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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (257356)	2/24/2008 7:07:31 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 281500

Another word which springs to mind with McC as the CIC...tragedy Obama makes better commander than McCain, Clinton Les Payne February 24, 2008 newsday.com Near the end of the 19th debate, Hillary Rodham Clinton scanned her years with the 42nd U.S. president and admitted a personal truth that for once didn't serve the righteous cause of returning the couple to the White House for a third term. "Well, I think everybody here knows I've lived through some crises and some challenging moments in my life," she said in apparent reference to indiscretions of the sort that led to her husband's impeachment trial. Freed from a state of denial, this nagging truth was taken as self-evident by the Democratic audience at the University of Texas. Normally when Sen. Clinton speaks publicly of her life with Bill it is of an apprenticeship qualifying her to be the next president from "day one." Voters have not gotten in step with her ambitions, and Sen. Barack Obama has been most uncooperative. Clinton's attempts to bring these holdouts to heel during the debate had her berating voters to "get real." Obama countered her tactics as implication "that the people who've been voting for me or involved in my campaign are somehow delusional ... [that] the 20 million people who've been paying attention to 19 debates and the editorial boards all across the country at newspapers who have given me endorsements, including every major newspaper here in the state of Texas, [her] thinking is that somehow, they're being duped." The counterpunch landed squarely on the china chin of Clinton's campaign presumption that she is somehow entitled to the nomination. She has indeed been vetted, as claimed, but voters find her wanting. Clinton's unfavorable poll ratings are so high that even white women younger than 60, if Wisconsin serves as representative, are crossing over to Obama. Surely this is not purely because she is a woman. It appears more that, despite her gender, the senator simply has not won voters over on the merits. Her firepower is spent leafleting position papers, mouthing off about her 35-year resume, and battering Obama as unworthy. This Clinton tactic was on display at the Texas debate when she was slamming Obama as lacking the experience to be commander-in-chief. "I've [represented] our country in more than 80 countries to negotiate ... opening borders for refugees during the war in Kosovo, to stand up for women's rights ... around the world," she said. "I've served on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and I have worked as one of the leaders in the Congress on behalf of Homeland Security." While this experience, if accurate, might qualify one as a senator or an ambassador, it is not exactly the job skills of a commander-in-chief. In the wake of the Bush calamity, the nation deserves a wise commander-in-chief steeped in world history, courageous and keen of judgment. While steering this lone superpower, this helmsman should be mindful of the limits of military force in the unstable age of international terror. Nothing short of wise collective leadership, not even military experience, per se, can guarantee success. Sen. John McCain, with all his heroic service and horrific suffering for his country, would likely be a diaster of a commander-in-chief. The 30,000 troop "surge," for example, the former POW takes as a sign that the United States is winning the Iraq war and must be prepared to remain there for 100 years. While praising the troops' efforts, Obama cited the reduction in slaughter for what it is: "a tactical victory imposed upon a huge strategic blunder." This is not to decorate Obama as an model commander-in-chief, but rather to measure him against Clinton, who supported the war, and McCain, who should know better. In a desperate grasp for power, 71-year-old McCain has thrown himself on the mercy of the Bush White House. He now supports every jot and tittle of current Bush policy, including tax cuts and the war in Iraq. Voters wish not to prolong these crippling mistakes. Among Obama's other gifts, he seems blessed so far with opponents frightfully out of step with the Democratic process.