Obama's position is to meet at the highest level, this is from his own website:
"...direct presidential diplomacy without preconditions..."
I just wanted to solidly establish this point.
As Kasz pointed out McCain corrected Obama's characeterization of Kissinger's position in the debate and Kissinger subsequently squashed it himself. There is a massive difference between a presidential level talk and a "high level" talk. I think everyone understands there is a difference here, yes?
If so then you also concede that Obama was twisting his words. The issue was presidential level talks so for Obama to throw Kissinger's comments about high-level talks at McCain is missleading and I think it was fairly clear he was trying to imply that Kissinger was in favor of the presidential level talks. But McCain clarified and Obama relented on the point.
Now on to the main point of contention. Final-fan I really think you are parsing this to death. A precondition is a precondition...whether that is "do this and this or we won't meet" or "meet with us on this level before we meet with you on this higher level". They are both preconditions by definition.
Dictionary.com's take: something that must come before or is necessary to a subsequent result;
A precondition is anything that must happen before something else happens. I'm not aware of any definition, in any frame of reference, which narrows it further like you seem to be doing.
A preliminary talk is not by itself a precondition. But when one side stipulates that those preliminary talks must occur before presidential talks occur it is absolutely a precondition by the very definition of the word. It is something that must occur for something else to occur.
Edit: Oh and btw I have some serious doubts about the neutrality of factcheck.org, but thats another debate entirely.
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