Letters to the Editor
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Reality-based Liberal
I agree with you about the threshold statement...I get that. I really do. But I also think that Obama supporters (I am one) should tread lightly because belittling her experience can backfire.
We need to start pulling together to win this electon against McCain. The records speak for themselves. They don't represent a threshold. But at the same time, it wasn't her fault that the role was more symbolic than real. Many women with powerful husbands must settle for the "symbolic." It isn't their fault either.
She exaggurated, just like all politicians do, including Obama who I still support.
Just saying.
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@ jebldmm
FYI - Clinton was campaigning on her foreign policy superiority.
I don't recall Obama campaigning on his tutelage under Rev. Wright, so I assume you are opposed to that coverage too, right?
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What Presidents do no trips
Just visiting,cutting ribbons, and kissing puppies doesn't seem like particularly relevant experience for a position as chief executive, and I don't suppose Clinton thinks so either.
What exactly do you think sitting Presidents do on foreign trips?
Actually debate and talk about substantial matters?
No, all that work is done far in advance. Presidential trips are symbolic.
A large amount of background work both in terms of policy and cultural understanding goes into these types.
Hillary is very well received in many parts of the World, and while those ignorant of what real high level meetings are like, what Hillary did in Bosnia and other trips is no different than if the President went.
Remember, both the Korean war, and the first Gulf War started because some trained diplomatic screwed up in a speech (korea) are gave horrible answers in just this type of meeting. (Gulf War)
Going to grade school in Indonesia does not equal meeting with the Heads of State.
Does Hillary's eight years as First Lady equal eight years of experience as President? Of course not, but she played a substantial role in the Administration, particuarly in meeting foreign leaders and in advancing administration goals.
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@ Reality Based Liberal
I'm sorry...McCain is "in the 20's" why exactly? Because he was tortured in North Viet Nam?? Do you really want to make that claim on a day when he indicated he doesn't even know who the players are in Iraq and Iran (ps, FOR AT LEAST THE SECOND TIME in this campaign!!!) There's a loop that will be replayed a few times this fall...over a screen that reads "Incipient Dementia".
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manyctnj
experience in situations like this can never "equivalent." Clinton has experience and closeness to the role of President that Obama and other candidates lack.
At the same time, in terms of public service, given their relative age difference, their public service records are similar. If they were the same age they would have an equivalent number of years in public service, since both began their public service records after graduation from college.
Does that sound more fair?
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@ manyctnj
Your post questioned comparisons between Clinton's experience and Laura Bush's. Clinton is CAMPAIGNING on the idea that her experience more closely matches McCain's than Obama's -- that's a matter of considerable public record. In that context, she looks positively delusional.
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@ jebldmm maybe you're right
but I wasn't implying anything -just reiterating a story by the AP...
Further - people do stay married after affairs...but there was a successive (spelling) pattern of affairs that suggest that HRC knew very well what was going on between Bill and Monica and all the other women Bill slept with before Monica. Now tell me why someone would stay married to someone who had affairs over and over, unless for political reasons - one affair, two maybe...
I do think it is applicable, b/c Bill is scandal prone and likely to say/do something stupid in the WH and that means HRC will be distracted.
And finally, if HRC is running on her experience, than this was her experience too!
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@Reality-based Liberal
Really? Clinton and Obama have similar foreign policy experience? Perhaps you would like to lay out Obama's foreign policy experience so that we can judge. It seems to be largely missing from his biographies.
Oops... I stand corrected. He was chairman of European Subcommittee on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He even travelled to Europe several times. We don't know what that had to do with his committee work, though, because he didn't hold any hearings during his tenure.
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The Best Example
Whatever the merits of this trip, Hillary is holding it up as an example of her foreign relations experience and her courage under fire. The fact that she picked this trip would mean she felt this was her most important or most dangerous trip abroad. If this is the pinnacle of her foreign policy experience, I'm not sure it really says all that much in her favor.
I also think the idea that she was ducking bullets is absurd and that the idea that if she had in fact been ducking bullets it would make her more qualified to be President is equally absurd.
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@ jebldmm
Another great non-answer from a Clinton supporter. While I clearly stated that Clinton was running on the idea that she had vastly more foreign policy experience than Obama (she and McCain are bosom buddies in their ability to "cross the threshold"), and while I clearly made no claims about Obama having experience, you write that Obama doesn't have experience.
Here is a direct question: Do you believe that Clinton's foreign policy experience is so much greater than Obama's that she and McCain fall closer together in that measure than she and Obama?
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@ doloresflower
Not exactly. I think you need to review the basic biographical data on the candidates. If they both started public service when they graduated from college, she's got 14 years on him.
Here's how I'd like to see the debate on this settled. With everyone conceding that she has more professional experince than he does, more life experience than he does, more foreign policy experience than he does, and eight years of unique, invaluable, irreplacable experience living in the White House. He has other qualities that may or may not make up for the fact that she has more experience than he does.
I'm at the point of thinking the paragraph I just wrote isn't really opinion, it's more or less fact.