Political Punch

Nobody's ever prepared to answer that phone at 3 a.m. We had 9/11 and how did we counter - by bombing and invading another country where we've lost more US soldiers than 9/11 combined. let's face it, the people making foreign policy mistakes are the advisors to the president.

It's tough to run a campaign. I urge the voters to get out there and decide the issues themselves, not read media headlines. Think. It is time for change.

and why are you using the term Islamic Extremist? Is that the only kind of enemy you face, trust me, we don't.

Don't you know you can't really fight an -ism. Geez. just like you can't fight a war on terror, how stupid is that concept. But that's been the Republican mantra for so damn long.

I have no need to defend my Muslim beliefs or my faith, go the library and check out the Quran yourself. If you don't know any thing about this faith and its people, then your knowledge, academic and otherwise, is deficient.
Educate yourself. You owe it to yourself.

We may do things differently, but we all want a better country, a safer world, from the hands of crazies. Let's not forget that there are people, sane ones too, within the US who believe Bush and Cheney should be tried for war crimes.

Anyone that would vote for this grandfather is crazy. I don't have a problem with the elderly but at 72, this guy ought to be doing something else. I don't know why the press is reporting on his temper, everyone knows old folks are cranky. As a Rep. I will sit this election out. Not even Hillary Clinton will make me want to vote for McCain...

The fact that several of Obama's advisors have become rattled and undisciplined is more to the point here.

I appreciate that Rice's words were taken out of context, but this was an easy soft ball lobbed right to McCain to pick up on. Rookie error.

Are you cetain McCain knew which Rice was being referred to?

Ridiculous stuff from Mccain, taking what Rice said completely out of context. She was saying none of the candidates have that experience, since none of them have been president before. That includes Mccain.

TRANSCRIPT, 3/5/08:

CARLSON: Barack Obama continues to defend his policy of engaging our enemies. But after last night's win for Hillary Clinton, has Mrs. Clinton finally found his Achilles heel? Could it be the freshman senator is more vulnerable than we thought on the question of foreign policy?

Joining us now is senior foreign policy advisor to the Obama campaign, Susan Rice.

Susan, thanks a lot for coming -- for coming on.

SUSAN RICE, OBAMA SR. FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR: Good to be with you again.

CARLSON: So Hillary Clinton runs this ad, the famous red phone ad, that says when the phone rings at 3:00 in the morning, you know, who do you trust to make those snap decisions that could hold all of our lives in the balance? And the Obama campaign, I thought very wisely, came back and said, name one that you -- you know name a situation where you've judged a foreign policy crisis, and she couldn`t.

I'm going to ask the same question to you. Where has -- Barack Obama been in a position where he has to make those kinds of decisions?

RICE: He hasn't and he hasn't claimed that he's been in a position to have to answer the phone at 3:00 in the morning in a crisis situation. That's the difference between the two of them. Hillary Clinton hasn't had to answer the phone at 3:00 in the morning. And yet she attacked Barack Obama for not being ready. They`re both not ready to have that 3:00 a.m. phone call.

The questions is and what Barack Obama raised is, when that phone call is received for each of them for the first time, who's going to make the right judgment? Who is going to make the right decision?

On the critical foreign policy issues of the day, whether it was a decision to go to war in Iraq or the decision to give President Bush the benefit of the doubt and beat the drums of war with Iran, Hillary Clinton has made the same wrong judgment as John McCain and George W. Bush. Barack Obama has made a very different judgment.

So neither one of them, and nor John McCain for that matter, have had that 3:00 phone call that others have had. And I think we have to be honest about that.

CARLSON: Well, good for you for saying that. I mean I've asked that question of Hillary Clinton supporters and they -- rather than just saying she hasn't, they`'e come up with less believable right.

RICE: They've come up -- but Tucker, let's go into.

CARLSON: I don't want to pile on.

RICE: ...what they said.

CARLSON: I know what they said. I mean.

RICE: They said, you know, oh she -- first of all, as you pointed out, they said, you know, nothing for several, almost 20 seconds.

CARLSON: Well, she went to the 1995 Beijing.

RICE: And then she went to the Beijing women's conference which, of course, is a crisis. And then she claimed that she played an instrumental role in negotiating the Northern Ireland peace agreement. George Mitchell who was the negotiator said she not directly involved. She claimed she went to Kosovo and opened the border with Macedonia, and yet the border opened the day before she arrived on that trip through no direct involvement of her own.

CARLSON: They knew she was coming and they opened it up.

RICE: Well, you know.

CARLSON: That -- such is the power of Hillary Clinton.

RICE: Well, there you go.

Bill says: "Hillary was the face of America all over the world."

The facts are: Her visits were part of a program to get her out of town so that Bill would not appear weak by feeding stories that Hillary was running the White House. Her visits abroad were entirely touristic and symbolic and there was no substantive diplomacy on any of them.

Bill says: "Hillary didn't succeed at getting health care for all Americans in 1994 but she kept working at it and helped to create the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) that provides five million children with health insurance."

The facts are: Hillary had nothing to do with creating CHIP. It was included in the budget deal between Clinton and Republican Majority Leader Senator Trent Lott. I know; I helped to negotiate the deal. The money came half from the budget deal and half from the Attorney Generals' tobacco settlement. Hillary had nothing to do with either source of funds.

Bill says: "She served on the board of the Arkansas Children's Hospital."

The facts are: Yes she did. But her main board activity, not mentioned by Bill, was to sit on the Wal-mart board of directors, for a substantial fee. She was silent about their labor and health care practices.

Bill says: "President Carter appointed Hillary to the Legal Services Board of Directors and she became its chairman."

