Once it turns foreign policy, Bernie is a stranger in a strange land.

[DanTex]

Beyond "I didn't vote for Iraq", he's lost. Haven't seen someone this lost on foreign policy since W.

[DefenseLawyer]

1. If only Kissinger could tune him up. n/t

[Recursion]

4. Well, Kissinger certainly knows a lot about IR, and specifically about Middle East leaders

I don't get why it's so hard for DU to grasp that someone can simultaneously be evil and have knowledge that can be useful to a President.

[DefenseLawyer]

8. Ha!

Mussolini made the trains run on time, right?

[Recursion]

11. No, that's a myth: Italian trains were late more frequently than in most of Europe

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/rear-window-making-italy-work-did-mussolini-really-get-the-trains-running-on-time-1367688.html

[TCJ70]

2. Aside from ISIS...

...which he has said is a regional fight that needs to be handled there, he's largely a domestic president. We need that desperately. We've ignored ourselves for too long.

[metroins]

3. I think he is lost as well.

But I also think domestic issues are more important.

[LannyDeVaney]

68. Sure ... but the POTUS doesn't get to pick the issues ....

Commander in Chief isn't the Senate.

You have to be able to handle all the issues, and the past 20 year shows the foreign relations are a big one. Sen. Sanders isn't the answer for the broad responsibilities of the office.

[stevenleser]

5. He really has no idea. nt

[PoliticAverse]

25. Compared to an opponent who repeatedly has the wrong idea? n/t

[stevenleser]

47. Even Sanders had to agree that a vote in 2002 is not a successful policy against ISIS. nt

[PoliticAverse]

48. It certainly is going to be tough cleaning up a mess Clinton helped make. n/t

[stevenleser]

79. It is a mess and Bernie has no clue what to do about it. But its Bush's mess, not Hillary's. nt

[polly7]

84. No .......... MUCH of it IS Hillary Clinton's mess! nt.

[DesertRat]

6. True n/t

[pacalo]

7. Voters were concerned about Obama's lack of experience, too.

[Art_from_Ark]

9. In the last 50 years, only two presidents had foreign policy experience

when they were first elected:

Richard Nixon

and

George H. W. Bush

[dana_b]

12. lol... wow

and yeah, I don't particularly like Madame Secretary's experience

[pacalo]

13. Thanks!

Foreign policy turned out to be Nixon's biggest strength.

[Art_from_Ark]

18. Well, kind of

Detente with the USSR was a good thing
Expanding the war in SE Asia wasn't.
And he and Kissinger did some pretty nasty things in Latin America.

[pacalo]

24. From our perspective, I agree.

The pundits claim that he was tops.

[mythology]

16. Not entirely true

Obama chaired the sub-committee on Foreign Relations for Europe and worked with Lugar on nuclear proliferation.

[pacalo]

22. Obama was a first-term senator when he announced his candidacy.

He wasn't what I'd term as experienced.

[mythology]

28. It's more than Sanders has and it shows an interest in foreign policy which Sanders doesn't have

You may not regard it as much, but I count it. Being interested in a subject matters to me. It shows curiosity and a desire to be informed. Sanders has never shown that on international relations. That's fine as a Senator, but it is a downside as a President.

But at least Sanders is smart enough to learn about foreign policy unlike for example Palin or Cain who had no interest and were about as bright as a sack of rocks.

[treestar]

80. Obama didn't lack knowledge though

So those concerns were allayed.

[pacalo]

85. I agree.

And Obama is impressive, too.

[grossproffit]

10. Sadly, this is true.

[polly7]

14. And Hillary did such a bang up job in the ME and NA!?!

But she was no stranger to it all, I'll grant you that.

[mcar]

15. I just texted the same thing to my son

He's got no foreign policy beyond that

[Iggy Knorr]

30. Hillary : Bringing Families Closer (tm)

in opposition to that horrible horrible sanders!1111

[bluedigger]

17. Well, at leat he didn't call out Putin for international crimes during the debate.

Not very diplomatic at all, Hillary.

