John McCain and Wes Clark seem to agree

by: Alex Gallichon

Sat Jul 05, 2008 at 20:08:55 PM EDT

In the dying hours of the daylight, I'm sitting on my deck in the middle of reading Feingold: A New Democratic Party by Sanford Horwitt, which is, maybe, a bit of a puff piece detailing the ascent and political style of my favorite contemporary Senator, Russ Feingold from Wisconsin.

Feingold, as most people here are probably aware, worked with John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, on campaign finance reform.

Read the following excerpt and follow it to its logical conclusion:

Indeed, the first time McCain and Feingold crossed paths shortly after Feingold came to the Senate, an unpleasant confrontation seemed to be in the making. As McCain recalls, "When I first noticed him ... he was arguing on the Senate floor to cut funding for an aircraft carrier. I asked him in debate whether he had ever been on an aircraft carrier. When he answered in the negative, I suggested that he learn a little more about them before he decided the country needed fewer of them." It was the kind of acid-tongued dressing-down that John McCain was known for in the Senate, the style not universally appreciated. Feingold, however, responded in a way that impressed McCain. "He reacted with typical good humor and observed, correctly, that he didn't need to see a carrier to understand their purpose," McCain writes in his memoir. "As I've come to know him, I realize that my remark was as unfair to him as it was discourteous. Russ didn't take positions that he is not well-informed about. Even when I believe his judgment to be mistaken, it is not for his lack of diligence in studying the issue."

Now, let's get back to Wes Clark, who commended McCain's military performance, but in response to Bob Schliefer's remark that, "I have to say, Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences either nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down," Clark appropriately responded that he doesn't "think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be President." Which, is not an insignificant statement coming from the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander.

Essentially, having the "right" or "best" policy views for our country's security does not come from sitting in a fighter cockpit or touring an aircraft carrier, it comes from diligent study, hearing out varied analyses and advice, and using sound judgment to come to one's own critical conclusions.

No one on this website has argued that Wes Clark's remarks were wrong in and of themselves. Criticism of Clark has been mostly on the political correctness of his remarks, in the sense of of whether they advance Barack Obama's electoral position. No one, including Clark, has suggested that John McCain's experiences in the Navy during the Vietnam War do not give him a unique outlook on policy issues.

The basic problem is that the foreign policy positions John McCain has taken should not be above criticism simply because of those unique experiences. I think, and I say this with the utmost sincerity because my view is that John McCain is a pretty reasonable and pretty normal guy, that John McCain would agree on that. As an individual and a Presidential candidate, John McCain has put forth his views on foreign policy and national security issues as part of his commitment to American democratic ideals: he has put these views forward not merely to increase his chance at electoral victory, but also to inform us voters of the policy choices that will be influenced with our votes in the Presidential election.

He's not going to get my vote, because I disagree with the policy choices that McCain has indicated will occur under his presidency. And I'm uncomfortable with some of the other uncommon elements of his foreign policy background, such as chairing the interventionist and largely antidemocratic International Republican Institute.

To me, what's interesting about this election compared to others in recent memory, is both John McCain and Barack Obama seem more committed to winning on the merits of their policies and their ability to see them carried out, than on the fluff of who has a more compelling personal narrative, which has been the focus of the media and the supporters of both candidates.

Would Clinton prefer McCain over Obama?

by: Northwoods

Fri Mar 07, 2008 at 18:48:55 PM EST

Vision and Experience

by: KL Downing

Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 12:19:02 PM EST

I strongly support Hillary for President; however, I didn't at first. I thought she was too divisive and had too much baggage from the Clinton years. Then, I decided to give Hillary a real look. I decided to form my own opinion of her, instead of allowing the media and spin masters to form my opinion for me. I was amazed at how much she has accomplished, her commitment to this country, and how she has challenged and changed the establishment. I couldn't understand why more Americans didn't know more about Hillary's accomplishments, then naively, I realized we have all been duped by an anti-Hillary machine that is well-funded and fueled by anti-change, status quo, conservatives, and misogynists.

Not only does the next president need to be able to team-build and work across the isle to tackle domestic issues with the economy, deficits, Social Security, health care, and education, but they have to lead us out of Iraq responsibly, rebuild our international relationships, and confront terrorism. In addition to all this work, the next president must address issues of climate change both domestically and internationally and lead us into sustainability.

Who do you really think has the experience to make these kinds of major changes, who do you think can lead in all these areas?

I think it is clear at this point that Obama hopes for change and believes he can make it happen, Edwards wants to fight for change and believes he can make it happen, but Hillary has and will continue to successfully work for change and she has both the experience and record to make it happen. I believe that Hillary is truly the change and hope this country needs. There is gritty work to be done and I know this women will roll up her sleeves and get it done. Not only will she repair the damage of the Bush years, but lead us out of Iraq, energy dependence, and deficits into peace, sustainability, and prosperity for all.

