America's political class spent last week consumed with a juvenile sniping match involving Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and a question about who the next US president should talk to.

It is a debate that succinctly highlights the hollowness of campaign rhetoric on all sides, and has made the media look even more foolish than usual.

This particular bit of campaign silliness began during last week's Democratic debate, jointly sponsored by CNN and You Tube. One questioner asked: "In 1982, Anwar Sadat travelled to Israel, a trip that resulted in a peace agreement that has lasted ever since.

"In the spirit of that type of bold leadership would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?"

For the record, Sadat went to Israel in 1977 and died in 1981. Since the questioner was among the handful of people flown to the debate to ask an in-person follow-up CNN deserves a large black mark for either being too lazy to ask him to re-record his question, or so sloppy that they never caught the mistake in the first place.

What made the question interesting, though, was the gulf it highlighted between popular perceptions in America and the Arab World. Even after three decades the two still differ sharply over Sadat himself, and the peace treaty he signed with Israel.

The average American pays little attention to Middle Eastern affairs and is apt to see in Sadat's trip, and the Camp David Accords that eventually grew from it, a rare outbreak of common sense - something the entire region is generally thought to lack.

Unaware

Most Americans are unaware that Sadat is, to this day, reviled in much of the Arab World. So if it seems odd to praise the late Egyptian leader and challenge a future American president to emulate his example, remember that the query needs to be viewed in an American context, not a Middle Eastern one.

What has prompted a week of sniping between the Clinton and Obama campaigns are the responses the Democratic front-runners gave. Obama said "the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them - which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration - is ridiculous."

Clinton said a president should not "promise a meeting at that high a level before you know what the intentions are. I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes. I don't want to make a situation even worse".

Well, here is to both of those sentiments which - if you look carefully at the wording - are not really contradictory.

During the week of political dog fighting that followed Obama tried to paint himself as tough but realistic, claiming both John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan as antecedents. Clinton called Obama naïve, saying his comments proved her point about the importance of experience.

All of which is more than a little absurd. Leaving aside the question of whether the Syrian, Iranian, North Korean and Venezuelan leaders even want to talk to us (or whether Fidel Castro is still alive) come 2009 there is the question of what such talks might be expected to accomplish.

Obama is right to say that talking things out is something grown-up countries do when problems need fixing. Clinton, however, is equally correct in suggesting that simply getting on a plane and flying to Caracas would, by itself, do little to solve anything.

The image of Sadat reaching out to his enemies in the name of peace and reconciliation is appealing. But people tend to forget that the Camp David summit took place nearly a year after Sadat's dramatic visit to Occupied Jerusalem and only because the peace talks it initiated were not going well.

Even then, the actual Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty required an additional six months of post-Camp David negotiations before both sides were ready to sign.

One might also ask what president this side of Teddy Roosevelt has felt honour-bound to treat as unshakable policy any offhand remark made in the heat of a campaign?

Come January 2009, President Clinton may get on a plane and head for Tehran, or President Obama may refuse to head for Havana. In either case the new White House spokesman will simply shrug and tell reporters, "Well, you know an awful lot has changed since July of 2007.