What is it that makes Hillary so more "ready" on National Security Issues?

[FrenchieCat]

Is there something that she has actually done involving war and National Security that gives her an edge?

Was it the fact that she was a New York Senator when 9/11 happened? :shrug:
Did she order planes to come and guard New York? Is her level of experience on this less than Guliani than?

or the fact that she was in the White House as first Lady for 8 years? It is not like the folks that surrounded Bill Clinton through those 8 years have all died and wouldn't deal with a President that is not Hillary if they were asked. It is not like there aren't other very thoughtful minds out there that couldn't do for another candidate what they would do for Hillary. General Eaton, Mark Lippert (who is currently serving in Iraq), Gary hart, John Kerry and Samantha Powers have all endorsed Obama.

Or maybe it is her time sitting in Senate Committees? Obama is on most of the same committees, albeit he has been there less time. However, he did serve on Veteran committees in the State Senate as well.

Did her "experience" kick in when she neglected to read the NIE prior to voting for the IWR? Voting Aye on the biggest Blunder in Foreign policy history makes one "ready to lead from day one?" :shrug:

Voting for the Kyl-Lieberman Resolution in 2007? Yeah, yeah...I know, she was voting for "diplomacy" and giving saber rattling speechs to AIPAC?


Because, Last I understood:
Hillary's "Experience" Lie If that's her selling point, put me down for Obama.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Monday, Jan. 14, 2008, at 7:16 PM ET

I don't mean to denigrate her professional experience. Clinton worked many years in corporate and public-interest law, performed advocacy work for the Children's Defense Fund and other groups, and was a university lecturer. She also devoted herself to raising a seemingly bright and loving daughter, which is no small feat, particularly given the public spotlight and some conspicuously bad behavior on the father's part.

But in government, Clinton's chief role over the years has been that of kibitzer. An important kibitzer, to be sure—what spouse isn't?—but not a direct participant.
<snip>
A Dec. 26 New York Times story revealed that during her husband's two terms in office, Hillary Clinton did not hold a security clearance, did not attend meetings of the National Security Council, and was not given a copy of the president's daily intelligence briefing.

During trips to Bosnia and Kosovo, she "acted as a spokeswoman for American interests rather than as a negotiator."

On military affairs, most of her experience derives not from her White House years but from serving on the Senate armed services committee.
<snip>

Clinton's claim to superior experience isn't merely dishonest. It's also potentially dangerous should she become the nominee. If Clinton continues to build her campaign on the dubious foundation of government experience, it shouldn't be very difficult for her GOP opponent to pull that edifice down.
http://www.slate.com/id/2182073

[lapfog_1]

1. Because she will be ready on DAY ONE!

as she repeated over and over in the debate (or, at least, the highlight reel I watched).

And she has 35 years of Presidential experience!

You don't remember the Rodham presidency that lasted longer than FDRs???

Those were glorious times I tell you.

(OK, it's late, here's your sign :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: )

[FrenchieCat]

4. I think that these hard questions will be answered during the GE.....

and I don't think it will add up the way that it does now.

Weird that the media has not really asked, yet. :shrug:

[elleng]

2. Hi, Frenchie,

Wes endorsed her, and has been working for/with her, fwiw.

Ellen

[FrenchieCat]

3. Wes, as much as he has to offer didn't win the primaries when he ran, elleng....

and although I will always admire Wes' foreign policy mind, he isn't "owned" by Hillary (or so, I would hope not). If President Obama wanted Clark as his Veep or Sec of State, you think that Wes would say...sorry buddy, it is Hillary that's ready from day one?

To add, I'm not sure she listens to him anyways. If I thought she recognized good wise advise when she heard it, I'd have to think that she would have voted NAY on the IWR, a resolution that Wes was warning against. At the very least, if she would have voted for the Levin Amendment, than I'd believe that she had listened to Wes Clark in her 35 years. As a fervent Clark supporter, I believe that Clark is loyal, but will go where his nation most needs him.

The point is that Wes is not Hillary's experience. He cannot be the reason that she is ready from day one....cause then Obama's ready too....all he needs is to put a call in to Wes. I'm sure he could find the telephone as easily as Hillary might.
-----------------
Please know that Obama truly opposed the war from day one (is this same "day one" that Hillary would be ready to lead?) In fact, I am very sensitive of the Hillary attacks against Obama's in attempting to blur his opposition to the war, precisely because I supported Clark (and they tried the same thing on him...remember the Clark "I would have probably voted for it?" controversy?) :shrug:

In making my choice for 2008, I consider the following speech to be the mark of someone that clearly understood, without being coached, exactly what "ready to lead" meant. In fact, I often wish this was the speech that Clark would have given.....but Clark's opinion on the war were never as clear and sharp as Barack Obama's were. That's just a fact.

