BG: A presidential candidate who lightly commits to obliterating Iran should not be answering

the White House phone at any time of day or night.

Globe Editorial
The Boston Globe
Hillary Strangelove

AMERICANS have learned to take with a grain of salt much of the rhetoric in a campaign like the current Democratic donnybrook between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Still, there are some red lines that should never be crossed. Clinton did so Tuesday morning, the day of the Pennsylvania primary, when she told ABC's "Good Morning America" that, if she were president, she would "totally obliterate" Iran if Iran attacked Israel.

This foolish and dangerous threat was muted in domestic media coverage. But it reverberated in headlines around the world.

...

The Saudis are not always sound advisers on American foreign policy. But they understand that Rambo rhetoric like Clinton's only plays into the hands of Iranian hard-liners who want to plow ahead with efforts to attain a nuclear weapons capability. They argue that Iran must have that capability in order to deter the United States from doing what Clinton threatened to do.

While Clinton has hammered Obama for supporting military strikes in Pakistan, her comments on Iran are much more far-reaching. She seems not to realize that she undermined Iranian reformists and pragmatists. The Iranian people have been more favorable to America than any other in the Gulf region or the Middle East.

A presidential candidate who lightly commits to obliterating Iran - and, presumably, all the children, parents, and grandparents in Iran - should not be answering the White House phone at any time of day or night.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2008/04/27/hillary_strangelove/

I wonder how no one who writes about politics for a living never put that together before.

Thank you very much for sharing.

That'll show them.

in this country. NEvs S amd W.

What's that?

her dismissive response was that nervous cackle. Pretty scary.