When Barack Obama said in 2008 that he would meet with dictators “without preconditions,” Republicans attacked him. 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain blasted Obama over it, and the Republican National Committee “ridiculed” the future president.
Meanwhile, writing at National Review, William J. Bennett called Obama’s willingness to engage in diplomacy at this level “dangerous” and “naïve,” adding, “Barack Obama’s position on negotiating with U.S. enemies betrays a profound misreading of history.”
Few Republicans disagreed with this assessment. Virtually every Republican thought Obama was a weakling for even suggesting diplomacy, or such a low threshold for talks to begin.
Conversely, I don’t recall many liberals or Democrats disagreeing with Obama on this, as most defended him against Republican attacks. Even hawkish Democrats who disagreed largely stayed silent as they welcomed the new president. And that was when Obama just talked about meeting with North Korea. It was merely theoretical.
On Sunday, Donald Trump actually did it. Again.
But this event was even more historic, when Trump became the first U.S. president to “proudly” cross the DMZ line into North Korea where he shook hands with dictator Kim Jong Un. Still, this was Trump, not Obama. Obviously Democrats could not let this stand.
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., was one of the first 2020 Democratic hopefuls to attack Trump, tweeting, “This President should take the North Korean nuclear threat and its crimes against humanity seriously. This is not a photo-op. Our security and our values are at stake.”
“It’s not as easy as just going and bringing a hot dish over the fence to the dictator next door,” 2020 Democratic candidate Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., mocked Trump. “I’m not quite sure why this president is so bent on elevating the profile of a dictator,” presidential wannabe Julian Castro said.
Remember when Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, basically said the same thing about Obama and Cuba? In fact, almost all these critiques were lobbed at Obama by Republicans at one point.
Perhaps most humorously, Obama’s old number two, former vice president Joe Biden, claimed Trump was “coddling” the North Korean dictator. Remember when Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., lamented Obama’s “long record of coddling dictators and tyrants?”
I don’t recall a single Democrat agreeing with these Republican criticisms of Obama, and yet now Democrats sound pretty much exactly like them. Republicans are just as hypocritical.
Partisans on both sides will continue to perform mental gymnastics to explain why Obama and Trump’s willingness to meet with dictators are somehow very different. These conversations usually descend into differences of style between the two men quickly, with liberals obsessing over Trump’s gruff approach, largely ignoring the substance of whether not this diplomacy could lead to avoiding a military confrontation and lessen friction in the region.
But this conversation is too important to just make it about good guys and bad guys. We must prioritize avoiding war and promoting peace, no matter what party is in power.
When Obama won the White House over a decade ago, conservatives complained that such a political novice — a mere “community organizer” or “one term senator” — had no business being president, much less guiding America’s foreign affairs. But his lack of establishment credentials were part of what gave anyone hope Obama might actually reject the Washington foreign policy consensus he promised to challenge during his campaign.
Liberals still complain that Donald Trump lacks the proper political credentials to be president. That’s part of what makes so many of them nervous when they see him breaking bread with Kim Jong Un in North Korea.
But it is also his outsider status that should give anyone who favors peace over war hope that this president might make positive moves in American foreign policy no other president would.
On Sunday, he did.
Jack Hunter (@jackhunter74) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner‘s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with Sen. Rand Paul.
