How a gaffe became a doctrine

I’ve noted the improvised quality to the expression of Barack Obama’s foreign policy views. I thought at the time that Obama’s commitment to meet with America’s enemies all over the world (made last year in the July 23 Democratic candidates’ YouTube debate) was one such high-minded but ineffably benighted bit of improvisation. Today Charles Krauthammer observes that “what started as a gaffe became policy. By now, it has become doctrine. Yet it remains today what it was on the day he blurted it out: an absurdity.” Krauthammer’s column provides a brief overview that addresses the candidate’s improbable history.

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