The Obama campaign is lying, and the New York Times is helping advance the lie. Despite having earlier published documentation proving the lie.  

Barack Obama said something very stupid in a presidential debate last July: that he would meet with the leader of Iran without preconditions. Later on,  he betrayed a profound ignorance of history (or maybe a willful misreading?) by claiming that Roosevelt, Kennedy and Truman had all done so. This would be laughable were the consequences of such a profound failure to learn the lessons of history so  frightening.

In yet another New York Times advocacy piece for Barack Obama, we discover that the Obama campaign is trying to rewrite history again.

Susan E. Rice, a former State Department and National Security Council official who is a foreign policy adviser to the Democratic candidate, said that "for political purposes, Senator Obama's opponents on the right have distorted and reframed" his views. Mr. McCain and his surrogates have repeatedly stated that Mr. Obama would be willing to meet "unconditionally" with Mr. Ahmadinejad. But Dr. Rice said that this was not the case for Iran or any other so-called "rogue" state. Mr. Obama believes "that engagement at the presidential level, at the appropriate time and with the appropriate preparation, can be used to leverage the change we need," Dr. Rice said. "But nobody said he would initiate contacts at the presidential level; that requires due preparation and advance work."

The problem is, Barack Obama did say he'd meet with Iran unconditionally, in front of a lot of people, at the CNN/YouTube Democratic debate last July.

He was specifically and directly asked if he would meet with the leader of Iran (and the leaders of several other "so-called rogue states") without preconditions, in the first year of his presidency, and his answer was, "I would."

LGF nails them to the wall, but the Times's complicity in this whitewash is actually even worse than Charles suggests.

Not only did the Prince of Peace say at the YouTube debate last July that he'd meet personally and without precondition with Iran, he reaffirmed that position in November in an interview with - ta da - the New York Times, a fact, incredibly, that's omitted from today's article. Memory lane:

Senator Barack Obama said he would "engage in aggressive personal diplomacy" with Iran if elected president, and would offer economic inducements and a possible promise not to seek "regime change" if Iran stopped meddling in Iraq and cooperated on terrorism and nuclear issues...

Making clear that he planned to talk to Iran without preconditions, Mr. Obama emphasized further that "changes in behavior" by Iran could possibly be rewarded with membership in the World Trade Organization, other economic benefits and security guarantees...

Mr. Obama's willingness to conduct talks at the highest level with Iran ... differs significantly from the Bush administration.