Obama Should Go Much Further than a Handshake

It doesn't do much good to try to pierce the brick headedness of the pack who rag on President Obama for shaking Hugo Chavez' hand with a quick diplomatic history lesson. But here goes. Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, and even Bush Jr. shook the hands of the long line of dictators, tyrants, scalawags, and con artists who have masqueraded as democratically elected or popular heads of state. Many of them committed human rights abuses far worse than anything that Chavez is remotely accused of, let alone committing.

It doesn't mean much to remind this crowd that a cardinal tenet of correct, smart, prudent politics and diplomacy is to talk not just to your foreign friends and allies but foes and even enemies. Not to do so guarantees that they stay enemies. It doesn't do much to repeat that a pillar of politics is that nations have no permanent enemies, no permanent friends, just permanent interests.

Let's hope the handshake with Chavez means a shake loose of Venezuelan and the US relations from the silly isolation policy and saber rattle rhetoric of Obama's diplomatic tin ear predecessor. The handshake is a good start.