What Exactly is Hillary's Great Experience?

[Tsukasa Buddha]

I just watched her give a speech in which she said that experience can count for everything (or some BS thing like that). She said that she and McCain pass the "commander-in-chief" bar but Obama doesn't. But really, what experience is she standing on?

Pressed in a CNN interview this week for specific examples of foreign policy experience that has prepared her for an international crisis, Clinton claimed that she "helped to bring peace" to Northern Ireland and negotiated with Macedonia to open up its border to refugees from Kosovo. She also cited "standing up" to the Chinese government on women's rights and a one-day visit she made to Bosnia following the Dayton peace accords.

But:

The Macedonian government opened its border to refugees the day before Clinton arrived to meet with government leaders. And her mission to Bosnia was a one-day visit in which she was accompanied by performers Sheryl Crow and Sinbad, as well as her daughter, Chelsea, according to the commanding general who hosted her.

But Tim Pat Coogan, an Irish historian who has written extensively on the conflict in Northern Ireland, said the first lady's visits were not decisive in the negotiating breakthroughs in Northern Ireland.

"It was a nice thing to see her there, with the women's groups. It helped, I suppose," Coogan said. "But it was ancillary to the main thing. It was part of the stage effects, the optics.

One of Clinton's most noteworthy forays onto the foreign stage came in 1995, when she delivered a speech at the United Nations' women's conference in Beijing. That speech was widely noted and hailed as a bold call for women's rights, especially because Clinton explicitly spoke out against forced abortion and other practices of the host country.

Linky. (http://weblogs.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/blog/2008/03/clintons_experience_on_world_s.html)

So when Obama gives speeches it doesn't count, but when she gives them it gives her experience to be commander-in-chief?

And this isn't to bash Hillary per se, it is really to be consistant in bashing all of them. When the phone rings at three in the morning, I want Eisenhower, not any of these tools.

I haven't seen anything that distinguishes any of them to be so much greater of a commander-in-chief.

[Puppycow]

The only convincing 'experience' argument I think she can make is the one she can't say out loud: Bill has experience, and in a crisis he'll tell me what to do.

[Elizabeth I]

No, no, no...don't you know that when the red phone rang in the White House between 1992 and 2000, Bill answered it, then said, "Just a minute...Hon! It's for you!"?

I suppose the White House chef was also around when some of this stuff went down. By Hillary's reasoning, he/she should be President.

[TheJim]

I cant believe you made such a sexist topic. </snark> I have been asking this for the last year myself and the Clinton supporters if they do respond usually tell me it is a sexist question to ask. Personally i love how Hillary claims all the good of the Bill years despite them saying after the healthcare failure that Hillary's that she would not have any role in policy. If she wants to claim otherwise release the records that like her tax returns she refuses. Otherwise, I will stick with believing she picked out the china not negotiated with China.

[Puppycow]

Time now has an article up examining Hillary's foreign policy experience claims (http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1720720,00.html)
(WASHINGTON) — To hear Hillary Rodham Clinton tell it now, she had a lot more going on as first lady than she let on at the time.

On the presidential campaign trail, Clinton frequently makes the pitch that she is uniquely qualified to pass the "commander in chief" test in large part because of her foreign policy and national security experience in Bill Clinton's White House.

She takes credit for helping bring peace to Northern Ireland, negotiating open borders for refugees fleeing Kosovo, standing up to the Chinese government over women's rights, and flying into Bosnia when it was too dangerous to send the president. . . .

[qarnos]

The only convincing 'experience' argument I think she can make is the one she can't say out loud: Bill has experience, and in a crisis he'll tell me what to do.

You know, it's funny... Back when Bill was president, the jokes used to go around about Hillary being the one pulling the strings behind the scenes. Maybe she does have experience! :D

[T.A.M.]

Obama is beginning to ask the very question suggested in the OP over the last few days. Maybe the MSM will pick up on it and begin to dig.

TAM:)

[latent aaaack]

You're right she doesn't have a normal amount of experience for a presidential candidate either, only a bit more than Obama. Her statements and policies have been significantly better than Obama's though, revealing her to be more moderate and realistic and full of less disturbing suprises (ie, Obama's various foriegn policy debate answers that no one knew about until then).

It's unfortunate that I have to agree with Romney that she would be like an intern as a president and in my opinion Obama would be even less than that.

[T.A.M.]

yes, and McCain would be a pre-schooler when it comes to the economy, so what is the point?

TAM:)

[Tricky]

Yes, there is a lot of difference in opinion (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/5604541.html) as to Hillary's experience, but I don't think there is any doubt that she has a wider range of experience than the other two major candidates. All have Senate experience, but only Clinton has had an up-close view of the workings of the White House. Even if there is some truth that her trips to foreign lands as an official government representative are overrated, there can be no denying that she actually has had a lot of exposure to international affairs and issues, probably much more so than Obama or McCain. The mere fact that both are trying to disparage her experience rather than tout their own demonstrates this.

That doesn't mean that she would make the best president though. Experience is less important, in my opinion, than vision and skill. I am not convinced that she has more of these than her opponants. Still that is no reason to "Swift Boat" her on her experience.

[T.A.M.]

If Experience were the only, or even the main, criteria for being a good president, then there were MANY other candidates who have since dropped out who would likely have been better for the job.

TAM:)

[fuelair]

What Exactly is Hillary's Great Experience?




Bedtime with Billzo?

[mortimer]

What Exactly is Hillary's Great Experience?




Bedtime with Billzo?

I thought Lewinsky's first name was Monica :confused:

[Kaylee]

It seems to me that Clinton is exagerrating her experiences and responsibilities so much that I find it difficult to believe anything she says now.


