Clinton: Obama 'Irresponsible and Naive'

To the Obama camp, his response emphasized a cornerstone of his campaign: change. After two terms of a failed foreign policy under President Bush, his campaign argues, Obama is laying out a vastly different vision that would include outreach even to the nation's enemies, just as American presidents kept open contacts with the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War.

"Obama's tough but smart approach to America's diplomacy is exactly the kind of change and new thinking that excites voters about an Obama presidency," the campaign said in a memo distributed to reporters today.

But when the same question was posed to Clinton, she was just as eager to respond — though in a much different way.

"I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year," she said. "I will promise a very vigorous diplomatic effort, because I think it is not that you promise a meeting at that high a level before you know what the intentions are."

"I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes," she said, in a veiled jab at Obama. "I don't want to make a situation even worse."

To the Clinton campaign, the exchange highlighted Clinton's vast experience and foreign-policy know-how — and Obama's naivete. Madeleine Albright, who served as secretary of state under Clinton's husband, called Clinton's answer "perfect" — and strongly implied that Obama was wrong to not recognize the importance of the "diplomatic spade work" that is best performed by lower-level personnel, not the president.

"Having been involved in this myself, I think she showed a very sophisticated and nuanced view of what really happened, and for me, it shows the kind of experience she has," Albright said in a conference call with reporters arranged by the Clinton campaign today.

Though Obama's answer was unequivocal, Obama aides said after the debate that he never meant to suggest that he would definitely personally meet with dictators such as Kim Jong Il and Fidel Castro without first initiating in lower-level diplomacy. And they accused Clinton of contradicting herself on the subject by circulating a Clinton quote from April.