McCain: "Carter went over and kissed Brezhnev, remember?"

http://www.thebulletin.us/site/index.cfm?newsid=19708018&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=8

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For a second day, Mr. McCain criticized Mr. Obama for saying, in a debate last year, that as president he would meet with the leaders of Cuba, Iran and Venezuela without preconditions.

Mr. McCain insisted such a meeting could endanger national security, sounding a theme that is likely to persist until the November general election.

The Arizona senator recalled the ridicule President Carter faced in 1979 when he kissed Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev during the signing of an arms treaty.

"Carter went over and kissed Brezhnev, remember?" Mr. McCain said yesterday in Miami. "So it's dangerous; it's dangerous to American national security if you sit down and give respect and prestige to leaders of countries that are bent on your destruction or the destruction of other countries. I won't do it, my friends."

A woman in the audience applauded Mr. McCain's position: "For that, believe me, Florida will be yours," Ninoska Perez Castellon told Mr. McCain. She is a radio commentator for the anti-Castro station Radio Mambi.