Delivered on 26 October 2002 at an anti-war rally

I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income – to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.

That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear – I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.

He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn’t simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.

The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not – we will not – travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Barack_Obama's_Iraq_Speech

[lapfog_1]

5. Ok... I know I've been lazy and not looking up a speech that

I'm sure is on Obama's web site. And probably discussed a billion times here...

But damn, he nailed it. and in 2002.

Ok, I was on the fence between Edwards and Obama... since my candidate Biden dropped out.

But reading that just sealed the deal.

Obama '08!

The Presidency doesn't just require experience, it requires good judgment!

[FrenchieCat]

8. That's what I'm saying.....

35 years of experience doing what? Cause that's what is important; the results of your labor....not the labor itself.

[FrenchieCat]

6. That's it?

Anything else that we should know? :shrug:

[Skidmore]

7. Don't forget that she knows how to play the fear card and she's not

averse to bending rules to get gain an advantage. Voter suppression is a good example. She'll make a fine conservator of *'s legacy.

[JTFrog]

9. Nothing. n/t

[juajen]

10. It would be ridiculous not to acknowledge that husbands

talk to wives, and, yes, about classified information. That's why we look so carefully at the spouses of candidates, or, that's one of the reasons. Hillary was an unusually smart First Lady and I'm sure that we will never know what she knew about her years in the White House. Obviously, she absorbed an awful lot of information, written and spoken. We are lucky to have someone so knowledgeable. One of the reasons I support her candidacy is her ability to multi-task. Most women learn to do this because of the demands placed on them by motherhood. Hillary not only had motherhood, she benefited greatly by all of her "First Lady" stints. I'm guessing that this "First Lady" experience might be unique. I'll have to ask my historian hubbie if there was another First Lady so experienced.

[FrenchieCat]

11. So Hillary's experience is talking to her husband?

about Classified information....because? You where there? :shrug:

She never attended NS meetings. So what was she absorbing? She barely knew what was going under her nose; you know...the Blue dress?

Sorry, but your paragraph on Hillary's national security experience is scant of substance.

If my husband was a doctor...would that mean that I could now operate on you? Lemme know. K?

(edited to add)--too bad that we should hire a woman for what her husband knows. Should I start feeling liberated just about now?

[L0oniX]

18. We don't vote for a first lady/spouse. We vote for a president.

We expect that it is the president who makes the decisions, not the first lady. It doesn't matter that Shillary knows where the bathrooms are in the white house.

[Clark2008]

12. Because Wes Clark will be in her administration?

:shrug:


:hi:

[Eurobabe]

13. Cuz Bill let her touch the football once. n/t

[Skwmom]

14. The Clinton campaign and Republicans are pushing that meme

b/c they know once the general election comes around they will be able to destroy Clinton on this issue. As Cuomo once pointed out, if something is said often enough people start to believe it (until of course the general election when the republican machine changes its tune).

When Clinton tries to push her "I'm the most qualified to be commander-in-chief" and when David Gregory says the Republicans are saying Clinton will be the hardest to beat on national security the following cartoon/meme comes to mind: Clinton sitting in the oval office being informed that another terrorist attack has occurred. They ask Clinton if she's wants to look at the intelligence reports to determine if she wants to order a military strike. She says "forget the intelligence report" (in reference to the fact that she didn't read the intelligence reports before voting for the Iraq War), "bring me the polls" (as soon as she hits the door she'll be worrying about her re-election). The best thing that can happen to the Republicans is if they nominate someone who never voted for the war b/c then they can use the Iraq War against the Democrats.

Voting for the wrong war because you don't want to be viewed as weak on national defense does not a strong commander-in-chief make. Please spare me any "you are doing Rove's dirty work." As the Clinton campaign pointed out - we need to think ahead to the attacks in the general election and vet our candidates. In addition, it's not like they haven't already thought of this.

[AtomicKitten]

15. Um, because she says so and will send a surrogate to kneecap you if you question it?

[Maribelle]

16. Because she didn't read the 96-page NIE does not mean she NEGLECTED to do it.

She delegated this to the experts and then was briefed by the experts. She did this by design. She did not neglect to to this. You seem to have a humongous problem with this simple concept, which senators do with consistant professional seriousness and respect for the intricate process.

Additionally you fail to mention the document presented to congress by Tenant.

This leads me to believe you truly do not understand what you say in your NIE pomp.

[L0oniX]

17. She voted for the war. She voted for the patriot act. She is riding Bills coat tails.

She has the of big corporate connections...HMO's...Rupert Murdoch...etc. Gee ...all this time it was really her that was running the country when we voted Bill into office. Experience? What a load of crap. I will never vote for her. Oh yea ...she and rat bastard Lieberman can go kiss each others asses too. If you are not anti war, anti HMO, anti slave labor then you are part of the problem. She is part of the problem.