While I was surfing the net to see what legislation Obama and Clinton have actually helped get past during their years in the Senate, I came across this blog:

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/02/about-those-sol.html

"Solutions" seems to be the word o' the day for the Clinton campaign. Here's Hillary:
"I am in the solutions business. My opponent is in the promises business. I think we need answers, not questions."

And Bill:
“Do you want the excitement of speeches or the empowerment of solutions?”

Just curious - what exactly has Hillary ever solved? What solutions has she ever successfully enacted? I mean this to be a bit snarky, but it's still a substantive question. Unlike Obama, I don't see any significant legislation with her name on it. Unlike Obama, I don't see any accounts describing how she worked vigorously behind the scenes to further progressive goals - particularly on national security matters.

Sure, she's had some high-profile co-sponsorships and photo ops. And she's written Gates a letter and asked Wolfowitz some sharp questions in a hearing once. But in looking at her accumulated "solutions," I'm not seeing much.

And that, of course, is the larger problem. Obama and Clinton's policies are pretty much the same - and they're both smart, capable candidates. The question is which one is actually going to stick out his or her neck to fight for, as they say, solutions. To me, the best evidence of future willingness to "solve" comes from past behavior. And "fighting for solutions" is not exactly how I'd characterize her 7+ years in the Senate. "Ostentatious centrism in preparation for a general election" seems closer to the mark[edit: my bold].

In the interest of full disclosre, it's tricky relying on blogs for info, often the people behind them are unknown and its difficult to guage their accuracy.

But still, for now, all I can say is that I'm taking Clinton's claim of superior experience with a huge grain of salt.

[fuelair]

I thought Lewinsky's first name was Monica :confused:

A) Think Chelsea.





B)IIRC, only Bill was on the receiving end there.

[FireGarden]

James Fallows:

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/03/more_on_the_clinton_obama_and.php

I have reached the point of wanting to scream every time I hear about the primacy of “experience,” knowing how skillfully the 46-year old Bill Clinton waved that argument away when it was used against him 16 years ago by a sitting President who simply dwarfed him in high-level experience.* But to pose it in a form that is poison for the party should Obama be the nominee??? To produce a clip that the McCain campaign could run unedited every single day of a campaign against Obama? That is something special.

[…]

* I mean, it’s almost incredible to think about, when you consider what constitutes an “experience” edge in this election. The elder George Bush, by the time he ran for re-election, had been president for four years; vice president for eight; ambassador to the UN for two years; de facto ambassador to China for two; Congressman for four; director of the CIA for one year; plus former head of the Republican National Comittee, decorated combat pilot, and commander in chief during one brief hot war and the end of the prolonged Cold War. Moreover, in his “3 a.m.” moments of real crisis, he had used his experience to make sane decisions:handling the collapse of the Soviet empire, standing up against Saddam Hussein, putting together a wartime coalition so broad and supportive that the United States may have actually made money on the Gulf War, then having the sense not to occupy Iraq. Not bad!

Nonetheless, the young, vigorous, though vastly less experienced governor of Arkansas was a better match for America’s needs in 1992 — or so Bill Clinton argued, and I believed. To hear, 16 years later, the Clinton team stress the transcendent importance of a “lifetime of experience” must drive the elder George Bush mad.

If Obama wins, get used to hearing this over and over:
“I know I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House, I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House, and Senator Obama has a speech that he made in 2002.”

[BPSCG]

Hillary Rodham Clinton continues to stumble and bumble along the long and winding campaign trail, her latest gaffe being her slow-as-mud response last week to Suha Arafat's startling charge that Israelis have been poisoning Palestinian women and children with carcinogenic gases.

While I support Palestinian statehood, as Hillary has in the past, I was appalled that Arafat would compromise the stature and autonomy of an American first lady by forcing her, in effect, to sit captive on a speaker's platform while an anti-Israel litany was being recited.

But Hillary demonstrated what an embarrassing neophyte she is at seat-of-the-pants improvisation, the rat-a-tat style of banking, swooping and counterattack that her prospective senatorial opponent, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, is such an ace at. No, Hillary shouldn't have walked out -- that would have been undignified and disruptive. But her double kiss and hug for Arafat, whether they occurred before or after the incident, were excessively effusive for that charged climate. And her speech should have been delivered in a sterner or more neutral tone, preparing the way for a later, more carefully considered, direct rebuke.

That Hillary Clinton constantly requires emergency intervention and marching orders from her far-flung team of consultants -- above all the detestable, twisted Harold Ickes (who looks like a character out of "Faust") -- should be a warning to New York voters about her basic lack of talent as a politician. Hillary is as preprogrammed as Elizabeth Dole: Both these women lawyers are smart and polished when they prep and plan, but they're clumsy and off-balance under sudden, high-stakes pressure. It's preposterous that the Democratic Party of my home state can't come up with a better, more seasoned local candidate.

Link (http://www.salon.com/people/col/pagl/1999/11/17/cp1117/print.html)

[dudalb]

I am surprised that the Obama campaign has not pointed out the the only project in the Clinton Administration that Hilary actually managed..the Health Care initative...was a total Clusterf--k that even their fellow Democrats would not support,was insturmantal in the Democratic debacle in 1994,and put the cause of Universal Health Coverage back by about 20 years.

[BPSCG]

I am surprised that the Obama campaign has not pointed out the the only project in the Clinton Administration that Hilary actually managed..the Health Care initative...was a total Clusterf--k that even their fellow Democrats would not support,was insturmantal in the Democratic debacle in 1994,and put the cause of Universal Health Coverage back by about 20 years.Thanks, Hillary! :biggrin:

[JWideman]

As we've seen for the past 8 years, being related to someone who was President once is not "experience".