The facts are: The appointment was in exchange for Bill's support for Carter in his 1980 primary against Ted Kennedy. Hillary then became chairman in a coup in which she won a majority away from Carter's choice to be chairman.

Bill says: "She served on the board of the Arkansas Children's Hospital."

The facts are: Yes she did. But her main board activity, not mentioned by Bill, was to sit on the Wal-mart board of directors, for a substantial fee. She was silent about their labor and health care practices.

Hillary Clinton's REAL Record -- Pass This On Everywhere
Bill says: "Hillary spent a year after graduation working on a children's rights project for poor kids."

The facts are : Hillary interned with Bob Truehaft, the head of the California Communist Party. She met Bob when he represented the Panthers and traveled all the way to San Francisco to take an internship with him.

Bill says: "Hillary could have written her own job ticket, but she turned down all the lucrative job offers."

The facts are: She flunked the DC bar exam, yes, flunked, it is a matter of record, and only passed the Arkansas bar. She had no job offers in Arkansas, none, and only got hired by the University of Arkansas Law School at Fayetteville because Bill was already teaching there. She did not join the prestigious Rose Law Firm until Bill became Arkansas Attorney General and was made a partner only after he was elected Arkansas Governor.

that's not what she said. she said none of them are prepared to answer the red phone, "including john mccain." don't stop listening just because of the first thing you heard.

For the record, Hillary was playing very secretive in her deal with the health care package back in the good old days, that's one of the reasons it failed because people did not feel comfortable being put in the dark. Hillary has been consistently secretive. Transparency is what we need now after being put in the dark for so long.

Plus guess what I could have made 80 trips to many different countries, even better if as the First Lady. Things like promoting human rights in China is one of the most phony political shows you can find, that's why she got the trip, because it means nothing and will produce little, at the end, the big guy(probably her husband and the staff) were the ones who filled up Walmart with stuff from China.

Now let's talk about what the Clinton's could have done much better about human rights but didn't. Remember Janet "Waco" Reno? Remember in Somalia? They sent our troops to Somalia WITHOUT proper and sufficient armor just to put up a political show. When our troops started getting killed, Clinton pulled them out. Why did he send them in the first place? Like Bush, the Clinton's disrespect soldiers and don't care much about most of us. Like Bush, they enjoy political shows, just like going to China to talk about human rights, peace in Bosnia. What else...oh microfinance in Latin America, peace in Bosnia...oh I've already listed that.

Of course none of them have actually made an executive decision.

But when you look at the facts of their records, Hillary has had national political experience for over 20 years, including international experience.

Hillary was privy to all the difficult international and national executive decisions her husband had to make, and they do consult with each other on important issues. (Which considering that no administration is ever perfect, but his was one of the most successful we've ever had, and that they learned from their mistakes - it's a very good thing.)

Barack has had 3 years national experience.

From CBS's "For the Record"

Part 3:

Defeated, but not deterred, Clinton set her sights on more manageable goals, like creating the State Children's Health Care Program and increasing vaccination rates.

Still, behind the scenes she had the last word on so many issues, staffers had a nickname for her: "The Supreme Court."

It was her idea to tap Janet Reno for attorney general … and Madeleine Albright for secretary of state.

Her position on NAFTA has become a point of contention in job-strapped Ohio.

Publicly, she supported it in those early days. But within White House walls …

"She had grave reservations about NAFTA - was probably against it," said Reporter and biographer Carl Bernstein.

Clinton has cited her extensive travel - 80 trips as First Lady - as part of her foreign policy experience. She promoted microfinance in Latin America, peace in Bosnia and, famously, human rights in China.

From CBS's "For the Record"

Part 2:

Arkansas' first lady decided to take a shot at reforming the state's abysmal education system.

"I really believe that our young students need as much personal attention as they can get," Clinton said at the time.

It was a tough sell, involving the largest tax increase in the state's history and testing for teachers.

"Hillary went out into the state. She held public hearings I think in all 75 counties and she very effectively disarmed her critics," said Political Science Professor Hal Bass of Ouachita Baptist University.

Her grassroots victory would go down as one of Bill Clinton's most significant gubernatorial accomplishments.

-- End part 2

Robert Cochrane: I think most people do realize that none of the candidates have executive experience. At least I hope they do. The point of the ad was to emphasize that Hillary Clinton would be the best candidate on day 1 to handle a crisis situation. She feels her experience and qualifications exceed those of Barack Obama. I think that she also wanted to show that she would be the best candidate to go up against John McCain in the general election.

Dead true. Neither of the neo Marxist, expand government, Nanny state has any business being president of this country.

laura-k: Did you find the ad scary? I didn't. Our country has been involved in a war in both Iraq and Afghanistan for several years now. I don't think all of sudden people became fearful when they saw this ad. I'm sure most people had already made up their minds about which candidate they were choosing before this ad was even aired. Also, this is clearly not the reason she won in TX, OH, or RI. Believe it or not, the American people think that the economy is the most important issue for them.

Hi everybody....i see that you are all hot on the topic of experience in here.....let me try and clarify this for you.....
fact. 1....Clinton has been a public servant for 6 years
fact. 2....Obama has been a public servant for 20 years

a child at kindergarten could work out who had the more experience as a public servant....afterall that is what we are talking about isn't it....The President is a public servant......

Hillary Clinton was the wife of a Governor who then became president....

I was the wife of a doctor who then specialized in brain surgery....
would any of you want me to perform a brain operation on you???....
i am really really good at it cos i watched my husband for 20 years or so....
good strong dose of anesthetic and you won't feel a thing...promise !