Absolutely. Positively. And no preconditions of any kind except that we will only surrender Florida, and southern Georgia maybe. If Castro insists on taking over Atlanta too, then forget it. Unless it would really, really help world peace, and in any event we draw the line at the Kentucky border, because Democrats are tough on national security and don't you forget it.

We know exactly why no candidate will pledge that, not even Obama, and that is the cuban-american vote. Its a damn shame too because I always wanted to visit Havana.

I find it amusing, in light of this debate, how forthright Europe and the United States now are with wanting to invest in Libya.

Its also amusing that for all this talk about Venezuela, trade with Venezuela has increased steadily over the past few years.

The Bush administration's practice of simply not talking to people it doesn't like could be described as the grumpy toddler approach to foreign policy. Unfortunately the administration has always assumed 'talk with' is the same as 'make concessions to' and acted accordingly. The difficulty with this approach is that stony silence is an extremely ineffective method of persuasion.

'Would you meet with Castro?' is really the wrong question to ask. After all meeting with a foreign head of state, regardless of any personal feelings about that individual, is an entirely normal thing for the leader of a civilized country to do. A much better question would be, 'If you were to meet with Castro, what would say?'

Mr Obama is often a little lite on specifics so he may not have thought this one through. Hopefully he has in mind a carefully considered package of carrots and sticks.

In any case, if we were really interested in determining what kind of president Mr Obama might be we should asking real policy questions rather discussing his willingness to shake Mr Castro's hand.

So basically, Hillary didn't answer the question as to how her position is different than the Cheney/Bush regime.

Z:

We could use some better cuban restaurants here in Atlanta. What's a few civil liberties, when a treaty will give us both piece and a decent ropa vieja?

What preconditions are Obama willing to meet in order to meet with Iran, North Korea, and Cuba? At least one of Raul's is very easy for Obama--anyone but Bush.

Now Edwards is starting to get in on attacking Clinton too. Obama and Clinton are making gains and Edwards is dropping off. We also have Thompson and Romney attacking Giuliani. It will get more vicious as we get closer to the primaries.

-stuart