If Bill Clinton is right about the importance of experience in a candidate for President, shouldn't he be backing Joe Biden or Chris Dodd who, between them, have been in Congress for 66 years?
But the former President's doubts about inexperience are selectively aimed at Barack Obama as his challenge to Mrs. Clinton gathers strength, today with an endorsement in the New Hampshire primary by the Boston Globe.
“When is the last time we elected a president based on one year of service in the Senate before he started running?” the ex-president asked in a PBS interview Friday night, deftly slicing eleven months off Obama's resume.
Obama responded yesterday that Clinton himself had said when he ran in 1992 that a candidate can “have the right kind of experience or the wrong kind of experience” and that his own involvement in government for over a decade matches Clinton's ten years as a governor back then.
"When it comes to waging peace," the Globe editorial says, "Obama has the leadership skills to reset the country's reputation in the world...Obama's critics, and even many who want to support him, worry about his relative lack of experience. It is true that other Democratic contenders have more conventional resumes and have spent more time in Washington. But that exposure has tended to give them a sense of government's constraints. Obama is more animated by its possibilities."
The perception that he is now running against two Clintons may very well help Obama, if voters consider it a learning experience.
Showing posts with label Sen. Chris Dodd. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sen. Chris Dodd. Show all posts
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Thursday, August 02, 2007
The Politics of Mock-Outrage
Barack Obama is having his “emperor has no clothes” moment in Presidential politics, being savaged for saying out loud yesterday what is obvious about Pakistan: "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf will not act, we will."
Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, in an editorial, shrieks, “Naive? Sen. Clinton was too kind. If he's serious, he's dangerous.”
Democratic Presidential rival Chris Dodd calls the statement “dangerous and irresponsible,” while Joe Biden merely labels it “disingenuous” for sounding like a “bold new initiative.”
Tony Snow responds with a platitude about respecting the sovereignty of Pakistan, but the hollowness of that answer has been exposed by White House homeland security adviser Frances Townsend.
Last week friendly Fox News summarized an interview with her reporting that “the U.S. was committed first and foremost to working with Pakistan's president...But she indicated the U.S. was ready to take additional measures.
"’Just because we don't speak about things publicly doesn't mean we're not doing things you talk about,’" Townsend said, when asked in a broadcast interview why the U.S. does not conduct special operations and other measures to cripple Al Qaeda.
"’Job No. 1 is to protect the American people. There are no options off the table,’" she said. Townsend also said, "'No question that we will use any instrument at our disposal' to deal with Al Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden.’”
The bottom line is that Obama is attacked and ridiculed from all sides for the heinous political gaffe of telling a simple truth that even the Bush Administration acknowledges and is prepared to act on.
Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, in an editorial, shrieks, “Naive? Sen. Clinton was too kind. If he's serious, he's dangerous.”
Democratic Presidential rival Chris Dodd calls the statement “dangerous and irresponsible,” while Joe Biden merely labels it “disingenuous” for sounding like a “bold new initiative.”
Tony Snow responds with a platitude about respecting the sovereignty of Pakistan, but the hollowness of that answer has been exposed by White House homeland security adviser Frances Townsend.
Last week friendly Fox News summarized an interview with her reporting that “the U.S. was committed first and foremost to working with Pakistan's president...But she indicated the U.S. was ready to take additional measures.
"’Just because we don't speak about things publicly doesn't mean we're not doing things you talk about,’" Townsend said, when asked in a broadcast interview why the U.S. does not conduct special operations and other measures to cripple Al Qaeda.
"’Job No. 1 is to protect the American people. There are no options off the table,’" she said. Townsend also said, "'No question that we will use any instrument at our disposal' to deal with Al Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden.’”
The bottom line is that Obama is attacked and ridiculed from all sides for the heinous political gaffe of telling a simple truth that even the Bush Administration acknowledges and is prepared to act on.
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