Obama Aide Says He's Not Ready

[ElsewheresDaughter]

Run time: 00:10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TumIz2bajus   Posted on YouTube: March 05, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: March 06, 2008 By DU Member: ElsewheresDaughter Views on DU: 1128

 
Of course, she says Clinton isn't either, but that isn't so convincing when you listen to all the flag officers sing her praises.

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.”

There are a lot more where these came from.

But you've got to start wondering about Obama's advisers. First, Goolsbee has a back channel conversation with Canada that blows up, and now Rice undermines her boss on TV by saying he's unprepared to be commander-in-chief. That covers two of the most critical issues we face, economics and national security. It doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. quit wit the shit, already.

how many posts are you doing today, all of them misleading, or worse, in favor of that woman? Mrs. Rodham. The one whose billing records were filed with her tax records.

[reality based]

2. Thanks, for the talking points, Mr. Starr.

[sallyseven]

17. Well I don't think that she has more favorable

comments on this board than Obama. Comments bout Hillary have indicated to me that most of the children on this board hate her and for no reason. Let me tell you about the 'OLD POLITICS" that Obama spews forth. Equal rights for people of color, equal rights for women, laws against discrimination, handicapped services, a thriving middle class until the repuks got a hold of the economy, Mr. get-along is risking that to be president. Obama, the republicans hate your guts. They don't want a woman either it shakes their power structure and their entitlement. People on this board should get their nose out of their butts and start looking around. The pundits and the rest of the republican structure are screwing your minds up. Whoever wins will be worthless in November if more positive stuff doesn't start coming out of this board.

[tabatha]

3. Susan Rice is awesome.

That clip is taken out of context.
I'd like to hear what else she said.

[Just-plain-Kathy]

23. It had to be taken out of context, otherwise more than 10 seconds would've been shown. ...n/t

[mkultra]

4. yup

neither is really ready. But Obama is smart enough to know and say the truth..

[housewolf]

5. "Clinton hasn't had to answer that 3am phone call", NEITHER has done it yet

The gist of what she said is that NEITHER has any experience in answering that 3am phone call, neither has real-life actual experience doing that so their experience is EQUAL.

NO ONE has had that kind of experience prior to being elected president first term!

[DirtyDawg]

6. They've got eight minutes of this lady...

...posted here and she makes a lot of sense. Fact is she could have made her point better if she had said - not that any of the candidates aren't 'ready' to handle a 3am crises call, but that none of them have the experience of having 'had to take one' - to which she could have added, 'Hillary might have answered such a call, but only to hand the phone to Bill saying 'It's for you'.'

[Beregond2]

7. Ready?

No one has ever been ready for the Presidency, and never will be. How could one be? It's not like one can major in National Management. There is no equivalent job. There is nothing that remotely compares.

I won't go into Hillary's claims of "experience," which are transparently ludicrous.

The fact that she has rounded-up some military types to plump for her means nothing. When you have spent your whole life gathering dirt and doing favors, it is easy to call-in those chits.

[DrZeeLit]

8. Whoa... you took that one way out of context. Watch WHOLE clip.

Geez that is soooo not the context of the clip.

Ethically, you're on shaky ground when you cut out a portion and say it's the whole enchilada.


That is NOT what she said.
And you know it.

Shame. Shame. Shame.

Go watch the 8 minute clip.
Now.

[HRCin08]

9. Come along with Hillary

Join Texas & Ohio ...

Come along with Hillary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnHZmvIc1kw

[HRCin08]

10. ElsewheresDaughter

Have you done a new post with this video? If not, could you?

[Blue State Bandit]

11. Clinton had one of those....

"But you've got to start wondering about Obama's advisers. First, Goolsbee has a back channel conversation with Canada that blows up"

And Clinton?

"He (P.M. Harper's aide)said someone from (Hillary) Clinton's campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt. . . That someone called us and told us not to worry."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080305.wharpleak0305/BNStory/National/home

Just keepin it real, hu?

Two more examples of http://journals.democraticunderground.com/ingin/36">Camp Clinton's "cut and paste" campaign.

[HRCin08]

12. Clinton's Campaign Denied it

and granted full immunity for the Canadian authorities to disclose the alleged adviser. Who was the Clinton contact? Did you notice that no names were disclosed?

[Blue State Bandit]

13. Did you notice that Harper is refusing....

to fully investigae the "incident"?

The Obama aide has challenged the wording of the memo and says it characterized the conversation unfairly. A government official said that memo was initially e-mailed to over 120 government employees.

Mr. Harper has rebuffed opposition requests to call in the RCMP and also investigate the source of the original tip that led to the CTV report that triggered the diplomatic tempest. But a team of internal security agents has begun an investigation that will see dozens of bureaucrats and political staff questioned about their knowledge of the leak.

