It was January 17, 2001, and Illinois state senator Barack Obama was on WTTW11's "Chicago Tonight."Discussing his opposition to Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft, Obama praised newly-elected President Bush's new nominee for Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.
"The proof in the pudding is looking at the treatment of the other Bush nominees," Obama said. "I mean for the most part, I for example do not agree with a missile defense system, but I dont think that soon-to-be-Secretary Rumsfeld is in any way out of the mainstream of American political life. And I would argue that the same would be true for the vast majority of the Bush nominees, and I give him credit for that.
Here's the video. His own words. Who has the better judgment?
I think Obama wins.
She was a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2001. What did she do to prevent his appointment? Nothing. She voted to confirm him.
"Then, he said in general that "I will not hesitate to use military force to take out terrorists who pose a direct threat to America." As for Pakistan specifically, he said that if elected he would go in unilaterally to "take out" al Qaeda if the U.S. has "actionable intelligence""
Sources: Fox News, MSNBC, FactCheck.org
Response?
As for Obama's decision on Pakistan, I personally agree.
Occasionally a college student has to study... so be patient and you'll get your answer Dan, if not from me than from Soccerdem.
Then 9/11.
Rumsfeld is singularly responsible for not pulling the trigger at Tora Bora.
As to his responsibility for what has transpired in Iraq, Rumsfeld is of course one of the principal architects of everything that went wrong after the initial lightning assault.
But the greater responsibility for Iraq is the fool on the other end of this particular Secretary of Defense's choke chain. The Secretary of Defense is supposed to be the snarling pit bull -- that's his job. The trick is there supposed to be a functioning President with a tight grip on his leash.
Are you really going to use Barack's paper-thin resume and little time in the US Senate as a positive?
If the spin gets any faster, I might throw up.
The question was "who had better judgment"? On Rummie? Neither had good judgment. On Iraq, Obama made the right call, Hillary didn't. That's the only argument I've made thus far.
Somehow, we have gotten to this land of make-believe when it comes to foreign and military policy -- we'll happily keep occupying a foreign nation that had nothing to do with 9/11 or harboring the people that perpetuated that attack, but we'll ignore the actual country where those terrorists actually are.
Pakistan is a mess, and we need to tread carefully over there. But Obama is 100% right -- if we get actionable intelligence about where in Pakistan al Qaeda is hiding, and if Pakistan refuses to act, we damned well better send in our black ops and special forces and take those SoBs out.
All of our diplomatic, intelligence, and military might needs to be focused like a laser beam on Afghanistan and Pakistan. The REAL al Qaeda is still over in that area (unlike the fake franchisees, the McDowell's if you will, hanging out in Iraq and calling themselves al Qaeda, with an assist from the idiots in our establishment press).
Of course Hillary's trolls on here want to slam Obama for things when Hillary's taken positions that are far to the right of him. It's called distortion, and that's how desperate they are to win the election.
I guess it depends on what the meaning of the word "war" is...
Obama and Hillary have a BIG difference on Iraq -- she supported it, he didn't. There's no getting past this.
Hillary and her supporters have been fundamentally dishonest about the Iraq issue. Here's Keith Olbermann pointing out her lies:
How do people get so excited supporting someone so fundamentally dishonest? I don't understand it, maybe name ID? Most other people don't either, and I guess that's why she keeps losing by such WIDE margins in states now, and why she's down by the same WIDE margins in Virginia!
If Obama had been in the Senate ...
If Bill Clinton hadn't been so lawyerly and gun shy, he wouldn't have called off the squad of Pakistani tribal mercenaries who were positioned to nail Osama bin Laden at Tarnak Farms in 1998.
That pays for the passage of troops of troops to Iraq
Barack Obama was speaking out against it. He doesn't want to see our troops go without funding -- it's a tough judgment call, but I'm not going to fault any Democrat for voting to keep funding for our troops (for stuff like body armor, good security details, etc. etc.)
Hillary showed her poor judgment when she (1) voted for the war in Iraq, (2) tried to pass it off like it wasn't a vote for war, (3) refuses to apologize for it.
The Obama-hating couple soccerdem and dianne keep slamming Obama (from the same computer, no less) without mentioning that Hillary's taken either the same positions as him, or further right positions, like voting to give Bush the authority to invade Iran.
Methinks they're getting desperate -- now that they got SWAMPED this weekend in Washington, Louisiana, Maine, and Nebraska, and they're going to get creamed in the weeks to come -- starting here in Virginia on Tuesday!
Truth be told, that's also why a lot of people think that Clinton and her supporters will stop at nothing, with no regard for the truth, to win the nomination.
In a recent interview, he (Obama) declined to criticize Senators Kerry and Edwards for voting to authorize the war, although he said he would not have done the same based on the information he had at the time.''But, I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports,'' Mr. Obama said. ''What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made.''
Also, in a meeting with Chicago Tribune reporters at the Democratic National Convention, Obama said,
"On Iraq, on paper, there's not as much difference, I think, between the Bush administration and a Kerry administration as there would have been a year ago. [...] There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage." [Chicago Tribune, 07/27/04]
Congress literally dropped the hammer on the Vietnam War with its passage in 1973 of a joint resolution (H.J.Res. 636) prohibiting any further appropriation or expenditure of any funds for any "combat in or over or from the shores of North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia."
Agree with you on Clinton. But Obama's no different.
And you know what? There is no getting around the fact that a vote in favor of the AUMF was an example of poor judgment (more accurately, an act of political calculation that backfired).
