Shaking hands with dangerous criminals

Not unsurprisingly, the wingnut-o-sphere is going apeshit over the photo of Obama shaking hands with Hugo Chavez. Cause, you know, the other way was working so well. You know, the one where we lectured them about democracy whilst behaving in a most undemocratic fashion ourselves - what with the torturing and stealing elections and marginalizing dissenters and exposing our own CIA agents for disagreeing.



Anyway, AmericaBlog has posted the following photos of U.S. Presidents shaking hands with "dangerous men", many of whom had actual nuclear weapons pointed at the U.S.. Unlike, say, Chavez.









In case you're having a hard time with the names, they're: Republican Nixon with Chairman Mao, Republican Nixon with Leonid Brezhnev, Republican Ford with Brezhnev, and good old Donald Rumsfeld with Saddam Hussein. But the wingnuts are mad about Chavez. Go figure.

Let's let the Prez have the final say:

"The whole notion was that if we showed courtesy or opened up dialogue with governments that had previously been hostile to us, that that somehow would be a sign of weakness," Obama said, recalling his race for the White House and challenging his critics today.

"The American people didn't buy it," Obama said. "And there's a good reason the American people didn't buy it — because it doesn't make sense."

"It's unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States," Obama said. "I don't think anybody can find any evidence that that would do so."