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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cogito who wrote (91451)	10/23/2008 4:41:56 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541498

I can't honestly say with confidence, how the candidates level of knowledge compares with each other or with me on various issues. Most politicians are good BSers and also have teams of advisors and coaches to get them ready for questions. So its hard to know how well they really understand issues. Palin was apparently less coached up (maybe an strong effort was made, but not for as long), and also is apparently a poor BSer (when she doesn't know, you know that she doesn't know), but we've only seen her for a relatively short time, so its also hard to know in her case. If I had to guess out the issues you mentioned, I think Palin's weak point would probably be foreign policy. She might have a deficit in knowledge there. OTOH it would seem to be Obama's weak point as well (at least in terms of how much he has been actively involved with those issues), and while its supposed to be Biden's strong point, and he may know quite a few facts in that area, but you get signs of lack of strength from gaffes (“France and the US kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon”) to policy - JOE TOLD YOU SO BIDEN IS NEVER WRONG - BECAUSE HE TAKES BOTH SIDES nypost.com "...After Saddam Hussein’s army invaded Kuwait, Biden voted against the first Gulf War, claiming the U.S. had no “vital interests” in stopping the invasion. Virtually everything he predicted about that war -- American casualties, Saddam Hussein’s weapons capability, the reaction of the Arab states -- turned out to be dead wrong. Biden has since conceded his “No” vote was a mistake. Biden voted for the Iraq invasion of 2003 -- which he now thinks was another of his mistakes -- but in 2007 called President Bush’s troop surge in Iraq a “tragic mistake.” The senator was nothing if not cocky when lecturing America on what has turned out to be a winning move. Gen. David Petraeus’s policy, he brashly told the Boston Globe (June 22, 2007), “is not going to work either tactically or strategically.” On 'Meet the Press', Biden said Gen. Petraeus “believes that it is a good idea, the surge. He may be the only one who believes that. Virtually no one else believes it’s a good idea..." humanevents.com Biden Was Wrong On the Cold War online.wsj.com