Charles Johnson caught this attempt by the Obama Campaign and The New York Times to rewrite history today:
Susan E. Rice, a former State Department and National Security Council official who is a foreign policy adviser to the Democratic candidate, said that “for political purposes, Senator Obama’s opponents on the right have distorted and reframed” his views. Mr. McCain and his surrogates have repeatedly stated that Mr. Obama would be willing to meet “unconditionally” with Mr. Ahmadinejad. But Dr. Rice said that this was not the case for Iran or any other so-called “rogue” state. Mr. Obama believes “that engagement at the presidential level, at the appropriate time and with the appropriate preparation, can be used to leverage the change we need,” Dr. Rice said. “But nobody said he would initiate contacts at the presidential level; that requires due preparation and advance work.”
Charles points out that Obama did announce he would meet with Iran unconditionally, in front of a lot of people, at the CNN/YouTube Democratic debate last July.
And, Charles even found the video .
During the debate when asked if he would “be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea?” Obama answers, “I would.”
AllahPundit at HotAir also found that Obama reaffirmed his position later in an interview with The New York Times itself.
And, then there’s this…
It’s posted on his website at BarackObama.com:
Click to Enlarge
(This screengrab was reduced to fit on one page)
Here is what the Obama website says about meeting with Iran:
Diplomacy: Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions.
That’s bad.
The next time the New York Times wants to rewrite history they may want to check the Obama website first.