I ask each of you reading this, one citizen to another, that you at least look at her record and background. Judge her for who she really is, not who the spinners and pundits want you to believe she is.

I pulled together some background information from various online sources. There is certainly much more detail out there, but I focused on her pre-Senate years since that seems to be where most questions arise about her experience; however, I did include links to her Senate legislative record.  

http://encarta.msn.com/media_4...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/hist...
http://clinton.senate.gov/abou...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...
http://www.firstladies.org/bio...

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1947 Born on October 26 in Chicago, Illinois.  She was raised in a conservative, middle-class household in Park Ridge, Illinois.  Her father owned a small business.
1969 Graduated from Wellesley College.  In her freshman year, Hillary served as president of the Wellesley Young Republicans organization; however, due to her evolving views regarding the American Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War, she stepped down from that position.  She organized a two-day student strike and worked with Wellesley's black students for moderate changes, such as recruiting more black students and faculty.  In that same year she was elected president of the Wellesley College Government Association.  In 1969, Hillary attracted national attention when she delivered a controversial address as the first student to speak at commencement exercises for Wellesley College.
1973 Received law degree from Yale University.  While at Yale, Hillary served on the Board of Editors of Yale Law Review and Social Action; interned with children's advocate Marian Wright Edelman; and met Bill Clinton.  During her second year, she worked at the Yale Child Study Center.  She also took on cases of child abuse at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and volunteered at New Haven Legal Services to provide free advice for the poor.
1973-1974 Post-graduate study on children and medicine at the Yale Child Study Center.  Her first scholarly paper, "Children Under the Law", was published in the Harvard Educational Review in late 1973 and became frequently cited in the field.  She served as staff attorney for Edelman's newly-founded Children's Defense Fund in Cambridge, Massachusetts and as a consultant to the Carnegie Council on Children.  During 1974, Hillary was a member of the impeachment inquiry staff in Washington, D.C., advising the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate scandal.
1974-1979 Taught law at the University of Arkansas Law School.  She was one of two female faculty members.
1975 Married Bill Clinton.
1977-1992 Practiced law as an associate and then a partner in the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Arkansas.  In 1979 she became the first woman to be made a full partner of Rose Law Firm. While continuing to practice law, she became the First Lady of Arkansas.  She was listed as one of the one hundred most influential lawyers in America in 1988 and 1991.
1978 President Jimmy Carter appointed Hillary to the board of the Legal Services Corporation.  She served on the board from 1978-1981.
1979-1981 and 1983-1992 First Lady of Arkansas.  Bill Clinton appointed Hillary chair of the Rural Health Advisory Committee, where she successfully obtained federal funds to expand medical facilities in Arkansas' poorest areas without affecting doctors' fees. Balancing family, a law career, and public service, Hillary chaired the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee, co-founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, and served on the boards of the Arkansas Children's Hospital, Legal Services, and the Children's Defense Fund.  She was on the board of Wal-Mart, TCBY, and several other corporate and non-profit boards.  
1980 Daughter, Chelsea, was born.
1993-2001 First Lady of the United States.  Hillary was the first First Lady to hold a post-graduate degree and to have her own professional career up to the time of entering the White House. She was also the first First Lady to take up an office in the West Wing of the White House, first ladies usually staying in the East Wing. Since Eleanor Roosevelt, Hillary is regarded as the most openly empowered presidential wife in American history. Some critics called it inappropriate for the First Lady to play a central role in matters of public policy; however, supporters pointed out that Clinton's role in policy was no different from that of other White House advisors. In 1993, Bill appointed Hillary to head a presidential task force on health care reform, hoping to replicate the success she had in leading the effort for Arkansas education reform.  When the plan was attacked by opponents (Repubs, Dems, and special interests) as too complicated or an intention leading to "socialized medicine" the Clinton Administration decided not to push for a vote in the House or Senate and was abandoned in September 1994. However, along with Senator Ted Kennedy, Hillary was the major force behind the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) in 1997, a federal effort that provided state support for children whose parents were unable to provide them with health coverage. She promoted nationwide immunization against childhood illnesses and encouraged older women to seek a mammogram to detect breast cancer, with coverage provided by Medicare. She successfully sought to increase research funding for prostate cancer and childhood asthma at the National Institutes of Health. She also worked to investigate reports of an illness that affected veterans of the Gulf War, which became known as the Gulf War syndrome.  Together with Attorney General Janet Reno, Hillary helped create the Office on Violence Against Women at the Department of Justice. She initiated and shepherded the Adoption and Safe Families Act.  She hosted numerous White House Conferences, including ones on Child Care (1997), Early Childhood Development and Learning (1997), and Children and Adolescents (2000), and the first-ever White House Conferences on Teenagers (2000) and Philanthropy (1999). While First Lady, she traveled to over 80 countries, meeting heads of state and dignitaries. In 1995, as keynote speaker at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, in Beijing China, she spoke for the rights of women and girls around the world. During her trips to Asia (1995), Africa (1997), South America (1995, 1997) and the Central European former Soviet satellite nations (1997, 1998), Hillary emphasized "a civil society," of human rights as a road to democracy and capitalism. She was one of the most prominent international figures at the time to speak out against the treatment of Afghan women by the Islamist fundamentalist Taliban that had seized control of Afghanistan. She helped create Vital Voices, an international initiative sponsored by the United States to promote the participation of women in the political processes of their countries. The Kenneth Starr and Monica years - Hillary became the only First Lady to be subpoenaed, testifying before a federal grand jury as a consequence of the Whitewater scandal in 1996.  Hillary was never charged with any wrongdoing in this or several other investigations during Bill's administration. The state of her marriage to Bill was the subject of considerable public discussion following the Lewinsky scandal in 1998. However, during this time, Hillary continued to be a leading advocate for expanding health insurance coverage, ensuring children are properly immunized, and raising public awareness of health issues. She wrote a weekly syndicated newspaper column entitled "Talking It Over," which focused on her experiences as First Lady and her observations of women, children, and families she has met around the world. As First Lady, her public involvement with many activities sometimes led to controversy. Undeterred by critics, Hillary won many admirers for her staunch support for women around the world and her commitment to children's issues.
1996 Authored the best-selling book, It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us.
1997 Received a Grammy Award for her recording of It Takes a Village.
1998 - 2000 Authored Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids' Letters to the First Pets and An Invitation to the White House: At Home with History
2000 Became the junior US Senator from the state of New York. She is the first First Lady elected to the US Senate and the first woman elected statewide in New York.
2003 Authored autobiography, Living History.
2006 Reelected to US Senate with 67 percent of the vote.
2007 Announced run for US President.

