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Balancing Idealism and Realism

UpdateAdded missing link to the original item I was responding to.

Before people get too excited by the notion that Obama is breaking bold new foreign policy ground by charting an innovative middle way between idealism and realism, let's pause to note that setting up these alternatives and then embracing some synthesis between them is a hoary cliche of foreign policy speechmaking. Hillary Clinton, among many other people, made the same case more than two years ago. So did Robert Gates.