Letters to the Editor
Reality-based Liberal
Published Letters: 774 Editor's Choice: 100
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@ manyctnj
[Read the article: A closer look at Clinton's Bosnia schedule]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It is a truism that someone who lives longer has more "life experience." As to the specific experience you cite, that can go both ways. A big chunk of that 35 years was as a corporate lawyer (even a board member of Walmart). That could be construed many ways. Her experience in the White House in a largely symbolic position may be experience in the technical sense, but does it outweigh experience working in the South side neighborhoods of Chicago, or being a state senator? Responses are not likely to be unanimous here. And on foreign policy experience, even if I grant you that she has had more than Obama, it is comparing fractions -- neither measures up to McCain in our bullshit political world, which values time spent with privileged people of the world.
The experience argument, on which Clinton has staked her campaign, is weak at best. Even if she can make a case that she's got more than Obama, it's less than McCain's by a long shot (and you can bet he'll run her commercials in the general if she wins) and it is based on such thin evidence that it's likely to bite her in the ass before she gets out of the primaries.
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@ manos99
[Read the article: Was Obama's speech enough?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't even know what that means.
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@ jebldmm and Xanthro
[Read the article: A closer look at Clinton's Bosnia schedule]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]jebldmm:
My point was that large chunks of her 35 years experience don't necessarily warrant support, depending on the voter.
Xanthro:
For someone with top security clearance, I find it hard to swallow that you actually believe a handful of PR trips puts Clinton more in league with McCain than Obama in a debate over national security credentials -- even if I were to agree Obama has no experience.
And for someone with top security clearance, I'm sure you know that all sorts of intangibles are at play in international relations. In that regard, simply having a fresh face and a non-white one brings to the international table assets that outweigh a trip to Bosnia with Sindbad.
As others point out, and as I hinted at with jebldmm, experience, as Clinton presents it, is pretty one-dimensional in a multifaceted world. Her anti-war experience didn't lead to better judgment when she gave Bush permission to use force as he wished, despite a shitload of unclassified information that demonstrated pretty clearly that a) Bush could not be trusted in any way; and b) Hussein and Iraq had zip to do with 9/11 (or functioning WMD). And all of her experience with women and children didn't lead her to advance health care programs that didn't leave a big chunk of profit to insurance companies. And her experience being smeared by the right-wing only seems to have taught her how to imitate their tactics.
So I'll grant 35 years of experience. I'm not it doesn't cut both ways.
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How to move the ball
[Read the article: The media's special relationship with John McCain]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Remember when Bush first used the term, "war on terror?" It was a bit of a joke. Even liberals would use the term "war on terrorism" because it was almost disrespectful to the office of the president to use Bush's own phrase.
Now Bush's entire foreign policy view is "correct" -- beyond debate. McCain is in lockstep with Bush on foreign policy, and yet a leading Democratic presidential candidate finds him more ready to cross the Commander-in-Chief threshold than her party's leading candidate. All three presidential candidates support the idea of preemptive war, when just 5 years ago that was a big outrage.
People for whom peace and justice matter may win a battle here and there, but they are losing the proverbial war. The front line has moved in favor of the warmongers every year. Given how unexpected the war on Iraq was, I fear to think where we might be spilling blood a few years from now if McCain wins.
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Why this is not a non-issue
[Read the article: Clinton's nondenial on Obama pastor]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sure, Clinton has every right to work any levers to save her flagging campaign. I do not dispute this right. But I don't vote for people because they broke the rules -- I have a little higher standard.
First, Clinton's refusal to even acknowledge the question is like Bush: maybe she doesn't have control over her people -- maybe she is happy to make this case to super delegates. Fuck you, public, I don't need to answer questions.
Second, she does has the right to make any case she wants -- she could argue a black man can't win to delegates, and I wouldn't claim she lacks that right. But to try to claim that it's okay for a candidate to be trashed for the words of someone who doesn't work for that candidate is not only morally offensive, it is patently hypocritical.
How can it be okay that Obama is responsible for the words of his pastor, while Clinton is not responsible for the ACTIONS of the corporation on whose board she served? How can it not be legitimate for anyone to blame Clinton for everything her husband did and said? Sure, Obama could have left his church, and Clinton could have divorced her husband. This is an outrageous double standard. No presidential candidate has been so bashed for connections to others, and for good reason. Reagan, Bush, Bill Clinton and others have associated -- even embraced -- people with much more downsides than Wright (who didn't even say much that was inaccurate, he simply didn't have the "right tone").
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@ swinick
[Read the article: Clinton's nondenial on Obama pastor]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Please supply the link to the evidence that Rev. Wright said he hates rich white people. I know he said they have been in charge, and that this is a bad thing. That's something completely different -- and quite supportable by the historical record.
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@ Xanthro
[Read the article: Clinton's nondenial on Obama pastor]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And Clinton could have left the board when the corporation's head denounced organized labor in hateful terms. She didn't. It is an appropriate comparison. In fact, it's not the same. You might want to stick with a church with a fired up preacher because the community is of value. It's hard to make the same argument that you can sit silently on a corporation's board when that corporation attacks organized labor in terms more hateful than Wright's.