Republican John McCain, speaking to a raucous crowd on Cuba's independence day, hammered Democrat Barack Obama for saying he would meet with Cuban President Raul Castro and called Obama a "tool of organized labor" for opposing a Latin American trade deal. For a second day, McCain criticized Obama for saying, in a debate last year, that as president he would meet with the leaders of Cuba, Iran and Venezuela without preconditions. McCain insisted such a meeting could endanger national security, sounding a theme that is likely to persist until the November general election. The Arizona senator recalled the ridicule President Jimmy Carter faced in 1979 when he kissed Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev during the signing of an arms treaty.
| We've got two examples this very day to watch and learn from, not that anybody'll bother paying attention or learning anything. One is in Sudan, where after years of negotiations the government reached a peace deal -- and formed a "government of national unity" -- with the southern rebels. John Garang, the southerners' leader, died in a plane crash almost immediately. Sudan government forces took over the Abyei area today, which is coincidentally oozing oil. The other example is Israel, which is inching closer with each passing day to a hudna with Hamas through a process of backdoor negotiations through the ever-helpful Egyptians. That's going to be Olmert's "legacy," before they throw him out for corruption. Apparently everybody expects this one to be different from the countless ceasefires negotiated with Arafat when he was alive, though unwell. In each and every case, Israel made concessions to get a little peace. In each and every case, the Paleos took the concessions, then set about looking for excuses to get back to fighting. |