But once you bring the issue of judgment into the game, isn't Obama's judgment fair to discuss? Sure, he showed good judgment in making a 2002 speech opposing the war. But he also said that if he had to vote in the Senate, and if he was privy to intelligence information (that we now know as manipulated and false, but was widely accepted at the time), he doesn't know how he would have voted.
Obama continued to vote to fund the war -- a vote of political calculation. Personally, I think we would have showed more support for our troops by voting against funding and forcing the President to bring them home, rather than allowing Bush to use our troops as unwilling pawns in his political gamesmanship. But Obama elected not to make that vote. That was poor judgment.
It was poor judgment on Sen. Clinton's part also -- I agree. But the fact that she exercised poor judgment should in no way free Sen. Obama from the consequences of his own actions.
In deciding on president of the United States, judgment and experience combined can inform us in making our decisions. Taking a closer look at the record, judgment on the war and other issues is, at best, a wash, IMHO -- maybe a slight edge to Obama for his initial opposition.
On experience, however, it is no contest. I'm trying to think of a modern president (i.e., post FDR) whose experience prior to taking office was a thin as Obama's, and I can't. Sorry, but being a state legislator is not enough. I mean, like many people here, I really like Creigh Deeds, but I don't think I'd vote for him to be president of the U.S. (yet!)
Please save me the argument that Sen. Clinton is merely bootstrapping on her husband's career. Believe it if you want, but the fact of the matter is that it is an insulting argument clearly contradicted by the weight of the evidence.
There is nothing wrong with Obama. He is an inspiring speaker (although I was amused by how impressed all the folks at the JJ Dinner were with Obama's basic stump speech -- he delivered the same one in a gym in Louisiana earlier in the day on MSNBC). But his record ought to stand up to scrutiny, and the response to that scrutiny ought to be more than simply hurling insults back at the other candidate.
It's the baggage that many of us object to. Yes, she's apparently qualified. Yes, she's very smart. Yes, she's a policy wonk. Yes, yes, yes ...
As to whether she's an inspirational leader ... well, I say no. Quite the opposite, to be blunt. And every American who votes in a Democratic primary is expressing their own individual sense of whether or not they're willing to follow Senator Clinton.
Most folks don't do up a check list and vote for the candidate with the most ticks. So it appears that you Clintonistas better hope that the gut instincts of a growing majority of your fellow citizens are right.
Bush junior. Probably even thinner if you're limiting experience to government service.
But of course that would just help the point you're attempting to make -- a logically fallacious point.
So back at you with an inversion of your own fallacious logic: I'm trying to think of a modern president who was the wife of a previous president and I can't. Since there are no precedents, one can conclude that Hillary Clinton will not make a good president.
I'll even stipulate that Hillary has more foreign policy experience than Barack due to her 8 years in the White House and 7+ years in the Senate. But Barack has much more experience now than Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, and, yes, Ronald Reagan when it comes to foreign affairs than any of those men when they were elected.
But if we're going to laud Hillary for those 8 years in the White House, it's fair to ask why the Clinton foreign policy establishment was so instrumental in promulgating the idea that Saddam had WMD that were so dangerous all through the late 90s, when in fact it was verifiable that his program had been essentially dismantled.
More than fair, it is essential to ask the question.
Was it a failure that can be attributed to Hillary? I don't know -- we should ask and understand her involvement in those issues. I don't think there was much, but if there was, then we should ask her about her.
My problem with many of the Obama supporters' arguments is that they seem to object to any question of his record at all, and attack every one by either claiming it is (1) a distortion of the record; (2) unfair to bring up; (3) proof of the Clintons' evil and venal natures; or (4) need not be answered, because whatever the issue is, Hillary Clinton has done ten times worse.
As a Clinton supporter, I don't argue she is the perfect choice, I argue that out of the options, she is the best choice. Any question arising out of her actions as Senator or her husband's administration are fair, and she ought to answer them as best she can.
So yes, if I used the lack of experience, and the lack of experience alone, to argue that an Obama presidency would be as crappy as the Bush presidency, it would have been logically fallacious. But that's a straw man, since I intentionally and clearly did not make that argument.
But experience is a factor. Ron1 notes, below, that many Presidents came to the WH without foriegn policy experience. True. But they had executive experience. Obama has neither.
I don't understand your point about no president having been the wife of a prior president. I'm not trying to be thick -- I honestly don't get it.
But expanding your yardstick to all American presidents, or, even better, the short list of great presidents, Obama buffs would tell you his experience is roughly equal to Lincoln's, including time spent in the Illinois legislature.
But you are right that if the yardstick is expanded to all American presidents, the conclusion is different. So were the times and so was the job, so I tried t make the comparison relevant by limiting it to presidents in the modern era.
Still, the fact is that experience is only one aspect. Obama, should he get elected, could turn out to be one of the greatest presidents ever, like Lincoln, because there is so much else that goes into the job.
I find that to be a huge problem, extrapolating out what it looks like he will do.
Per the Clintonistas, Senator Obama is less worthy than Senator Clinton because he can't match her experience making horrendous judgment calls.
Speaking of extrapolating, no need with Senator Clinton. With all that experience making bad calls, the "huge problem" is she's learned nothing at all from her mistakes and has enthusiastically joined the drum circle on Iran.
Give me a break! Any idiot with a 2nd grade education knew Bush was lying. I sure did and I have no military background.
But, that said my issue is economic war by the multinational corporations et al and here Obama is sorely lacking, i.e. he is making some real bad judgment calls.
But, I'll agree with you on Iraq.