It's already been revealed the Empress has no clothes, but this is just out, and video speaks so much louder than words.
Bill Richardson, '08 presidential candidate, Bill Clinton's Ambassador to the UN and later Secretary of Energy, and current Governor of New Mexico endorsed Obama today in a speech far more rousing than any I saw from him during the campaign (hey Bill - I like the beard too!) He was clearly inspired by Obama's speech earlier this week.
In a statement released earlier today, he said:
My affection and admiration for Hillary Clinton and President Bill Clinton will never waver. It is time, however, for Democrats to stop fighting amongst ourselves and to prepare for the tough fight we will face against John McCain in the fall...Barack Obama will be a historic and a great President, who can bring us the change we so desperately need by bringing us together as a nation here at home and with our allies abroad.Also - significantly from the '08 Democratic candidate with some of the most extensive foreign policy - he takes on Hillary's "commander-in-chief" threshold argument:
"There is no doubt in my mind that Barack Obama has the judgment and courage we need in a commander in chief when our nation's security is on the line," Richardson said. "He showed this judgment by opposing the Iraq war from the start, and he has shown it during this campaign by standing up for a new era in American leadership internationally."
In a speech today on Iraq, Hillary Clinton said the following:
"Senator Obama holds up his original opposition to the war on the campaign trail, but he didn't start working aggressively to end the war until he started running for president. So when he had a chance to act on his speech, he chose silence instead." And implied that Obama would be dependent on advisors, and won't match "words with actions."
Obama's campaign produced a video response:
Whether the vote was a vote for war or not I recapped in this post, along with headlines from that day.
I myself would add: Hillary herself not only was originally for the war, but only came out strongly for withdrawal in the midst of democratic primary, when it was necessary to do so.
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Not so long ago, the phone rang in my office. It was Barack Obama. For more than a decade, Obama was my colleague at the University of Chicago Law School.Here's another excerpt, read the whole thing here:
He is also a friend. But since his election to the U.S. Senate, he does not exactly call every day.
On this occasion, he had an important topic to discuss: the controversy over President Bush's warrantless surveillance of international telephone calls between Americans and suspected terrorists. I had written a short essay suggesting that the surveillance might be lawful. Before taking a public position, Obama wanted to talk the problem through.In about 20 minutes, he and I investigated the legal details. He asked me to explore all sorts of issues: the president's power as commander in chief, the Constitution's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Authorization for Use of Military Force and more.
Obama wanted to consider the best possible defense of what Bush had done. To every argument I made, he listened and offered a counterargument. After the issue had been exhausted, Obama said he thought the program was illegal, but now had a better understanding of both sides. He thanked me for my time.
This was a pretty amazing conversation, not only because of Obama's mastery of the legal details, but also because many prominent Democratic leaders had already blasted the Bush initiative as blatantly illegal. He did not want to take a public position until he had listened to, and explored, what might be said on the other side.
This is the Barack Obama I have known for nearly 15 years -- a careful and evenhanded analyst of law and policy, unusually attentive to multiple points of view.
The Obama we know is no rhetorician; he shines not because he can move people, but because of his problem-solving abilities, creativity and attention to detail.Keep Reading (if there's more)...
In recent weeks, his speaking talents, and the cultlike atmosphere that occasionally surrounds him, have led people to wonder whether there is substance behind the plea for "change" -- whether the soaring phrases might disguise emptiness and vagueness. But nothing could be further from the truth. He is most comfortable in the domain of policy and detail.
I do not deny that skeptics are raising legitimate questions. After all, Obama has served in the U.S. Senate for a short period (less than four years) and he has little managerial experience. Is he really equipped to lead the most powerful nation in the world?
Obama speaks of "change," but will he be able to produce large-scale changes in a short time? What if he fails? An independent issue is that all the enthusiasm might serve to insulate him from criticisms and challenges on the part of his advisers -- and, in view of his relative youth, criticisms and challenges are exactly what he requires.
Fortunately, the candidate's campaign proposals offer strong and encouraging clues about how he would govern; what makes them distinctive is that they borrow sensible ideas from all sides.
He is strongly committed to helping the disadvantaged, but his University of Chicago background shows he appreciates the virtues and power of free markets. He is not only focused on details but is also a uniter, both by inclination and on principle.