-snip-

NDP Leader Jack Layton is asking Mr. Harper to call on the Mounties to find out how the leaks occurred, and whether the Security of Information Act or any other privacy legislation was breached.

"There can be no doubt about it: the leak from within the Canadian government has had an impact now on the American elections," Mr. Layton said Wednesday.

"That is about the worst thing a country could do to another country — to have an effect on their democratic process. . . If Mr. Harper isn't willing to call in the RCMP that confirms our suspicion that this was intentional."

And what immunity would Clinton have to offer? does she hold power ove rthe camadian Judiciary system? Please explain?

[Blue State Bandit]

14. One more question...

Do you approve of foreign interference in our election? Does the Clinton Campaign?

Will this become policy under the Clinton administration?

[polmaven]

16. Well, sure, because

"Austen Goolsbee had a meeting in Chicago..." is AT LEAST equal to "someone from the Clinton campaign called and said not to worry!

Absolutely no difference there!

[Blue State Bandit]

22. Conservatives help Hill, not much difference here at all (from Bush).

When asked about his past denials, Mr. Obama said he had responded with what he knew.

“That was the information I had at the time,” he said.

He added that the Canadians had reached out to Professor Goolsbee and that he met them as a “courtesy.”

“At some point,” he added, “they started talking about trade and Nafta, and the Canadian Embassy confirmed that he said exactly what I have been saying on the campaign trail.” Campaign officials said Professor Goolsbee went to the consulate as a professor, not as an adviser to Mr. Obama and that other campaign officials did not know about the meeting when it was held.

In a statement, the Canadian Embassy in Washington suggested that the consulate had sought out Professor Goolsbee specifically because of his ties to Mr. Obama’s campaign.

“The Canadian Embassy and our consulates general,” the statement said, “regularly contact those involved in all of the presidential campaigns and, periodically, report on these contacts to interested officials.

“There was no intention to convey, in any way, that Senator Obama and his campaign team were taking a different position in public from views expressed in private, including about Nafta.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/us/politics/04nafta.html?ref=politics

No matter who whispered what to whom, it's held as truth south of the border today that Harper's inner circle meddled in the bellwether Ohio race, wounding America's phenom and Boy Wonder. That assumption won't be reversed by the Prime Minister's hee-haw promise to find and plumb the leak and, sooner or later, a price will be paid in public or private.

It could be as minor as personal one-on-one awkwardness or as extreme – and as ironic – as a Democrat-dominated Congress forcing new, tougher trade conditions on a Republican executive. Whatever, Canada will be held to account for what sure looks like recklessness.

Part of Harper's problem is that politicians will recognize the tinkering as political. Two clues beg that deduction. One is that discretion is the "D" in diplomacy and those responsible for smoothing U.S. relations would risk straining them by doing something so stupid. The other is Conservative control freaks only leak strategically.

http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/309752

"He said someone from (Hillary) Clinton's campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt. . . That someone called us and told us not to worry."

Government officials did not deny the conversation took place.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080305.wharpleak0305/BNStory/National/home

Don't cry when the mud you throw gets in you hair.

[k8conant]

15. This is recycled stuff: Watch the whole Tucker-Rice segment

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=4924632#4924776

[Jack Rabbit]

20. Thanks for posting that.

Sometimes I think we need a GD:Primaries video forum to keep crap like this out of here.

This isn't either rational discourse or even fair. It's a ten-second sound bite, taken out of context.

Disclaimer: Yes, I know that Obama's people do it, too. No one needs to raise that red herring.

[canuk1]

18. nothing wrong with what she said

If you listen to the whole clip she makes alot of sense. Tucker even praises her for it. I am sure clinton will take this clip and cut and splice to make it something its not, but the media will get the whole clip and call them on it.

[dbonds]

19. What a dumb post.

It is obvious she is saying neither have ever taken a 3am call, but if they did Obama has better judgement to handle the call. To spin it any other way is Clintonian.

[canuk1]

21. correction; they are already running an edited clip

Clinton campaign edited the clip to remove references to her experience and are sending it to the media. Hillary will be discussing this afternoon. They are wrong to do this, but obama campaign is being run by amateurs. The truth never matters with politics.

[RBInMaine]

24. This is B.S. She said the SAME thing Hillary aide Wolfson said.

Hillary's corporate lobbyist aide Howard Wolfson essentially said over the weekend, I think on Meet the Press, that Hillary has never picked up the 3am phone and no one can get that experience until they've actually done it. Then he went on about who he thinks is most PREPARED to answer that phone, and I would submit that Obama is just as prepared as Hillary if not moreso. Indeed, he got Iraq right and she didn't. This woman was saying essentially the very same thing.
In fact, the candidates themselves have said the same thing as well.
So go ahead and attempt to take things out of context, parse, and spin, but it only sounds desperate and idiotic.