Take me to your leader (whoever he may be)
Michael Goldfarb finds Barack Obama foreign policy adviser Susan Rice providing the nuance to Wolf Blitzer on Obama's commitment to meet with Iran's leader:
BLITZER: How does Senator Obama defend that decision to meet without preconditions with a leader like Ahmadinejad?
RICE: Well, first of all, he said he'd meet with the appropriate Iranian leaders. He hasn't named who that leader will be. It may, in fact be that by the middle of next of year, Ahmadinejad is long gone.
BLITZER: Let’s be precise because when they criticize Barack Obama, not only John McCain but others, for suggesting that he would meet without preconditions with Ahmadinejad, who only last week on Israel's 60th anniversary called Israel a "stinking corpse." The question that they ask is what is Barack Obama going to talk with him about?
RICE: Well, first of all as I said, it would be the appropriate Iranian leadership at the appropriate time – not necessarily Ahmadinejad.
It isn't very difficult to dig up the reports of Obama's commitment to meet with Ahmadinejad specifically, as indicated in this USA Today report and this CBS News Horserace report. As John Hinderaker asked yesterday: Can someone explain why it is, exactly, that Barack Obama is not a laughingstock?
