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"I would differ substantially from both of the other two candidates for president," Barr said in the post-press conference interview. "Senator McCain apparently thinks it's a joke when talking about military action against Iran, and Senator Obama has...a dangerously naive notion of dealing with world leaders without any preconditions whatsoever -- you just throw open your doors and say, 'Hey, we'll talk with anybody anytime anyplace,' which makes no sense....With Obama, it also seems to be a function of what audience he's talking to, as to what his position is."

The Capitol Hill event gave Barr a chance to tout his foreign-policy credentials. His father worked as a civil engineer and his family followed him in a series of assignments in exotic locales -- including, to take the P's, Pakistan, Panama and Peru -- before Barr finally graduated from high school, ironically enough, in Tehran.

Both his bachelor's degree from USC and his master's degree from George Washington University are in international relations, and for eight years in the 1970s, Barr worked on the staff of the CIA. (That biographical datum led to some paranoid whispering during Barr's hard-fought fight for the LP nomination in Denver.)

His background allows Barr to sound well informed when responding to a question about the futility of negotiations with the paranoid Iranian president. "Ahmadinejad," Barr explained, "...is not the person calling the shots over in Iran, anyway." Rather, "It is the Supreme Leader, [Ali] Khameni, who is the decision-maker and calling the shots over there, and the Assembly that is elected and then appoints him."

Barr then delivered a brief dissertation on Iran's geography and economy before departing for his next stop in a two-day round of Washington media appointments.

Just after he left, the Code Pink ladies showed up, too late for a strange-bedfellows photo-op with their newfound friend.

topics:
Foreign Policy, John McCain, Barack Obama, Constitution, Law, Military, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, NATO, Communism, Energy