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Saturday, September 27, 2008

Her Master's Voice Of Experience

I actually put this on someone else's comments, but it strikes me that people keep conflating "experience" with training (including the Obama campaign). So........ The comment that was made, essentially, sais that Palin's lack of foreign policy experience is no more troubling than was Bill Clinton's when he ran for the presidency or Obama's is now. I beg to differ. Assuming this information on Obama: Following high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles, where he studied at Occidental College for two years.[10] He then transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations.[11] Obama graduated with a B.A. from Columbia in 1983, then worked for a year at the Business International Corporation[12] and then at the New York Public Interest Research Group.[13][14] After four years in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago to work as a community organizer for three years from June 1985 to May 1988 as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland (Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale) on Chicago's far South Side.[13][15] During his three years as the DCP's director, its staff grew from one to thirteen and its annual budget grew from $70,000 to $400,000, with accomplishments including helping set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld Gardens.[16] Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute.[17] In mid-1988, he traveled for the first time to Europe for three weeks and then for five weeks in Kenya, where he met many of his Kenyan relatives for the first time.[18] Obama entered Harvard Law School in late 1988. At the end of his first year, he was selected, based on his grades and a writing competition, as an editor of the Harvard Law Review.[19] In February 1990, in his second year, he was elected president of the Law Review,(wikipedia)" and Bill Clinton; "With the aid of scholarships, Clinton attended the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., receiving a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service (B.S.F.S.) degree in 1968. He spent the summer of 1967, the summer before his senior year, working as an intern for Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright.[15] While in college he became a brother of Alpha Phi Omega and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.[20] ... Upon graduation he won a Rhodes Scholarship to University College, Oxford where he studied Government.[16] ... After Oxford, Clinton attended Yale Law School and obtained a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree in 1973.[16](wikipedia)" to be factual, I would say that either Obama's or Clinton's resume is little better than Sarah Palin's. Sarah Palin has a degree in sports journalism. NO FOREIGN POLICY EDUCATION OR EXPERIENCE. It is silly for anyone to think that any candidate for the presidency has a great deal of foreign policy "experience" as even the U.S. congress really only recommends what path the president and secretary of state should follow in that regard. But if a concentration in sports metaphors isn't trumped by a law degree and a B.S. in foreign policy--well, shucks. Also, it needs to be remembered that JohnnyPOW McCain's campaign touted Sarah Palin's experience in this area. Now they REALLY don't want her to talk about it, outside of totally scripted and managed "interviews". Poor Sarah, the pitbull may wear lipstick but she also wears a muzzle. Obviously there is no "truth in advertising" law that applies to political campaigns--mores the pity.

10 comments:

Mr. Mack said...

She is the personification of The Peter Principle. I'll allow that she might have been over-prepped by her handlers, but that in itself shows you how terrified they are of letting her off the res.

Total gibberish. Her answers were not only "not right", they weren't even wrong

democommie said...

Mack:

Were they even answers?

sharon said...

I can't wait for it. Be on the lookout for signs of a radio receiver in that beehive. Or will there be an "emergency" in Alaska that will require the debate to be postponed, preferably until after the election?

Last night John Sidney McCain III kept harping on "experience." How is it that he gets to have it both ways?

jenn said...

The whole “experience” canard is utter nonsense. A candidate’s policy positions and integrity are far more important than “experience,” especially when you consider that a lifetime in Washington more often than not leads politicians to abandon their core principles and lose whatever integrity the may once have had. The “experience” argument might have worked for Hillary Clinton, who could argue, not without some merit, that she and Obama held many of the same policy positions but she had quite a few years on him – so why not go with the more experienced candidate. For my part, I preferred Obama for two primary reasons – Clinton’s vote for the AUMF and her subsequent refusal to acknowledge that was a mistake; and the fact that she is a Clinton, which is harmless in and of itself, but I don’t think two families should control the executive branch of government for nearly 30 years … Still, Clinton’s experience argument was quite reasonable: All else being equal, why not go for the more experienced candidate? It wasn’t enough to persuade me, but I can’t argue with people who supported her for that reason.

But as between Obama and McCain, two candidates with vastly different policy positions, it simply makes no sense to place greater emphasis on experience – especially Washington insider experience – than policy.

Then, too, you have to ask, as Demo does, what did the supposedly more “experienced” candidate learn from his or her experience; what did he or she get out of it? What John McCain learned from nearly three decades in Congress was how to be a craven, valueless whore. What John McCain learned from his vast “experience” was how to sell out, to stand for nothing, to embrace evil for no greater purpose than personal ambition, and to lie without blushing. In other words, what John McCain learned was how to be Karl Rove. If that’s what “experience” is, no thank you.

The problem with Sarah Palin isn’t that she lacks “experience,” it’s that she lacks substance. She’s vacuous and unintelligent. She’s an ideologue of the worst kind, because she’s an unthinking, uncritical ideologue. And she’s a liar. Worse, she lies about her own record, not just about her opponent’s record. No amount of “experience” can fix her flaws. As the comedian says, you can’t fix stupid.

Finally, as Demo points out, it’s high time we had the A students running things in this country, as opposed to the C students we’ve had running things lately. I know it’s not popular to say this, but I want a candidate who’s got two Ivy League degrees – and I say this as a graduate of the University of Illinois – and who’s got the smarts to understand and analyze complex issues. I want somebody who’s willing to put in long hours, to work hard, to use his (or her) brain, to see nuance, and to put together sentences that sometimes include polysyllabic words. Because we know all too well what happens when you turn the reins of government over to a mediocre, drunken frat boy and his best friend who goes by the nickname of “Turd Blossom.” And it pretty much sucks.

Anonymous said...

Dammit, that last one was me. I didn’t realize I was signed in as my wife!

Nomi said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
democommie said...

JenDave:

I want you to go rip somebody a new one--any kind of new one you want, you're on fire dude!

Richard said...

Claiming credit for your wife's work is lame, dude.

Rock on, Jenn!

Fran said...

Amen, JennDave!

mutzali said...

Sarah Palin quote generator--they almost sound like the rest of her beauty-pageant responses...

http://palinquotes.awardspace.com/