Forum Name General Discussion: Primaries
Topic subject "Look, I've lived overseas," said Obama.
Topic URL
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4985012#49850124985012, "Look, I've lived overseas," said Obama.
Posted by bigtree on Sun Mar-09-08 09:33 AM
In response to the question of Barack Obama's experience in foreign and military affairs, we now have five points which HE has offered in rebuttal to Hillary Clinton . . .
1) He's lived overseas.
2) He has family overseas.
3) He has served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
4) He made a speech in 2002 opposing the Iraq resolution and Bush's plan to invade.
5) He doesn't get rattled.
article:
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Vote2008/Story?id=4374621&page=3 Obama: 'How Do You Know Any President Is Ready?'
"Look, I've lived overseas," said Obama. "I have family overseas. I have served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee."
As for Clinton's experience in the White House, Obama is dubious. "It is true that I've not lived in the White House," he said. "Although, one of the tough things about Sen. Clinton's campaign has been the degree to which she takes credit for good things that happened and doesn't take credit for bad things that happened."
I Don't Get Rattled'
Obama believes that his "matter of temperament" best prepares him for the White House.
"One of the things that I've known about myself for a long time," he said, "is that, in difficult or stressful moments, I don't get rattled And I don't get rattled during campaigns. I don't get rattled when things are up ... and I don't get too low when things are down."
____________________________
I'll just give my overview of the points Hillary Clinton has stressed as she presents her own record of experience in military and foreign affairs (since I know it will be challenged . . .
Hillary Clinton is the first New York senator to sit on the Armed Services Committee, where she has focused on improving pay and benefits for troops, both active and reserve. New York has the fourth-largest number of servicemen and women deployed in Iraq. Clinton visited Iraq in February in a much-publicized trip with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
• She introduced legislation last month to boost the Army by 80,000 soldiers over the next four years.
• She has co-sponsored bills to improve military health benefits with GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jim Talent of Missouri. "I think that generally her work on the (Armed Services) committee has been very strong," Talent says.
• She was nominated by the Pentagon — with which her husband often had contentious relations, particularly on gays in the military — to serve on a blue-ribbon panel studying how to foster better cooperation among the military services.
Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command, named Clinton to the "Transformation Advisory Group." Clinton returned the favor last month by introducing him at the Armed Services hearing on his nomination to be vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Clinton says a combination of factors prompted her to make national security a key focus in the Senate: a long-standing interest in military and foreign policy issues, the fact that New York City was attacked on Sept. 11.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-07-18-hillary-cover_x.htm 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 . . .
Her role mostly involved what diplomats call “soft power” — converting cold war foes into friends, supporting nonprofit work and good-will endeavors, and pressing her agenda on women’s rights, human trafficking and the expanded use of microcredits, tiny loans to help individuals in poor countries start small businesses.
Asked to name three major foreign policy decisions where she played a decisive role as first lady, Mrs. Clinton responded in generalities more than specifics, describing her strategic roles on trips to Bosnia, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, India, Africa and Latin America.
Asked to cite a significant foreign policy object lesson from the 1990s, Mrs. Clinton also replied with broad observations. “There are a lot of them,” she said. “The whole unfortunate experience we’ve had with the Bush administration, where they haven’t done what we’ve needed to do to reach out to the rest of the world, reinforces my experience in the 1990s that public diplomacy, showing respect and understanding of people’s different perspectives — it’s more likely to at least create the conditions where we can exercise our values and pursue our interests.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/26/us/politics/26clinton.html?_r=1&adxnnlx=1203090233-ocLkicuTLhKkTB7gZB%20R/g&pagewanted=all These two media accounts reflect what's been described by Sen. Clinton and her supporters. Not a major role in foreign policy as First Lady, but not the lack of significant experience her critics claim either. Certainly more foreign policy experience than Obama can credibly claim.
