Obama Toys With Foreign Policy ... And Fails

It's not easy being green ... politically green, untested and naive.

Big, tough Barack Obama shows us this truth after pandering to the Mommy Vote and declaring that as president, he would ban all Chinese-made toys from these shores.

After his aides pointed out that China might react badly to that, and that China's holding a lot of our treasury notes, and that so far it hasn't attacked Taiwan, and that it's American toy companies and retailers that profit from the toys, and that there's this thing called "contractual obligations," and that the Christmas retail season is pretty darn important to the IRS, and that parents just might be able to choose safe toys since there is, you know, some semblance of oversight, well, Obama rethought his tough stand:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Sunday stepped back from a pledge to halt U.S. imports of Chinese-made toys because of safety concerns.

Instead, the Illinois senator, who is in a tight race with Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York to win the Democratic presidential nomination, reiterated his longstanding call for barring toys with more than a trace amount of lead.

"Now, don't get me wrong: As president, I'll work with China to keep harmful toys off our shelves," he said in Greenfield, Iowa, according to a statement from his campaign for the November 2008 election, .

On Wednesday, Obama had told voters in New Hampshire: "I would stop the import of all toys from China," which supplies about 80 percent of U.S. toys.

All toys?! Send in the spinmeisters!

A spokesman for Obama, Josh Earnest, said the candidate had been referring in New Hampshire to banning "toys that contain more than a trace level of lead, coming from China or anywhere else."

Great name this guy's got, since he might be "Josh"-ing us, even though he appears so "Earnest." But earnest as he may try to be, "all toys" does not equal "toys that contain more than a trace level of lead."

I'm not a fan of selling out quality and safety for the cheapness of Chinese products, as I've written about here, here, here, here, here, here and here, but I'm even less of a fan of political wannabees who think they can play in on the big stage but clearly haven't got the stuff for even the local dinner theater.

Barack, tame your problematic ego, go back to the Senate, learn a thousand things or two, then come back and take another shot at it.

You'll not only be less laughable, you'll be less dangerous.