Might not seem extraordinary, but in 2007 it was practically revolutionary to say that an american president would speak to strong men like iran usa ahmadinejad and north korea s kim, two-thirds then president s bush s axis of evil. certainly we re not going to have our president meet with hillary clinton poked hole in his argument on stage that night and the reviews were pretty unanimous. obama s answer was naive. are you kidding me? those are the last people i d meet with in my first year. i would never meet with those guys. but obama s strategist david axelrod says that the future president was adamant on a phone call with staff. obama told them we re not backing off at all. i actually think that was the moment when he found his voice in that campaign because he