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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (2509)	8/5/2007 2:05:38 PM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

As I have said from the beginning, Barack Obama is not ready for prime time. He needs more seasoning. Quite frankly, his foreign policy gaffes over the last two or three weeks have sent a chill down my spine. Hillary Clinton may be programmed, but she is seasoned enough not to say something that is going to come back to haunt her. I'm guessing some Republicans might be thinking the GOP would be better off with Obama as the Democratic nominee so they could ask voters if they want someone with his inexperience in foreign affairs and tone-deaf statements in charge of defending the country. Obama's tin ear shows his lack of experience August 5, 2007 BY STEVE HUNTLEY For a politician as eloquent as he is, Barack Obama can display a bit of a tin ear when it comes to talking about foreign policy and terrorism. It's not that what he says is necessarily wrong, it's just that the way he says it hits the wrong note. Consider the terrorism speech he gave Wednesday in Washington. Referring to the terrorist buildup in a remote mountainous province of Pakistan, Obama said, "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and [Pakistani] President Musharraf won't act, we will." That's a position that any president should take -- using military force in a unilateral, preemptive strike if necessary to protect American lives. And his stance is probably more cautious than it sounds. After all, Obama requires "actionable intelligence" before he would attack across the Pakistan border, and given the intelligence failures in Iraq, "actionable intelligence" surely is a high standard. The problem with Obama's position, as Delaware Sen. Joe Biden put it, is that striking at terrorists in Pakistan is something a president should do if necessary, but "it's not something you talk about." Underscoring Biden's policy lesson were denunciations of Obama by Pakistani officials and anti-American protests in Islamabad this weekend. A day later, Obama tripped over his own words. He was asked by an AP reporter if there were any circumstances he would use nuclear weapons to attack terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. 'I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance,' Obama said, with a pause, 'involving civilians.' Then, according to AP, he quickly added, 'Let me scratch that. There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's not on the table.' But the damage was done. Politicians can't take back their words. This time it was Hillary Clinton who delivered the lesson on presidential-level policy to Obama: "I don't believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or nonuse of nuclear weapons." These latest episodes follow two others in which Obama's answers struck the wrong tone. In the YouTube debate a couple of weeks ago, Obama said he was willing to meet, without preconditions, with the leaders of rogue states such as Syria, Iran and North Korea. Recognizing those renegades could seize a prestigious meeting with a president for propaganda purposes, Clinton said she would want to ensure there was a good reason for a meeting. Again, Obama's policy -- America should be willing to meet with anyone -- isn't necessarily wrong, it's just not nuanced to the realities of international power politics. In the first debate, Obama and Clinton were asked how they would respond to simultaneous terrorist attacks on two American cities. Obama talked about having an effective emergency response, good intelligence and better relations with other countries. Clinton answered, 'I think a president must move as swiftly as is prudent to retaliate.' Obama came back later in the debate to talk about using "lethal force to take out terrorists," but he couldn't take back his initial tepid response. Obama's speech on Thursday was seen as an attempt to recover from those two debate gaffes. But with his attack-terrorists-in-Pakistan stance, he came across as someone trying too hard to make up for a deficiency. That deficiency is, of course, experience -- the issue that has dogged Obama since he announced that after two years in the Senate and eight years in the Illinois Legislature, he was qualified to be president. That inexperience has surfaced most notably in foreign affairs discussions. The conventional wisdom is that the candidate Republicans want to face is Clinton because of her high negative ratings among voters. But it's likely the GOP is rethinking that notion with Clinton blossoming as a candidate. I'm guessing some Republicans might be thinking the GOP would be better off with Obama as the Democratic nominee so they could ask voters if they want someone with his inexperience in foreign affairs and tone-deaf statements in charge of defending the country. suntimes.com