[Arazi]

19. No thanks to Clinton's "experience "

From Syria to Libya plus a little Central American coup action for good measure



I'll take foreign policy "newbies" like Obama please.

Nixon and GHW Bush prove that big foreign policy expertise is actually a huge deficit

[Beacool]

55. Did you fail to notice that she was Obama's SOS?

Therefore, she enacted his foreign policy.

[John Poet]

71. THIS ^^^^^^

Clinton has "foreign policy experience"
backing the neoconservative "regime change through armed force" policies
of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

That's WORSE than nothing.

[TheProgressive]

20. It's all about judgement and history of doing it correctly...

[amborin]

21. Hillary is a foreign policy disaster! Libya &Syria are in chaos b/c if her flawed judgement.

[Bobbie Jo]

23. It was stark.

[SheenaR]

26. I'd be fine if

We were completely isolationist, so it's not on my radar. We don't belong there.

[nichomachus]

27. Considering the way that Clinton the foreign affairs expert

Fucked up the Middle East and is screwing over the Ukraine, maybe we need someone with a little less "experience." Right now, I'll take anyone who isn't a neoliberal stooge like Hillary. She is a dangerous woman.

[truedelphi]

29. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ n/t

[840high]

37. yes

[redstateblues]

70. i love how the right blames Hillary/Obama for turmoil in the Middle East.

As if we control the world and are responsible for hatred that is hundreds of years old. Hillary is screwing over "the" Ukraine?

[all american girl]

81. Considering that Putin invaded Ukraine AFTER Hillary left SOS....I just knew that

the Doctor was going to be a woman someday.

[all american girl]

82. I hadn't realized that Hillary had a TARDIS...

because Ukraine happened in 2014....after she left SOS. And tell me when the last time the ME hasn't been a hot mess....ISIS is because of Bush. Stop with changing history. That's just silly.

[boston bean]

31. Its painful to watch.

[polly7]

38. What is?

That he hasn't had experience in causing suffering for millions in the ME and NA?

[boston bean]

39. Yeah thats the ticket.

[polly7]

42. Well then what 'is' the ticket?

Can you name any peace she helped broker, any deals to calm tensions anywhere, anything but escalating everything possible into full-scale carnage as well as making deals like selling weapons to nations with serious human rights abuse issues?

Surely there must be some examples right off the top of your head.

[TubbersUK]

51. Peace in Northern Ireland apparently

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1581606/Hillary-Clinton-I-was-instrumental-in-Northern-Ireland-peace-process.html

[polly7]

75. TY, I'd forgotten about that.

Such a strange claim to make.

[TubbersUK]

77. I know, it never fails to amuse me :)

[NurseJackie]

78. Beyond the mere discomfort of watching ... I find it to be frightening.

[Bonobo]

32. Says an internet dude with ZERO standing to make that judgment. nt

[Joe the Revelator]

33. Can't argue that. If elected, he would need some amazing cabinet members on that side of the table.

[AzDar]

34. Anything is better than someone who has been consistently WRONG.

[beaglelover]

35. Yep. She creamed him in that section. He is not ready for the job of POTUS.

[840high]

36. So was Obama.

[gyroscope]

41. 25 years in the House and Senate

working and voting on foreign policy issues. Much more experience than Obama.

[840high]

50. Thank you.

[Beacool]

59. And still appears not to be interested or knowledgeable on the subject.

[Bleacher Creature]

40. The problem is his lack of interest in the subject.

No matter how hard he tries to fake it, it's clear that it's just not a priority for him.

People in this thread want to excuse it by comparing it to Obama's lack of experience in 2008, but that's a bogus comparison. Experience can be gained through careful study and strong advisors. This is a very different problem.

[Art_from_Ark]

44. Why should it be a priority for him?

When has foreign policy experience won an election? If pre-election foreign policy experience was the determinant of a great president, then George H. W. Bush would have been the greatest president of the last 40 years.