“She hasn’t managed anything as complex as this before; that’s the problem with senators,” said James A. Thurber, a professor of government at American University who is an expert on presidential management. “She wasn’t as decisive as she should have been. And it’s a legitimate question to ask: Under great pressure from two different factions, can she make some hard decisions and move ahead? It seems to just fester. She doesn’t seem to know how to stop it or want to stop it.”Even more troubling, however, is how her own tendencies toward loyalty, sound horrifyingly similar to our current president's management:
Still, interviews with campaign aides, associates and friends suggest that Mrs. Clinton, at least until February, was a detached manager. Juggling the demands of being a candidate, she paid little attention to detail, delegated decisions large and small and deferred to advisers on critical questions. Mrs. Clinton accepted or seemed unaware of the intense factionalism and feuding that often paralyzed her campaign and that prevented her aides from reaching consensus on basic questions like what states to fight in and how to go after Mr. Obama, of Illinois.Yikes.
Mrs. Clinton showed a tendency toward an insular management style, relying on a coterie of aides who have worked for her for years, her aides and associates said. Her choice of lieutenants, and her insistence on staying with them even when friends urged her to shake things up, was blamed by some associates for the campaign’s woes. Again and again, the senator was portrayed as a manager who valued loyalty and familiarity over experience and expertise.
Its already been shown the empress has no clothes, and pointed out that this is an argument she probably shouldn't start, as its one that McCain will win. Yet:
All the talk of "post-9/11" world, and how the Republicans will attack on national security: the Clinton campaign seems to think their role is to act like Republicans? Rush Limbaugh sure thinks they'll do a better job on it then his guys will.
Argh.
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Obama and Hillary, Hillary and Obama. There's still a Republican they're destroying their party competing to run against (ok one of them is doing most of the destroying). And that Republican is John McCain. And there's some new stories that take a hard look at him. Salon brings up Hillary's "3 AM" experience gambit and points out John McCain wins on this argument. But should he?In interviews with Salon this week, several experienced military officers said McCain draws mixed reviews among military leaders, and they expressed serious doubts about whether McCain has the right temperament to be the next president and commander in chief. Some expressed more confidence in Obama, citing his temperament as an asset.
And Matt Yglesias looks at McCain's education policy and determines:
It is not difficult in Washington to find high-level military officials who have had close encounters with John McCain's temper, and who find it worrisome. Politicians sometimes scream for effect, but the concern is that McCain has, at times, come across as out of control..."I like McCain. I respect McCain. But I am a little worried by his knee-jerk response factor," said retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004 and is now campaigning for Clinton. "I think it is a little scary. I think this guy's first reactions are not necessarily the best reactions. I believe that he acts on impulse."
"I studied leadership for a long time during 32 years in the military," said retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, a one-time Republican who is supporting Obama. "It is all about character. Who can motivate willing followers? Who has the vision? Who can inspire people?" Gration asked. "I have tremendous respect for John McCain, but I would not follow him."Strolling through John McCain's policy proposals is a fascinating experience . . . lurking behind every link is a nearly-astounding level of vacuity
The Chicago Tribune looks at Hillary's claims of experience handling foreign crises one by one, and doesn't find too much there:
But while Hillary Clinton represented the U.S. on the world stage at important moments while she was first lady, there is scant evidence that she played a pivotal role in major foreign policy decisions or in managing global crises...
"How does going to Beijing and giving a speech show crisis management? There was no crisis. And there was nothing to manage," Rice said.I won't point out the irony around the fact that one of her "acts" of crisis management was a speech.
But what's most needed is temperament, maturity and judgment. Detailed expertise can come from advisors...Others think it's precisely the expertise that's needed...Hillary Clinton seems to think she's a strong contender in this latter category. But that's a joke. She's starting her second term in the US senate, where, yes, she serves on the Armed Services committee. Beside that she's never held elective office and she has little executive experience. I think she can argue that she'd make and would make a strong commander-in-chief. But she's pushing a metric by which she's little distinguishable from Barack Obama. I'm honestly surprised she's not drawing chuckles on this one.Keep Reading (if there's more)...
