Obama '08?

Re: Obama's Hollow "Judgment" and Empty Record

Just my opinion - but I see the logic the other way round.

No - the vote against the war in itself does not qualify Obama for President. I demonstrated against the war back then too, and you dont want me as President.

However - for a politician to have voted FOR that authorisation; to have cast that vote which many smarter folks (both of us included) warned would de facto give Bush the legitimisation to go war - now that's a mistake that should DISqualify Hillary for President.

The one most important judgement call she has had to make in her career - and she flubbed it. And how! Not just did she vote for the authorisation - she didnt even bother to read the NIE about it.

It's at moments like those that it becomes clear who, at least, do not have the courage and foresight to lead. That includes Hillary. It also, I admit, included Edwards - though in his defense at least he apologised, showing he was able to recognise and revert mistakes relatively soon.

On this one crucial point, Hillary flubbed. So then our eyes turn to Obama, who did pass that test, and the question becomes: what else does he have to offer? Because getting the judgement call right on Iraq is just the "entry exam". He got that right; but no, of course that alone is not enough.

In my view, there are many other reasons to vote for Obama as well, and they have been hashed out here in this thread at length. I dont think there's anyone here who pretends that opposing the war all by itself qualifies Obama. It's just the best available illustration of how his judgement has been better overall. I do think, on the other hand, that there are several people who think that Hillary's vote for the war has disqualified her.

Nicely put.

The failure to read the NIE is really what galls me most about that whole situation, since that is supposed to be precisely her claim to fame. Thorough. Wonkish. Workhorse. Yet she didn't read the NIE? Why not?

nimh, I agree with soz, nicely put. It's more than just one issue; and Hillary keeps telling us she has extensive foreign policy experience, but it's contradicted by her own decision to give Bush the authority to go to war. If others did the same, it means most made the mistake, and never admitted they made a mistake; wrong headed at best.

Stubbornness is not an asset when big mistakes takes on too many consequences for the American people and the world.

Iraq is a boondoggle with no end in site; we don't need another huge mistake like this one, because Hillary and so many other democrats gave Bush the go-ahead "as he saw fit." Bad decision all around.

Nervous about tomorrow.

I suppose it's enough to know that Clinton won't win big enough in either state to significantly increase her delegate total; and that Obama's performance in the TX caucus probably will help him a lot there.

A Hillary win of the popular vote in OH and TX will be tough to swallow for the Obama followers... he'll still be way ahead on points, but you can't miss opportunities to knock the other guy out of the game and expect to win in the end.

Cycloptichorn

I'm nervous too, but I really think the Obama momentum will carry him through all four primaries tomorrow to give him enough delegates to win the whole nine yards.

Just don't rely too heavily on the early returns. In Ohio there is a large region that is heavily for Obama that is using paper ballots and will be hand counting votes that won't be reported until Wednesday at the earliest. That will skew the early returns in Hillary's favor but he'll close the gap as the paper ballots are counted.

And, in Texas, there is a big fight going on with the Texas Democratic Party, the two campaigns and the media outlets over excluding caucus exit polls results from the voting results that are reported tomorrow.

The spin masters on both sides will be out in force and we'll have to wait awhile before we see the actual results.


It is going to be a real circus tomorrow...

There won't be any way to exclude the caucus results. The media will be screaming to get ahold of them and it's going to be tough to keep them off of it.

Cycloptichorn

It's a Maureen Dowd article, but an interesting POV.

A Wake-Up Call for Hillary



By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: March 2, 2008
SAN ANTONIO


Channeling her inner Cheney, Hillary Clinton dropped a fear bomb, as Michelle Obama might call it, implying in a new ad that if her opponent is elected, your angelic, innocent, sleeping children could die in a terrorist attack.

Only she has the wise head to go nuclear, should that Strangelovian phone call from a power-mad Putin come into the White House at 3 a.m. Her ad shows how composed she would be at the dread moment when she picks up the phone. Her nuke look is feminine, in a tailored camel-colored jacket and gold necklace, yet serious, in Tina Fey black reading glasses.

