So General Petraeus agrees with Barack Obama -- and not John McCain -- on the question of whether we should meet with hostile enemies? In an interview that aired on CBS last night, John McCain, when asked which three living people he'd like to have dinner with most, promptly chose General Petraeus. McCain frequently hails Petraeus as an "American hero." McCain, however, might not enjoy that dinner so much if he heard Petraeus' views on one of the leading foreign policy differences he has with Barack Obama. In a case of comically awful timing, Petraeus yesterday gave a talk at the Heritage Foundation in which he more or less echoed Barack Obama's views on negotiating with hostile foreign leaders -- views that McCain has repeatedly subjected to criticism and ridicule. Asked by a questioner specifically about the disagreement on this topic that McCain and Obama had at Tuesday night's debate, Petraeus demurred a bit, but said: "I do think you have to talk to enemies."
Petraeus' comments were reported on yesterday by Spencer Ackerman and were noted elsewhere today, and we think they deserve more attention. We went to the video on Heritage's site to get a longer transcript, and sure enough, the context shows that Petraeus was more or less backing up Obama's point of view. What Petraeus said isn't a perfect endorsement of Obama's views -- he didn't specifically discuss Iran, and the question of "no preconditions" didn't come up -- but it's pretty darn close. That's because it's as clear as day that the context specifically was the debate between Obama and McCain on this topic on Tuesday night. During that exchange, the candidates clashed on whether to meet with the leaders of Iran, and the questioner at Heritage posed the subject about talking to enemies specifically in that light. And while Petraeus did say he didn't see Tuesday's debate, the general no doubt knows precisely what the disagreement between the two men is on this topic. So the question Petraeus was asked was basically the same as him being asked whose views he endorsed when it comes to the two men's very public disagreement. Petraeus' own joke about not wanting to wade into "a minefield" and his allusion to not getting "involved in domestic politics" would suggest that that's how he saw the question, too. And Petraeus more or less picked the Obama argument. Maybe Petraeus and McCain can discuss this at dinner someday. | ||
| Greg Sargent is the editor of Election Central, Talking Points Memo's politics and elections Web site. He has previously covered New York City politics for The New York Observer and for New York magazine, where he published a number of features, columns and news stories |
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