Cabinet makeup supporting Bush?

[deakonblues2k]

Ok, some groundwork for my opinion...

Clinton in all of his glory did not have tremendous success with his foreign policy... His continued attempt to bring Palestine and Israel together appeared to be a constant source of frustration and in the end...it was a dead end.

Albright although qualified was certainly less than a real personality that made and supported headlines.

Now we have Bush who has put together a team of experienced foreign policy people. Chaney, Powell, and Rice all have the appearance of significant international experience... and from those who I have spoken to, they may feel that Bush is less than perfect, but they view the cabinet as a team that works together and they give the TEAM high marks.

Kerry brought the focus on Viet Nam to show himself as a leader in peace and a fighter in war. My question is... Is it possible that people will vote for the TEAM as opposed to the person? I think we've missed something here and the choice of Edwards for VP didn't do anything to supplement our TEAM. I would be interested in a poll that compared not only the perception of the individual candidate, but also the performance of the TEAM as well.

Who do you think Kerry will bring in for his "At this point very critical" Joint Chiefs, Natl Security Adv, and Sec Defense? Do you think that by introducing a well crafted TEAM we could get past the swiftboats and Edwards lack of international experience issues?

I think this is the political equivalent of a 5 on 2 game and its just not working out for us because people may not feel confident in Bush, but they perhaps will vote that way to keep Powell in office.

[LuminousX]

1. You lost me when you say Clinton didn't have success

Clinton's foreign policy was astoundingly successful.

[deakonblues2k]

2. In some areas yes

Ok...Somalia, Bosnia, Palestine, N. Korea (now in hindsight not really a good move).

Lets be serious...Clinton had a great run of domestic success...He's not a war president and didn't need to be one. Remember... ITS THE ECONOMY STUPID...

I think you're missing the point tho, What I'm saying is that we're in this thing and I think some people don't look at W in a vaccuum, they look at the sum of the parts, and many of his parts have a value greater than his own. If you look at K/E, they cannot go toe to toe against ALL of the W Team. Sure K/E can go toe to toe with B/C, but we've got no one on the bench, and they have Rice,Powell,etc.

That's my question...are we trying to compare apples to oranges and is there something that can be done to level the perception playing field?

[mazzarro]

3. I beg to disagree with your reThuglican categorization of Clinton's

foreign policy. Compared to the current WH occupant, Clinton foreign policy was far more successful. Somalia, BTW, was the making of Bush Sr. and left over from that administration, which Clinton has to make the best of. His way of handling of North Korea - talks and incentives - is proving to have been very thing that was needed since W* administration is resorting to the same method albeit behind the scene. To conclude that Clinton's foreign policy was not successful is totally wrong and crappy, IMO.

[LuminousX]

4. Toe to Toe

Bush's team is seen as messing up the intelligence pre-9/11, telling lies in front of the UN with a sham powerpoint presentation, and misleading the U.S. all the way into the Iraq quagmire.

Meanwhile, sitting on Kerry's side are a lot of the very people who were trying to get the right information to the decision makers.

I am not going to presume to pick who will be on Kerry's cabinet, but just knowing there are people like Beers, Morningstar, and Perry that he can tap, not to mention individuals like Wesley Clark who bring an amazing amount of experience and insight to the table, gives me more than hope.

[deakonblues2k]

5. Thanks

That's good info..thank you.