It's hard to discern the message of the ad. The scariest thing is not the persistently ringing phone but an Andrea Yates-looking mother who's creeping up on the sleeping babes in the dark. The point can't be that Hillary is superior to Obama in international crisis management, because she's done no more of it than he has. She's only done domestic crisis management, cleaning up after Frisky Bill.

I just saw recently on CNN that the TX caucus results won't be available until June. Let me try to hunt that down...

Found this:



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhill-fowler/confusion-rampant-over-te_b_89548.html

Wikipedia:



It sounds like there will be estimates but nothing definite until June. I think there have been other states with similar-ish situations though, and estimates (and that the estimates are part of why the delegate counts are all over the place).

Hillary: Obama is not a Muslim...as far as I know.......

I completely disagree with Nimh that Hillary's vote for authorization should disqualify her. Her explanation that she didn't want to take the leverage away from the Oval Office is, at the very least, quite reasonable.

Contrarily; given the gravity of the potential consequences, that were in no way unclear; I do find the fact that she didn't bother to read the NIE as grounds for disqualification.

Why isn't Obama slamming her with that at every opportunity?

Yeah, that was a little weird. Isn't she the one who wanted Very Precise Not To Be Possibly Misconstrued wording from Obama re: Farrakhan?

Was responding to nappy...

I've seen Obama bring up the NIE more than usual lately.

Example, from yesterday:



(Emphasis mine.)

Re: Obama's Hollow "Judgment" and Empty Record

You're right. It doesn't qualify you for president. It just makes you more qualified than Sen. Clinton.

(Oooooh!!!)

Exactly right Joe.

Cycloptichorn

May 25, 2007
McCain and Dodd respond on NIE
Politico

The responses are starting to come back to my question about whether the other presidential candidates read the classified version of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate.

Spokespeople for Brownback, Edwards and Biden say they're looking into it.

Points for honesty to Chris Dodd, whose spokeswoman, Christie Setzer, says he didn't read the classified National Intelligence Estimate. And to John McCain, whose spokeswoman, Eileen McMenamin, e-mails that "Sen. McCain was briefed on the NIE numerous times and read the Executive Summary."

Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines e-mails, "Senator Clinton was briefed multiple times by several members of the Administration on their intelligence regarding Iraq, which included the classified aspects of the NIE."[UPDATE: See responses from Edwards, whose spokesman said he didn't read it, and Biden, whose spokeswoman said he did, below.]

Meanwhile, the public record on this is very confusing, anonymously sourced and partisan.

The Priest piece said that "no more than six senators" read the classified version of the NIE, which required the senator actually going to a secure room to read. Senator Jay Rockefeller told Chris Matthews that he read it, and that the chairman of the intelligence committee, Pat Roberts, read it.

Various other reporting, much of it in the conservative journal Human Events, has Senators Feinstein and Graham (in Isikoff's and Corn's book, "Hubris") saying they read it. Durbin* and Levin, both on the intelligence committee, are also reported to have requested that it be produced, though I can't find any record of their saying they read it.

Biden also reportedly told Human Events he read the document, though it's not totally clear he was talking about the classified version.

I say it's confusing because ... that's more than six senators!

UPDATE: Durbin spokesman Joe Shoemaker confirms his boss read the classified version, which he had requested in the first place.

UPDATE: Feinstein spokesman Scott Gerber says his boss read the classified version, but doesn't know who else did.

UPDATE: This is kind of interesting, and I'll expand on it in a later post: Joe Biden says he read the classified NIE in another context, a closed hearing, and not in the room that Priest described and that we'd all taken to be the only possible setting.

Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander e-mails that Biden "chaired a closed Foreign Relations Committee briefing on the NIE on Sept. 24, 2002. At the hearing he was briefed in detail by George Tenet and Bob Walpole, the National Intelligence Officer for Strategic and Nuclear Programs. Sen. Biden viewed the NIE at this time and provided a forum for his colleagues to view as well, and in which there were extensive questions and answers on it."

Edwards spokesman Mark Kornblau emails that Edwards didn't read the classified version. He adds, "As a member of the Senate Committee on Intelligence, he was regularly briefed on the information that appeared in the NIE, which is essentially a summary report."