Two Obama-related notes

In the waking of the massive FUBAR situation in Georgia, Jamie Kirchick points out over at Contentions just why we should try and avoid one-on-one talks with dictators when the man on our side is a foreign policy novice:

Last November, Obama promised “aggressive personal diplomacy” with Iran, and though he has tried, repeatedly, to alter his original promise, he has had trouble escaping the pledge to meet personally with a variety of anti-American leaders. And this is a reason — a prime one among several others — that so many people on the left are enthusiastic about his candidacy.

Meanwhile, over at The Atlantic, Megan McArdle points to a growing trend: nervous Democrats, and how they are reacting to this weekend’s debate/a tightening race.

Megan’s Fourth Law of Politics: The party that starts looking for implausible and unprovable conspiracy theories about the opposition candidate is in trouble.

This spring, it was bizarre accusations against Barack Obama: he’s a closet muslim, his wife is a black nationalist, etc. Now, suddenly, the Democrats are the one frantically hunting for buried treasure.

Megan’s whole post is worth reading; I hadn’t even realized that the fever swamps of the left were spewing forth these notions. I need to start paying closer attention to the Kos diary section, I guess…