be exercised here in taking anything published in the Moonie paper at face value. We have only the world of Mr. Lambro that MR. O'Hanlon said any such thing. I wouldn't believe anything published in the Moonie paper without confirmation from other sources. So before piling on Mr. O'Hanlon, we should await such confirmation.

Posted by SLC | February 14, 2008 8:31 AM

Yeah, the whole "Don't talk to foreign leaders we don't like and may end up going to war with" approach has worked out so well. I mean, the only bad outcome is, um, war. What's not to like?

Posted by steve duncan | February 14, 2008 8:51 AM

Matt, I'm curious--have you ever met O'Hanlon? I've never seen him on TV and I can't get read for this guy's personality type. Is he a macho, macho type or a "serious thinker" type that relays a sense of knowing stuff. If the latter, its too bad he's not more like Jonah Goldberg, who clearly is a dipsh*t that can be ignored. I thought the comments section was devoid of Goldberg digs.

Posted by jvoe | February 14, 2008 9:00 AM

The whole idea that since Bush's administration has been a failure, the next President should do everything exactly opposite to what Bush has done is frankly stupid and simplistic.

Although Bush's approach to diplomacy and engagement hasn't been well executed, it doesn't follow that Obama's approach will be superior. Agreeing to meet with a rogue's gallery of foreign leaders without pre-conditions isn't a wise thing to do. Although Obama quotes President Kennedy on this subject, I seriously doubt that Kennedy ever met with Krueschev without any pre-conditions or requirements.

Hillary's answer in that debate was a lot more nuanced and correct, while not necessarily pandering to the liberal anti-war crowd.

Posted by Tim K | February 14, 2008 9:06 AM

SLC:
While I don't put much creedence in anything The Moonie Times prints, it sounds like something O'Hanlon would say. Just look at all the other bullshit he spews(which Atrios has pretty much cataloged. This is right up his alley whether it is printed in a newspaper better suited for pooper scooper use or not.

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | February 14, 2008 9:15 AM

Agreeing to meet with a rogue's gallery of foreign leaders without pre-conditions isn't a wise thing to do.

Why, specifically, do you hold this to be the case? I just don't see it to be true that "US prestige" will be somehow eroded if our President is seen talking with the "wrong class of people," or that talking with certain leaders somehow "legitimizes" them. (The governments of Iran, Cuba, and North Korea seem pretty de facto legitimate to me--with or without US recognition.)

Posted by James Gary | February 14, 2008 9:16 AM

The summits! Won't anyone think of the summits?

Posted by Jayhawk Max | February 14, 2008 9:18 AM

Tim K:
What about Nixon meeting Khrushchev and Mao? What were the pre-conditions?

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | February 14, 2008 9:21 AM

"Although Bush's approach to diplomacy and engagement hasn't been well executed, it doesn't follow that Obama's approach will be superior. Agreeing to meet with a rogue's gallery of foreign leaders without pre-conditions isn't a wise thing to do. Although Obama quotes President Kennedy on this subject, I seriously doubt that Kennedy ever met with Krueschev without any pre-conditions or requirements."

It depends on what you mean by "pre-conditions." If you mean "you must agree to do what I want you to do before I'll even speak to you," then you're just being silly. That takes away the entire incentive to speak to you because you are asking for something for nothing. This would never fly with smart business people. In non-neocon diplomatic circles, this is widely recognized as a way of approaching diplomacy in bad faith. When you are saying that being in the same room with you is its own reward, you aren't looking strong and strategic, but instead foolish and egotistical, exactly the types of things that we need to get away from after Bush. Concessions are for the actual negotiation, not for before the negotiation.

Posted by Reality Man | February 14, 2008 9:30 AM

Re Joe Kleins' conscience

Saying that this sounds like something that Mr. O'Hanlon might say isn't good enough. Mr. Lambro is a right wing ideologue who has zero credibility. His agenda to to further the right wing agenda which requires the demonization of both Senator Obama and Senator Clinton so any lie is grist for his mill. I suggest that a query to Mr. O'Hanlon as to whether he made such a statement is in order. As much as he is denigrated on this blog, his credibility is still several cuts above the likes of Mr. Lambro.

Posted by SLC | February 14, 2008 9:56 AM

Stalin..the
Shah...Pinochet...oh no the president would never meet with an unsavory character!

One would not want to undue all the work that Bush and Ohanlon have done to increase the international "status" of presidential summits!

Posted by centrist | February 14, 2008 9:56 AM

There is a book review in the newest issue of Foreign Affairs that points out that since the end of the Cold War, great power politics has receded in salience (after all, we aren't living in a clear bipolar world anymore), great summits have also been downgraded in prestige. This fact just makes O'Hanlon's hand-wringing look all the more foolish.