Couple that behind-the-scenes-of-the-Clinton-presidency experience with her present seat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and her term as Senator and you have a pretty healthy resume. (Not to mention those contacts she made overseas during that period and beyond)
Oh, and this . . . a telephone call:
Listen to it. It is a series of powerful testimonials from eighteen former admirals, generals, and senior defense officials who support Hillary. They are among nearly 30 general and flag officers who have endorsed Hillary. (link:
http://static.hillaryclinton.com/files/audio/20080302_call.mp3 selected excerpts: (
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/release/view/?id=6298 )
3/2/2008
TESTIMONIALS: Former Admirals, Generals and Senior Defense Officials on Why They Support Hillary Clinton to be the Next Commander-in-Chief
General Wesley Clark
Click here for audio
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/files/audio/press/200803025016.mp3 Brigadier General John Watkins, Jr.
Click here for audio
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/files/audio/press/200803025604.mp3 Major General Paul Eaton
Click here for audio
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/files/audio/press/200803020410.mp3 Lieutenant General Claudia Kennedy
Click here for audio
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/files/audio/press/200803025454.mp3 Lieutenant General Frederick Vollrath
Click here for audio
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/files/audio/press/200803025544.mp3 Admiral William Owens
Click here for audio
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/files/audio/press/200803025514.mp3 General Wesley Clark
“She has done her homework on national security and I know from my personal discussions with her and with many other friends that go in and brief her in her role in the Senate Armed Services Committee. She knows the facts, she knows the details, plus she has the big picture. She is a strategic thinker but she has the building blocks of the strategy in her personal knowledge. This is someone that when she is president our military is going to respect very highly, and when our Senior Officers brief her and meet with her they are going be very, very impressed by what she knows and the intelligence that she brings to these problems.”
Brigadier General John Watkins, Jr.
“As I think about the challenges facing the nation and having been in uniform for almost thirty years, worked with a number of presidents to include the last four, I can’t think of a single person – those generals included – who is better qualified to walk into the Oval Office than Hillary Clinton. I don’t make that statement very lightly. She is more qualified, in my view, than her husband Bill was when he entered the office. It is no surprise to me that you would have as many flag officers who serve this country and Secretaries of the Army and Navy who have served this country who would come out and support Hillary.”
Major General Paul Eaton
“On a personal note, I have a Special Forces Captain son and a Sergeant Paratrooper both in Afghanistan and I find Senator Clinton the perfect choice to be their Commander-in-Chief and to display the loyalty to command our armed forces and to rebuild them after the conflicts in which we are engaged right now.”
Lieutenant General Claudia Kennedy
“I support her because I trust her. I trust Hillary Clinton because of her judgment and her leadership. I have confidence that she is responsive to the needs of people. I believe that she understands leadership the way we do in the Army and that is that it’s about building connections and relationships and establishing guidance and leadership for others.
I think she’ll rebuild relationships with other countries that have been suffering for the last seven or eight years; those relationships have really been strained beyond anything I would have anticipated. Another part of Hillary Clinton that I think is just tremendous is that she knows our reality. She is in touch with people, she listens to people. She decides what she believes about policy based on what’s right, she has integrity, and on what works, so she’s practical.”
Lieutenant General Frederick Vollrath
“I support Senator Clinton because I believe it’s time for change in our country, a new direction. And I know change carries with it risks. Senator Clinton is the candidate, in my opinion, with the proven experience that truly understands the risks and how to possibly cope with those risks to get the job done. We shouldn’t shirk from change because of the risks, but we absolutely have to have a leader with the proven experience. America, in the area of national defense, must be successful and Senator Clinton has that experience to create change, to understand the risk, and to get the job done.”
Admiral William Owens
“In this world that we face today, very complex as all of us know, I think experience will be really at a premium, especially at the level of the Commander-in-Chief. There’s not time to learn. The phone rings and you have to be ready. You have to ready with intuition, with experience and with skills. And this world will have the complexities that perhaps we’ve never before seen. I’ve been impressed with and admire Hillary Clinton for her work in the Senate. And we need people with great judgment. I think she brings the best of talent, intuition and experience to handle these unknown threats in the future.”
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