Jimmy Carter had no foreign policy experience, but his first Secretary of State was a very talented man, Cyrus Vance, who was probably the best Secretary of State of the last 45 years. Unfortunately, Carter started listening to people like Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, and that got him into a lot of trouble.

[thesquanderer]

49. True. Though also, trade policy and immigration are components of foreign policy as well...

...and Sanders is well versed in those.

[Paulie]

43. Are you saying Bernie is really Valentine Michael Smith?

He is but an egg? I know he groks the people...

[SusanCalvin]

58. .

[Paulie]

60. Never thirst Susan!

[SusanCalvin]

64. Thou art God.

[mia]

45. Spread the meme...

and boost the goals of the war profiteers at the same time.

[frylock]

46. I think we can all agree that Hillary has experience taking credit for John Kerry's hard work.

[senz]

53. She's still trying to take credit for getting bin Laden.

[all american girl]

83. You do know that negotiations like that take years...and I don't mean a couple, but can be many

years. Crap, my husband has to do negotiations with different countries, and simple wording can take forever. Countries where English isn't the first language can have different meanings between the countries. He's had problems with UK, because British English and American English can be different. And if you recall, there were many nations involved in this.

[Beacool]

52. Oh yeah, that's was more than evident.

He kept going back to the IWR vote. Repeating that he voted against it is no foreign policy plan.

It's always the same spiel: income inequality, the establishment, Goldman Sachs, political revolution, etc.

By now, anyone here could probably deliver one of his speeches. They're all the same. The minute he has to veer out of his comfort zone, he doesn't perform well.

[John Poet]

72. It's called "staying on message".

[Beacool]

73. The subject was foreign policy.

Bringing the IWR vote over and over was not staying on message. It was showing that his knowledge of foreign policy is very slim.

[senz]

54. Obama got his first good SOS in John Kerry.

[frylock]

57. Thank goodness.

[senz]

61. Yes. Kerry made a difference and I feel safer for it.

I do not like to think how it would have gone if she were still there.

[Beacool]

62. Yeah, right.........

He got two good SOS, whether Sanders' supporters agree with it or not.

[senz]

65. Oh, you like how she handled Libya?

[Beacool]

69. Better than expected given the choices at the time.

Would you have preferred that president Obama put troops on the ground?

[Renew Deal]

76. Obama thinks you're wrong.

[amborin]

56. Hillary is lost on foreign policy; she's a rash neo-con war mongerer w/ bad judgement

[senz]

63. Sums it up.

Well said, amborin.

[LannyDeVaney]

66. Yeah, it took an hour but that was 10 minutes where he was out of his league...

Great debate on most of the issues, but that part was painful.

As big a weakness as it is now, against a former Sec. of State, ... imagine in the GE with the fear-mongering Syrian-refugees in your bedroom crowd across the aisle.

Love his ideas ... stick to the Senate.

[PowerToThePeople]

67. I do not grok.

Never mind. It is Dantex, I do grok.

[karynnj]

74. He has more foreign policy experience than President Clinton had before he was elected

I agree that he did a poor job on Afghanistan, but Maddow misstated his position on Iran, quoting the Clinton distortion of it. Neither consider Iran a positive influence - it isn't, but HRC sounds almost as aggressive as Rubio! Not to mention she derisively said that Saudi Arabia and Iran could not be brought together to work on Syria. As Sanders pointed out, that was exactly what happened through very hard work by Kerry and Lavrov and led to the first UN resolution to work to end the Syrian civil war. Diplomacy has had a very tough time, but it has been the opposition, the Syrian regime and Russia that have created havoc.

I think he could make one small twist in his answer to make it much better. He makes a case for judgment over experience. If he were to speak of getting a strong, diverse national security team including an excellent secretary of State, he would have their input and it would be his job - as it is Obama's now - to make the final decision. No president can be the only expert on every subject. If one did not seek out different opinions and test them against each other, his or her decision making would be worse.