Sally Quinn: 'If You Talk to Dictators You Can Immediately Get Them on Your Side'

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The current political buzzword is "naive." That's of course what Hillary called Obama, and he has responded in kind. But when it comes to being an ingenue, Obama has a long way to go to top Sally Quinn, grande dame of the DC set and wife of former WaPo editor Ben Bradlee. Here's what she said on this afternoon's "Hardball."

SALLY QUINN: The fact is that the new word these days is 'dialogue.' [Ed.: New? Well shut Socrates mouth!] And so many of these dictators, quote, dictators [Ed.: we wouldn't want to offend Assad or Kim Jong Il] are really sort of shallow people who are looking for respect, and if you talk to them, you can immediately sort of get them down and get them on your side.

View video here.

Someone give Mahmoud a hug. And as for you, Kim Jong, you're good enough, you're smart enough, and doggone it, people like you!

Earlier in the show, host Chris Matthews suggested that if anyone was naive, it was Hillary herself. Here's how he put it to senior Hillary advisor Howard Wolfson.

"HARDBALL" HOST CHRIS MATTHEWS: Hillary Clinton, in that debate, and I want to get the word right, didn't she say Obama was naive on foreign policy?

HILLARY ADVISOR HOWARD WOLFSON: She didn't say that in the debate, she said that after the debate.

MATTHEWS: How would you describe her position in voting to authorize the war in Iraq, believing that we weren't going to war, that Bush really didn't intend to go to war? Was that naive? . . . Wouldn't you call that naive to believe that we weren't going to war when everybody thought we were going to war? I thought we were going to war . . . Anybody that didn't think we were going to war in the months leading up to the war in Iraq wasn't paying attention.

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