Obama at the Debate last week:
OBAMA: I think, as I said before, preparation is actually absolutely critical in any meeting. And I think it is absolutely true that either of us would step back from some of the Bush unilateralism that’s caused so much damage.
But I do think it is important precisely because the Bush administration has done so much damage to American foreign relations that the president take a more active role in diplomacy than might have been true 20 or 30 years ago.
Because the problem is, if we think that meeting with the president is a privilege that has to be earned, I think that reinforces the sense that we stand above the rest of the world at this point in time. And I think that it’s important for us in undoing the damage that has been done over the last seven years, for the president to be willing to take that extra step.
OBAMA: That is the kind of step that I would like to take as president of the United States.
This is one of the most important differences between Obama and the essentially any other candidate who has been running this cycle. US policy is destructive in many ways, the most destructive being the notion that the rest of the world must meet our conditions to even talk.
If your argument is experience, than it should lead you to better judgment. To the contrary, Hillary Clinton has absorbed every bit of wrong thought in DC.
Yglesias pointed out the most simple example of this in the Cuban policy Obama advocates:
Obama’s policy isn’t as far-reaching as I’d like to see, but this is still night and day between him and Clinton. I have no idea what she’s even trying to say about Cuba. Obama is talking sense, directly labeling our policy a failure, and then drawing at least a few of the correct implications from them with regard to remittances and travel.
Clinton cannot even make the point that our Cuban policy has been an absolute failure. Right there she loses any claim to being progressive–or even being a member of the reality based community.