Why Can't We All Just Sit Down and Talk

So I see the US will (rightly) boycott Ahmadinejad's speech at the UN. Didn't a boycotted UN speech prompt Obama's "we shouldn't be afraid to talk to our adversaries" spiel in the 2008 campaign? Remember that? Bush was a stern-faced ideologue and the Middle East would burn unless we had a drastic foreign policy change.

Well we had a drastic change. How's that working out? Maybe we need to apologize harder.