Boy, this didn’t take long…In picking Sen. Joe Biden to be his running mate, Barack Obama sought to shore up his weakness — inexperience in office and on foreign policy — rather than underscore his strength as a new-generation candidate defying political conventions.Apparently, Fournier needs me to point out that NO ONE who becomes president has “foreign policy experience” compatible with the requirements of the job. Every person who has assumed the responsibility of President of the United States has received a crash course in all of the world’s hot spots where the potential exists for U.S. military intervention, to say nothing of places where are troops are deployed.
The Sainted Ronnie R didn’t have it. Bill Clinton didn’t have it. And Dubya sure as hell didn’t.
The media, including Fournier, typically cedes the “foreign policy experience” card to the Repugs. In the case of someone like Poppy Bush, though, I could see it to a point because he served both in the military and overseas in government. But over the last 30 years or so, no one else taking over in the White House had that as a strength from the moment their presidency began.
The picks say something profound about Obama: For all his self-confidence, the 47-year-old Illinois senator worried that he couldn't beat Republican John McCain without help from a seasoned politician willing to attack. The Biden selection is the next logistical step in an Obama campaign that has become more negative — a strategic decision that may be necessary but threatens to run counter to his image.How the hell does Fournier know that Obama “worried that he couldn’t beat John McCain” without Biden as an attack dog? Did Obama need Biden’s help to launch ads attacking McBush on the war or the economy, to say nothing of the matter of McBush’s homes?
Chief sponsor of a sweeping anti-crime bill that passed in 1994, Biden could help inoculate Obama from GOP criticism that he's soft on crime — a charge his campaign fears will drive a wedge between white voters and the first black candidate with a serious shot at the White House.This is exactly the type of unsubstantiated, garbage “reporting” that has earned Fournier (and many of his AP colleagues) the wrath of blogger types such as your humble narrator (here). Is it too much to ask that Fournier communicate that, thus far, these charges have proven to be baseless (re: soft on crime, black...).
Fournier’s piece concludes with the AP note that he has covered politics for nearly 20 years, as if that’s automatically supposed to endow him with the mantle of respectability. Well, based on reading his dreck over all this time, I believe that (with all humility), though I’ve only been doing this for a little short of three and a half years, I know more than he does.
Update 8/24/08: This puts an exclamation mark on the fact that the AP remains an utter farce of a news organization for countenancing Fournier's behavior.
2 comments:
If Obama picked Hillary the whine would be he picked her to shore up his weakness with women.
If he picked Richardson, it would be to shore up his weakness with Hispanics. Yada, Yada.
What does "covering politics for 20 years" really mean other then putting his opinions on paper and getting paid for it. When reporters and talking heads interpret what politicians say, or meant to say, or profess to know what one is thinking it is insulting. The only experience Fournier can claim after 20 years is that he has mastered a word processor.
Having read your opinions for a while I agree you know more than he does and are a better writer.
I think there was only one time I didn't agree with your opinion but I think that is a good thing. I was very impressed with your ability to be critical of Murphy when it was needed. I agreed with your criticism of Edwards. Honest politics means we don't defend the indefensible. This is something the repugs and their ditto heads are not capable of doing.
I would like someone to ask these talking heads to define what they mean by experience in foreign policy. To me "foreign policy" does not mean knowing how to fight a war. The military knows how to do that and it should be left to the military..not micromanaged by the vice president. What experience did Cheney have? None. He did not even wear the uniform of his country. To me "foreign policy" means the ability to engage and not bring us to war. To me it does require diplomacy and a big stick for leverage. The stick could be economic,or guns or both, but guns always a last resort, never preemptive.
It seems to me that McCain has no advantage here. His pow experience and his years in the senate does not mean he has the "necessary" experience any more than Obama or anyone else. He certainly has no economic knowledge,and according to Steve Forbes McCain will indeed have Phil Gramm as an advisor. God help us.
The repugs gave us the most inexperienced, stupid, ignorant, illiterate, obnoxious idiot, and we got 9/11 which we now know was preventable. Then they gave us the illegal invasion of Iraq the Kristol crowd wanted for several years and the explanation was bag of lies that they still defend. And then they reelected him.
The financial institutions have been raided and the economy is in shambles.
IMO they have a lot of gall to say Obama is not fit to be president because he lacks experience and then offer us McCain who is senile, and intent on continuing the neo con politics of selfishness, greed, and preemptive war.
The neo cons support of McCain confirms my opinion that dubya was selected to be the useful idiot and tool of the neo cons who for years had been trying to take control.
They want to keep control and need another useful idiot.
Thanks very much for the thoughtful comments and the good words.
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