Posted by Reality Man | February 14, 2008 10:01 AM

I don't think it is a good idea for Barack Obama to do what I heard he's doing to invite all the world's enemies of the US of A to live in the Pentagon and have free access to all our nuclear weapons. I know he means well but hopefully our remaining liberal hawks will be bold enough to insist that some people stand up to his surrender logic.

Posted by El Cid | February 14, 2008 10:30 AM

Jesus Christ, I'm so pissed off at the obsession with "looking weak" that neocons and their liberal hangers on have. It's like they all think Harvey Mansfield is the world's greatest psychologist. What a bunch of insecure losers.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | February 14, 2008 10:39 AM

Keep in mind also that Obama's critics are distorting his position. When Obama says he would meet with these foreign leaders and talk, he is not saying he'd have them over for tea the next day. Of course he would send a diplomatic team first to lay the necessary groundwork, and of course he would meet with them in a wise and prudent manner.

It's just more Hillary lies to try to paint his position to be so extreme. Remember, Reagan met with Gorbachev without conditions attached.

Posted by cm | February 14, 2008 10:50 AM

Here is what Ed Meese wrote about Ronald Reagan:
Ronald Reagan was a strong believer in personal diplomacy – the idea of having a face-to-face discussion with those he was seeking to persuade. That's why, after becoming president, he often talked privately about the desire to engage the leader of the Soviet Union in a one-on-one conversation, to diminish any fear of the United States' intentions and to seek common ground for reducing tensions and promoting peace.

Obama surely cannot be accused of being weak if he is only following in a tradition established by the likes of JFK and even Reagan. This dog won't hunt, like all of these recent lame criticisms of Obama.

Posted by cm | February 14, 2008 10:55 AM

O'Hanlon's comments about the rogue's gallery are funny. Let's see. Bush has met with Angola's chief kleptocrat, former marxist guerilla turned Exxon chiseler Jose Eduardo Dos Santos; he's met with Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which of course was set up to create a Khomeini like revolution in Iraq; he's met with the leaders of Dawa, a party that allied with Hezbollah in the 80s to help blow up the Marine HQ in Beirut and attack the American embassy in Kuwait. And those are just a few of the leaders who've sat by Bush.

Of course, Bush, having initiated the mass murder of more than a quarter of a million Iraqis, is no mean rogue himself.

Posted by roger | February 14, 2008 11:51 AM

O'Hanlan probably thinks he's more likely to have access in a McCain White House than in an Obama White House, and I imagine he's right.

Posted by Robert | February 14, 2008 12:00 PM

It looks in some ways more like pre-positioning for pro-McCain orientation in the general election.

Maybe then they'll stop referring to him as a "Democratic" advisor. But probably not.

Posted by ibid | February 14, 2008 1:47 PM

Quiz:
Reagan
Mobutu
White House
Now, what do those words mean?
"cheapen" the value of presidential summits.
ha ha ha

Posted by kubakloth | February 14, 2008 2:15 PM

The whole idea that since Bush's administration has been a failure, the next President should do everything exactly opposite to what Bush has done is frankly stupid and simplistic.

Uh, yeah. But who, pray tell, has suggested such an idea?

Sheesh. Some people will do anything to misconstrue the thinking of the "enemy" candidate. Tim K, I suggest that in the future, before commenting, you consider whether you have been smoking crack within the preceding 24 hour period. I'm not one to judge, but crack smoking notoriously distorts perceptions of reality.

Posted by Baldrick | February 14, 2008 3:12 PM

Tim is probably a white conservative, so crack might not be his drug of choice - too "black", you know?

So he probably does ketamine. A buildup of ketamine in the body leads to "Sarah Connor" level delusions about the world. Ask Dr. John Lilly, who had that problem once before it was diagnosed and he was de-toxed.

Most of the right wing appear to be addicts to this substance. It's the neocon "drug of choice."

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 14, 2008 6:15 PM

The freshman senator's eagerness for one-on-one talks with tin-pot dictators "would cheapen the value of presidential summits," O'Hanlon told me.

What a funny thing to say. It's like it should be like meeting with a royal or something.

Posted by Bengt Larsson | February 14, 2008 9:44 PM

baldrick, there was a time during the bush presidency when i said that we'd be better off flipping a coin than having bush decide, because at least there was a 50% chance of getting the right decision.

and so, while it's true that no one has advocated doing the exact opposite of what bush would do, i have to say that on the face of it, that strikes me as a very good program....

Posted by howard | February 14, 2008 9:52 PM

I read in the National Inquirer that Obama's secret plan is to get Castro, Kim, Ahmadinejad, Nasrallah, and Assad to meet on a desert island with a nuke underneath.

In point of fact, I don't think anyone, including Barak Obama, has any idea about who he'd meet and when. Depends, like nearly everything, on events.

Posted by Robert Powell | February 15, 2008 9:59 AM