*****************************************

Hillary is on the following Senate Committees:

Senate Armed Services Committee
Subcommittees:
- Airland
- Emerging Threats and Capabilities
- Readiness and Management Support

Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works    
Subcommittees:
- Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health (Chair)
- Subcommittee Clean Air and Nuclear Safety
- Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure

Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions    
Subcommittees:
- Children and Families
- Employment & Workplace Safety

Senate Special Committee on Aging

*****************************************
Hillary's Legislative Record:
107th Session (2001-2002) - Hillary sponsored 161 bills, cosponsored 495
108th Session (2003-2004) - Hillary sponsored 130 bills, cosponsored 688
109th Session (2004-2005) - Hillary sponsored 177 bills, cosponsored 720

(Source: http://clinton.senate.gov/sena... and the Library of Congress' Thomas service which maintains a complete record of legislative activity in Congress.)

Obama's Legislative Accomplishments in IL

by: Helenann

Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 03:47:13 AM EST

Judge Him by His Laws

By Charles Peters

Friday, January 4, 2008; Page A21
Washington Post

People who complain that Barack Obama lacks experience must be unaware of his legislative achievements. One reason these accomplishments are unfamiliar is that the media have not devoted enough attention to Obama's bills and the effort required to pass them, ignoring impressive, hard evidence of his character and ability.

Since most of Obama's legislation was enacted in Illinois, most of the evidence is found there -- and it has been largely ignored by the media in a kind of Washington snobbery that assumes state legislatures are not to be taken seriously. (Another factor is reporters' fascination with the horse race at the expense of substance that they assume is boring, a fascination that despite being ridiculed for years continues to dominate political journalism.)

I am a rarity among Washington journalists in that I have served in a state legislature. I know from my time in the West Virginia legislature that the challenges faced by reform-minded state representatives are no less, if indeed not more, formidable than those encountered in Congress. For me, at least, trying to deal with those challenges involved as much drama as any election. And the "heart and soul" bill, the one for which a legislator gives everything he or she has to get passed, has long told me more than anything else about a person's character and ability.

Consider a bill into which Obama clearly put his heart and soul. The problem he wanted to address was that too many confessions, rather than being voluntary, were coerced -- by beating the daylights out of the accused.

Obama proposed requiring that interrogations and confessions be videotaped.

This seemed likely to stop the beatings, but the bill itself aroused immediate opposition. There were Republicans who were automatically tough on crime and Democrats who feared being thought soft on crime. There were death penalty abolitionists, some of whom worried that Obama's bill, by preventing the execution of innocents, would deprive them of their best argument. Vigorous opposition came from the police, too many of whom had become accustomed to using muscle to "solve" crimes. And the incoming governor, Rod Blagojevich, announced that he was against it.

