I think Hillary may be slightly overstating her case:
Hillary Rodham Clinton ridiculed Democratic rival Barack Obama on Tuesday for his contention that living in a foreign country as a child helped give him a better understanding of the foreign policy challenges facing the U.S.
‘‘Voters will have to judge if living in a foreign country at the age of 10 prepares one to face the big, complex international challenges the next president will face,’’ Clinton said. ‘‘I think we need a president with more experience than that, someone the rest of the world knows, looks up to and has confidence in.’’
I think the world will know and look up to Barack Obama if he wins the presidency. In fact, I’m quite certain the world will be enthusiastic about his election. They’ll also be pleased with a Clinton restoration. They’ll basically be happy as long as a Democrat wins the election. No one, and I mean no one, wants to see anything more from the American Republican Party for a good long time.
But, I gotta ask…what’s with the attitude, lady? You gonna gang up on Barack now that he’s a little bit up in the polls? Is your lapdog Richardson going to get into the action, too?
I’ve been jostling with the Clinton faithful over at Taylor Marsh’s place, and it’s obviously getting more tense in the Clinton camp. Frankly, I wish he had worded his statement a little differently, it clouded his overall point that growing up in another country, particularly a developing nation, can give you a bigger picture of America’s role in the world.
Well, DUH!!!
Of COURSE they are.
It’s politics.
Duh.
AG
Now Clinton even finds a way to disrespect 10 year olds, most of whom are actually surprisingly savvy.
Kucinich. If not Kucinich, then Edwards. If not Edwards, then Obama. If not Obama, a Democrat.
HRC ha snuff to worry about.
The Democratic 2008 presidential race has tightened finds Reuters/Zogby poll
watch out for anything zogby pushes. His validity as a “Bipartisan” pollster is rapidly fading. Too much gooper dough showing up!
There’s an interesting undercurrent here. As the MSM dragged itself onboard yesterday about Scotty’s teaser paragraph implicating Bush and his insiders I couldn’t help but think that the more the brushoff line that ‘of course these people lie’ is used, Hillary’s insider presence for what 35 years, her harping on her experience, and now touting what sounds like insider arrogance slamming Obama may actually work in Obama’s favor. Simply put her experience by presence is based on knowing how to work WITH the ones we’re trying to get out. Obama is the one with experience working with people & countries who aren’t colored by Bush’s business as usual. Will the electorate eventually be so angry that they will see a hit on Bush and count it against insider Hillary? There’s a whole lot of emotion out there which always wipes out logic.
all i know it that the public how a very low opinion of Washington right now. They still seem to know that the bigger problem is the Republicans, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a ‘pox on all their houses’ attitude out there. There is.
It should benefit whomever makes the most plausible case for being an outsider. Edwards is trying. Obama is relatively new to the scene, so he can try as well. We’ll see.
And perhaps therein lies the danger; angry Americans will overreact & go for Obama because he’s SO baggageless then turn the page and realize baggageless can also mean naive.
i’ll take naive over malevolent.
yup, me too. Say what one will say about Oprah, she too may be naive but she knows the power of right and Obama is the only candidate she has ever backed openly and she certainly understands that naive can be fixed.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone, drive safe!
Living overseas can grant you a great deal of perspective about you own country. My experience in England lead me to love my country much more and in ways that I did not before, it also helps me to see our own flaws better and be passionate about trying to fix them.
I hope that Obama’s formative experiences overseas have offered him a similar insight.
the primaries are entering the silly season. And, fueled by a blatant anti- hill media, her party appears to be losing their focus. If they can’t get back on message they got problems!
Hillary’s has been fully immersed in the Senate’s crash course in American exceptionalism–Republican style. Her experience consists of late night wonky discussions with Joe Lieberman, the review of stovepiped intelligence Cheney choose to share with her, and of course her personal closed-door sessions with the Israeli lobby. Plus, she has quietly enabled every Republican excess and followed them down the path to hell.
Newsflash to Hillary. The public, and especially Democrats, don’t want a right-wing war hawk. And if you haven’t looked in the mirror lately–that’s you babe.
Frankly, at this point, I would be thrilled with a candidate that had the foreign policy experience of a recent college graduate. You know, a kid that’s taken a few history classes and read someone like Chomsky and who has traveled Europe and hung out in pubs listening to foreign views of America’s policies. We would be much better off with someone like him rather than someone that’s been blowing the likes of Joe Lieberman and Dick Cheney in the Senate the last few years (they really like me!).
The real problem with her argument is that she took the example to represent the whole: that living in another country was the SUM TOTAL of his experience. This her typical intellectual dishonesty, which she obviously cannot hold in check. Her dishonesty will lose the general election if she gets that far.
I would say Barak Obama inevitably has a different view of the world because of his general background. Of course his childhood years in other countries have left their mark on him. She’s just a good, old, tight white affluent suburbanite and it shows in her every move and expression. Nothing wrong with that, but Obama necessarily would have, let’s way, more and deeper sympathy for and from the wider world, in and outside the U.S.A.
Excellent summary of Obama’s point. I was thinking last night that he may well have known she would have jumped on this, and put it out there in hopes she would:
Every single person who considers this issue will see it as ‘same-old-same-old’ vs. ‘the ability to put yourself in the other’s place’. One of the lessons of the Bush years was that informing your decisions with the views of the ‘other’ has been essentially and fatally missing from policy decision-making. Hillary ends up shooting herself in the foot with her derision of the value of this added perspective and draws herself closer to ‘The Establishment’ which is not exactly a popular pose ATM.
Hillary actually said this?
“I think we need a president with more experience than that, someone the rest of the world knows, looks up to and has confidence in.”
A few more like this and I am actually going to cave in and get cable.