It might seem obvious that long service in Washington is the best preparation for the White House, but on the contrary, one lesson of American history is that length of experience in national politics is an extremely poor predictor of presidential success.
Looking at the 19 presidents since 1900, three of the greatest were among those with the fewest years in electoral politics. Teddy Roosevelt had been a governor for two years and vice president for six months; Woodrow Wilson, a governor for just two years; and Franklin Roosevelt, a governor for four years. None ever served in Congress....
...The Democrats with the greatest Washington expertise — Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson — have already been driven from the race. And the presidential candidate left standing with the greatest experience by far is Mr. McCain; if Mrs. Clinton believes that’s the criterion for selecting the next president, she might consider backing him.Keep Reading (if there's more)...
To put it another way, think which politician is most experienced today in the classic sense, and thus — according to the “experience” camp — best qualified to become the next president.
That’s Dick Cheney. And I rest my case.
Hillary said this yesterday, and its caused some hubbub:
I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. I know that Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002.Besides being unfair to Obama's actual record, the problem is that here is that she has just given John McCain a bite he can use in every ad he might have to run against Obama showing he doesn't have support of his own party. Its one thing to attack, its another thing to be willing to throw your party's potential candidate under the bus.
The LA Times asks "How did the Clinton campaign get here?" trying to understand how the candidate, who was once assumed to be the inevitable nominee, has reached the point she has. Their answer: leadership, or a lack therof.
Hillary Clinton may be one of the most disciplined figures in national politics, but she has presided over a campaign operation riven by feuding, rival fiefdoms and second-guessing of top staff members
...Already, some in Clinton's senior staff are pointing fingers over what went wrong, with some of the blame aimed at Clinton herself. As the race unfolded, neither Clinton nor anyone else resolved the internal power struggles that played out with destructive effect and continue to this day...
Joe Trippi, a senior advisor to John Edwards' now-dropped Democratic campaign, said: "At some point the candidate has to step in and bust heads and say 'Enough!' "If there's fighting internally, the candidate has to step up and make it clear what direction she wants to go and stop this stuff dead in its tracks. Otherwise there's going to be a struggle for power and control right until the end. It's crippling."Keep Reading (if there's more)...
So on Friday, Hillary's campaign releases this fear mongering ad on TV in Texas and Ohio:
Her campaign describes it as a "positive" ad. Afterwards, her campaign had a conference call with reporters to discuss it, as described on the National Journal's blog (w/audio):
Responding to the release of HRC's new TX TV ad, which asserts in no subtle terms that only she has the experience to deal with a major world crisis, and, relatedly, to keep your children safe, Slate's John Dickerson asked the obvious question:Obama's campaign impressively whipped up their own response the same day:
"What foreign policy moment would you point to in Hillary's career where she's been tested by crisis?" he said.
Silence on the call. You could've knit a sweater in the time it took the usually verbose team of Mark Penn, Howard Wolfson and Lee Feinstein, Clinton's national security director, to find a cogent answer. And what they came up with was weak -- that she's been endorsed by many high ranking members of the uniformed military.
Frank Rich's latest, worth a read as always:
Clinton fans don’t see their standard-bearer’s troubles this way. In their view, their highly substantive candidate was unfairly undone by a lightweight showboat who got a free ride from an often misogynist press and from naïve young people who lap up messianic language as if it were Jim Jones’s Kool-Aid. Or as Mrs. Clinton frames it, Senator Obama is all about empty words while she is all about action and hard work.Check this earlier post for another discussion about how Obama's and Clinton's campaigns have been run as indicators of their actual leadership potential. Keep Reading (if there's more)...
But it’s the Clinton strategists, not the Obama voters, who drank the Kool-Aid. The Obama campaign is not a vaporous cult; it’s a lean and mean political machine that gets the job done. The Clinton camp has been the slacker in this race, more words than action, and its candidate’s message, for all its purported high-mindedness, was and is self-immolating...
This is the candidate who keeps telling us she’s so competent that she’ll be ready to govern from Day 1. Mrs. Clinton may be right that Mr. Obama has a thin résumé, but her disheveled campaign keeps reminding us that the biggest item on her thicker résumé is the health care task force that was as botched as her presidential bid.
