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Monday, December 24, 2007

Joe Wilson And Barack Obama

The Friends of Hilary attacked the Friends of Obama. In The Huffington Post we see: Joe Wilson Rips Obama, Ignites Debate Over Candidates' Experience December 21, 2007 04:19 PM Sam Stein "Writing on the Huffington Post today, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who has endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton for president, took one of the hardest swipes to date at Sen. Barack Obama's foreign policy credentials. Pivoting off a Thursday article in the London Times, Wilson argues that Obama's "intuitive grasp" of the world is no match for his lack of travel and "dearth" of international experience. "Intuition may be a laudable quality among psychics and palm readers," the Ambassador writes, "but for a professional American diplomat like myself, who have spent a career toiling in the vineyards of national security, it has no relevance to serious discussion of foreign policy. In fact, Obama's supposed "intuitive sense" is no different from George W. Bush's 'instincts' and 'gut feeling' describing his own foreign policy decision-making. We have been down this road before." This entire mish-mosh forgets that it was well known that George Bush had little experience in the fields mentioned, therefore the Republicans thought it an admirable and totally inspired idea to team him to Richard Cheney as Vice President. This rationale for the Republican ticket was widely discussed at the time. This provides us with more reason to impeach Cheney. George Bush always has been a babe in the woods, so to speak. A babe with a nasty, sneering turn of personality at times, granted, but essentially a Candide. Cheney and Rumfeld destroyed everything they could touch before the high tide turned at the 2006 elections for Rummy and the NIE report for Cheney. Question to Joe Wilson: how internationally savvy was Harry Truman before he took over the reins? To be honest, most politicians are bloody fools. The good ones have good advisors. The bad ones, such as the present Rump President, have bad advisors. A good politician has a gut feeling about issues . He or she can play poker well and size up people quickly. Politicians are, or should be, the paradigm of "people" people: ones that work well with people and can lead without force or effort. By the grace of these social skills, a politician chooses among the ideas presented to him by the advisors. Harry Truman always played poker. His poker playing skills stood him well when Uncle Joe Stalin sat down at the table. Harry Truman the politician is the guy who sits in the hot seat eye to eye with Joe Stalin. JFK the politician is the guy who gets us through the Cuban Misille Crisis with Nikita Kruschchev. Ronald Reagan is the politician who, when he found out that the government had lied, choose between the advice: (1) keep telling falsehoods, or (2) tell the truth. He choose to tell the truth on national television. The present Rump ( or lame duck, if you will) President is allowed to babble on about "instincts" and "gut feelings" only so far before Cheney and the others come in to slap him down. (The President is Caligula playing soldier on the deck of an aircraft carrier, pretending to be a general in a war like his father, Germanicus.) To my eye, it has the appearance of boiling down to a fine distillate which says: Obama- I have beliefs and structures not expressed in overt Words. They are unspoken. This is my basic guide. There is a knowledge not open to direct observation. Clinton- The world is a supermarket of Words and Reasonings, from which we choose what satisfies us today. All knowledge has its own price tag about which we haggle.

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