Obama had his work cut out for him.

He responded with an all-out campaign of cajolery. It had not been easy for a Harvard man to become a regular guy to his colleagues. Obama had managed to do so by playing basketball and poker with them and, most of all, by listening to their concerns. Even Republicans came to respect him. One Republican state senator, Kirk Dillard, has said that "Barack had a way both intellectually and in demeanor that defused skeptics."

The police proved to be Obama's toughest opponent. Legislators tend to quail when cops say things like, "This means we won't be able to protect your children." The police tried to limit the videotaping to confessions, but Obama, knowing that the beatings were most likely to occur during questioning, fought -- successfully -- to keep interrogations included in the required videotaping.

By showing officers that he shared many of their concerns, even going so far as to help pass other legislation they wanted, he was able to quiet the fears of many.

Obama proved persuasive enough that the bill passed both houses of the legislature, the Senate by an incredible 35 to 0. Then he talked Blagojevich into signing the bill, making Illinois the first state to require such videotaping.

Obama didn't stop there. He played a major role in passing many other bills, including the state's first earned-income tax credit to help the working poor and the first ethics and campaign finance law in 25 years (a law a Post story said made Illinois "one of the best in the nation on campaign finance disclosure"). Obama's commitment to ethics continued in the U.S. Senate, where he co-authored the new lobbying reform law that, among its hard-to-sell provisions, requires lawmakers to disclose the names of lobbyists who "bundle" contributions for them.

Taken together, these accomplishments demonstrate that Obama has what Dillard, the Republican state senator, calls a "unique" ability "to deal with extremely complex issues, to reach across the aisle and to deal with diverse people." In other words, Obama's campaign claim that he can persuade us to rise above what divides us is not just rhetoric.

I do not think that a candidate's legislative record is the only measure of presidential potential, simply that Obama's is revealing enough to merit far more attention than it has received. Indeed, the media have been equally delinquent in reporting the legislative achievements of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, both of whom spent years in the U.S. Senate. The media should compare their legislative records to Obama's, devoting special attention to their heart-and-soul bills and how effective each was in actually making law.

Charles Peters, the founding editor of the Washington Monthly, is president of Understanding Government, a foundation devoted to better government through better reporting.

Mrs. Clinton lays claim to two traits nearly every day: strength and experience..Where's the Beef?

by: Granitdamit

Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 18:40:28 PM EST

As a Junior Senator from N.Y she has not shown the type of strengths or conviction that are true to the Democrat party.
In my opinion she has complied with and supported GW Bush in the Iraq war and voted  to intensify America's continuing confrontation with Iran.  Very hawkish indeed, in my opinion.

Today I looked up information on the internet, to add to what I have listened to in the debates and found written or quoted in books, and the strengths or experience she claims to have just don't add up.

Strength
Something I found today.

As first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton jaw-boned the authoritarian president of Uzbekistan to leave his car and shake hands with people. She argued with the Czech prime minister about democracy. She cajoled Roman Catholic and Protestant women to talk to one another in Northern Ireland. She traveled to 79 countries in total, little of it leisure; one meeting with mutilated Rwandan refugees so unsettled her that she threw up afterward. But during those two terms in the White House, Mrs. Clinton did not hold a security clearance. She did not attend National Security Council meetings. She was not given a copy of the president's daily intelligence briefing. She did not assert herself on the crises in Somalia, Haiti and Rwanda.
From the Mark Healey piece 12-26-07  
The Long Run

Experience

First, according to Susan Rice, a National Security Council senior aide and State Department official under Mr. Clinton Mrs. Clinton was not involved in "the heavy lifting of foreign policy." Ms. Rice also took issue with a recent comment by a Clinton campaign official that Mrs. Clinton was "the face of the administration in foreign affairs."

"Making tough decisions, responding to crises, making the bureaucracy implement decisions that they may not want to implement - that's the hard part of foreign policy," Ms. Rice said. "That's not what Mrs. Clinton was asked or expected to do as first lady."
From the Mark Healey piece 12-26-07  
The Long Run

 Mrs. Clinton has declined to divulge any private advice she gave her husband.

With all the back fires Hillary has had during her primary campaign,the Norman Hsu fund raising problem, the pre arranged questions in Iowa by her staff members, the idiotic leaks and attack's on other democratic candidates, all her C+ debate performances,  and  that she gave the wrong date to caucus in Iowa to supporters, I have come to following conclustion ....
Mrs. Clinton got where she is today  because she married Bill Clinton.
He opened the doors; she walked through them.

So where's the Beef?