Earlier in the week, I posted and posted again about Obama and Clinton's actual legislative achievements in the US Senate. This Washington Post looks at Obama's record in the Illinois Senate, Judge Him By His Own Laws:
People who complain that Barack Obama lacks experience must be unaware of his legislative achievements. One reason these accomplishments are unfamiliar is that the media have not devoted enough attention to Obama's bills and the effort required to pass them, ignoring impressive, hard evidence of his character and ability.The article focuses several achievements, especially a bill Obama championed to videotape police interrogations to stop the beatings of suspects, a bill in which he faced strong Republican and police opposition, and succeeding in winning them over and passing it 35 to 0.
Taken together, these accomplishments demonstrate that Obama has what Dillard, the Republican state senator, calls a "unique" ability "to deal with extremely complex issues, to reach across the aisle and to deal with diverse people." In other words, Obama's campaign claim that he can persuade us to rise above what divides us is not just rhetoric.UPDATE: The NY Times has this helpful chart about Obama's Illinois Senate Record (where he introduced over 800 bills). Keep Reading (if there's more)...
The experience/accomplishment question has produced some very interesting and valuable information about Obama's actual Senate record -which some find to be more substantive than Hillary Clinton's - turning her experience argument on its head.
Others have been doing their own digging. In "I Refuse to Buy Into the Obama Hype (now a supporter)" a mother explains her own investigation, not trusting the Obama hype, but not in love with Hillary either:
I came away from my research really knowing a lot more about what is important to Hillary in her heart: kids and their well being. My research changed my feeling about her significantly. About 40% of her bills dealt with health care and/or kids. As a mom with small kids, I like her passion for children's issues...But most of her other bills are much smaller in scale and scope — more targeted and more careful.She compares bills by both senators dealing with lead paint:
The difference is in the scope and the approach...Obama's bill shows how he thinks big: do everything we can to make sure that lead-painted Thomas the Tank Engine toys don't get into the hands and mouths of millions of toddlers in this country. Or Hillary: encourage people by offering tax credits to clean up lead paint in old buildings. People have been talking about lead paint in old buildings hurting kids in living in inner cities, since, well when I was a kid — for decades. If it is still a big problem, is offering tax credits for clean up, i.e. scrape down the walls and repaint, the best way to protect kids from lead? How many of you parents have lead paint problems? How many have (or had) toxic Thomas the Tank Engine Toys ...Obama's bills risk pissing off the toy industry and the Chinese. Hillary's risks nothing.And her further research into Obama, which changed her mind:
...I was blown away as I started going through his record. I've already mentioned his bills on health care and energy. In addition he had introduced bills on Iran, voting, veterans, global warming, campaign finance and lobbyists, Blackwater, global poverty, nuclear proliferation, and education.Another entry from another Kossack "I Found the Beef" provides these numbers about Obama's Senate record:
Senator Obama has sponsored or co-sponsored 570 bills in the 109th and 110th Congress.Of the bills he introduced:
Senator Obama has sponsored or co-sponsored 15 bills that have become LAW since he joined the Senate in 2005.
Senator Obama has also introduced amendments to 50 bills, of which 16 were adopted by the Senate.
Most of his legislative effort has been in the area of Energy Efficiency and Climate Change (25 bills), health care (21 bills) and public health (20 bills), consumer protection/labor (14 bills), the needs of Veterans and the Armed Forces (13 bills), Congressional Ethics and Accountability (12 bills), Foreign Policy (10 bills) Voting and Elections (9 bills), Education (7 bills), Hurricane Katrina Relief (6), the Environment (5 bills), Homeland Security (4 bills), and discrimination (4 bills).
Joe Klein at Time has an interesting take (that I've also seen separately mention at Andrew Sullivan's blog) on the experience issue: pointing out that with all three remaining candidates being senators without any actual executive experience, we should take a look at how they have run their campaigns.
If nothing else, a presidential campaign tests a candidate's ability to think strategically and tactically and to manage a very complex organization. We have three plausible candidates remaining--Obama, Clinton and John McCain--and Obama has proved himself the best executive by far. Both the Clinton and the McCain campaigns have gone broke at crucial moments. So much for fiscal responsibility. McCain has been effective only when he runs as a guerrilla; in both 2000 and '08, he was hapless at building a coherent campaign apparatus. Clinton's sins are different: arrogance and the inability to see past loyalty to hire the best people for the job and to fire those who prove inadequate. "If nothing else, we've learned that Obama probably has the ability to put together a smooth-running Administration," said a Clinton super-delegate. "That's pretty important."ADDITIONALLY: Illuminating read: check "Inside the Clinton Shake Up" by Josh Greene at the Atlantic about how loyalty has determined who Clinton has running her campaign, in a frightening echo of how Bush has run things. (actually that article is really good -gonna explore more in its own post later) Keep Reading (if there's more)...
So Wisconsin is the next big state voting on Tuesday. And today the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel announced their endorsement of Obama (following visits from both candidates). Here's some of what they have to say:
There is only the tiniest sliver of daylight separating Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the issues, with the notable exception of health care reform...The similarity of views is, in truth, why the candidates return so much to the themes of change and experience...Obama still has the edge. His experience as community organizer, state legislator, U.S. senator and campaigner who took a dream and became a credible contender measures up well against Clinton's experience as poverty lawyer, first lady and U.S. senator...In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editorial Board on Wednesday, the first-term senator proved himself adept at detail and vision. They are not mutually exclusive...In Clinton, there is the potential for déjà vu all over again. Right or wrong, she is a polarizing figure who excites all the wrong kinds of political passions...And much of the antagonism she engenders in the right is simply irrational.And my friend Jackson has forwarded this article "Wisconsin Should Be A Showdown" analyzing the Clinton campaign's efforts in that state and why an Obama victory is far from a foregone conclusion.
If you read nothing else:
To me this is a non-issue. As Robert DeNiro stated today in endorsing Obama ""He wasn't experienced enough to authorize the invasion of Iraq."
First off, Obama has a proven record of public service from the grass roots up as an organizer, seven years in Illinois Senate, four years in the US Senate.
As others have pointed out to me, the "experience" argument would lead us to believe our best elected officers should've been those with the most government experience by the time they reached elected office - which would be Richard Nixon or Dick Cheney. And we know how they worked out. Or JFK vs Nixon was decided by the experience argument, we'd likely have had Nixon as President during the Bay of Pigs and none of us would be here right now.
I think it is true, as Obama says - not just to be ready on day one, but be right on day one -- the greater question for a President is good judgment and the courage of conviction. As the LA Times states in its endorsement, "experience has value only if it is accompanied by courage and leads to judgment. Nowhere was that judgment more needed than in 2003, when Congress was called upon to accept or reject the disastrous Iraq invasion. Clinton faced a test and failed, joining the stampede as Congress voted to authorize war." On this ground, Hillary has disqualified herself with her politically expedient vote for the Iraq war and her willingness to go back on her word for crass political purposes. (More here)
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Don't be afraid.
Michael Chabon (author of "Kavalier & Clay," "Wonder Boys," etc) wrote this op-ed "Obama vs. the Phobocracy" in today's Washington Post. I think it applies to a lot of the reservations I'm still surprised to hear people say they harbor about voting for Obama, even with abundant evidence to the contrary:
Since I started talking and writing about Obama I have come to see that this ruling fear, and nothing else, lies at the back of every objection or reservation people raise or harbor regarding the man and his candidacy.Keep Reading (if there's more)...
Fear whispers to us that white voters have a nasty tendency to tell pollsters, friends and neighbors that they support an African American candidate, then go into the voting booth and let the fear known as racism pull the lever.
Fear tells us that ugliness, rage and brutality are the central facts of human existence, that decency and tolerance are luxuries on whose altar our enemies will be only too happy to sacrifice us.
It is through our fear of falling prey to the calamity and misadventure from which the media promise faithlessly to protect us --a fear manufactured and sold by the media themselves -- that we accept without question the media-borne canard (tainted, in my view, by a racism as insidious as any that hides behind the curtains of voting booths) that Barack Obama, a seasoned and successful 46-year-old husband and father of two, a man sweeping into the prime of his life with all his sails and flags unfurled, is too young and inexperienced for a job that demands vitality and flexibility and that, furthermore, has made nonsense of glittering resumes, laughingstocks of practiced old hands and, in a reverse of Popeye's old trick, ravenous alligators out of years of accumulated baggage.
