Ready to be President
Enough Already!
Earlier this week, former Pres. Bill Clinton was asked by an interviewer whether Barack Obama was "ready" to be president of the United States. Bill's replied that nothing, not even eight years serving as Vice President, really prepared anyone to be president.
The media response has been an overwhelming banshee wail of "why did Bill dis Obama?" so.
Why must the media respond to every thoughtful comment with such over the top hyperbole?
President Clinton knows, as only three or four other people do, what it is like to actually be president. Let's take his words at face value. What DOES prepare someone to be President? Is there any other job in the world that places that much responsibility on the head of one person? I thought his answer was fair and if it was a dis to Obama, it was just as much a dis to McCain, and if anyone had asked Clinton the follow-up question, there is little doubt he would have said the same thing about John McCain.
But let's go beyond that for a minute.
Our current President, George Bush, prepared for the presidency by avoiding the draft and the Vietnam war, coking up and boozing when he was younger, and bankrupting every company he ever ran. His term as Governor of Texas is notable only for the large number of executions and an astonishing increase in environmental pollution.
Exactly how did that qualify George Bush to be President?
Ronald Reagan. What prepared him to be President? Before becoming President, Reagan was a has-been actor and a hammy corporate spokesman. His term as Governor of California was notable only for the rioting he presided over.
What were John Kennedy's qualifications? He was rich, he had an attractive wife, mob connections, and one (or two?) terms in the Senate.
Arguably the only two Presidents we have had in my 50 years who were prepared, or nearly so on day one were Richard Nixon (he was VP under Eisenhower), and George Bush the First (who had been VP for eight years and before that was the US Ambassador to China and director of the CIA among others).
And look how their terms turned out.
Aside from George Bush, Ron Reagan was the least qualified President of the last 50 years, and yet many Americans (sorry, I'm not one of them) credit him with ending the Cold War and believe he was one of America's greatest presidents. (By contrast, George Bush the Second is easily one of America's worst presidents and will almost certainly be convicted as a war criminal if he is ever brought to trial for his crimes against the American and Iraqi people, and all of the Disappeareds he and his cronies have sent off to be tortured in secret.)
So I guess I have two points. First, what the hell does that question mean anyway: "is he ready to be President"? What makes someone ready? Second, Clinton had it exactly right. There is nothing that prepares anyone for the job.
So what we have to rely on is our impression of the candidates' judgment. Not "are they ready" - but do we think that in a crisis this person is more or less likely to come up with the proper response.
The bottom line to me, is that the scorn being leveled on Clinton for his remarks should have been leveled at the interviewer. The question was not merely pointless, but it was unfair. A "fair and balanced" question would have been "do you think EITHER Obama or McCain is ready to be President?" or it should have been followed up with a question about Clinton's opinion concerning McCain's readiness.
Obviously, I believe Obama is more likely to make the right decisions than McCain. McCain has flip-flopped on every principled position he held before George Bush became president. His short-term "solutions" to our country's energy and economic problems are gimmicks that will do nothing to help America in the short-term or the long-term. He is in the pockets of the Banks (hey, remember the Keating Five scandal?) and Big Oil, the industries that have been bleeding this country dry. He supported the Iraq war when it was obvious to Obama (as it should have been to everyone) that the case for war was FALSE. Yes... McCain was right, we should have gone into Iraq with more troops than we did, but (i) that ASSUMES that we should have gone into Iraq in the first place, and (ii) he wasn't a "maverick" on this issue, he was listening to what the Generals Bush fired for not telling him what he wanted to hear (at least as far as troop levels were concerned).
Hey, dropping bombs on villagers from 20,000 feet and spending four years in a vietnamese torture camp may make McCain a war hero, but it DOESN'T qualify him to make military decisions. He skated through Annapolis as a legacy (the son and grandson of Admirals, he might not have gotten into Annapolis at all but for the distinguished history of his family, kind of like the way GWB got his degree from Yale (the so-called "gentleman's C"). If anything, McCain's years in a tiger cage and under torture ought to DISQUALIFY him because the psychological impact of what he endured will certainly color any military decision he makes, and likely make him to quick to support an unnecessary war... whoops, he already did that.
Finally, it scares me how clueless McCain really appears to be. Five years into the Iraq war, he still doesn't understand the difference between Sunni and Shia, doesn't know that Iraq and Afghanistan don't share a border, and doesn't realize that Czechoslovakia hasn't been a country for more than a decade. He doesn't know how to turn on or use a computer (true). He doesn't know that inflating your tires properly can save gas (that isn't even controversial). He doesn't even know (unless he and Cyndi are secret kinks) that a convention of biker gangs is not really the place to enter your wife in the local "beauty" pageant.
He has no energy policy other than more drilling and more nukes... the same policy that we have pursued over the last 30 years.... which allowed our dependence on foreign oil to go from 20% to 70%. He has no economic policy other than no new taxes (although he's been in Congress for every tax increase of the last 26 years, and I believe, voted for the majority of them). That's not a policy. It's a recipe for deepening America's financial hole.
So what is it exactly that makes McCain ready to be President? I honestly have no idea. What makes Obama ready to be President? Same answer.
But I can tell you this. I trust that Obama is more likely to make the right call when he has to, because so far, I believe that where Obama and McCain have both been asked to take a position on the same issue Obama's choices have impressed me more than McCain's.
Oh, and all of that is before we start talking about Judicial appointments.
So let's get over Bill Clinton's comment. Is there ANYONE in this country that believes he wasn't right? Media hyperbole notwithstanding, I don't think so.
Earlier this week, former Pres. Bill Clinton was asked by an interviewer whether Barack Obama was "ready" to be president of the United States. Bill's replied that nothing, not even eight years serving as Vice President, really prepared anyone to be president.
The media response has been an overwhelming banshee wail of "why did Bill dis Obama?" so.
Why must the media respond to every thoughtful comment with such over the top hyperbole?
President Clinton knows, as only three or four other people do, what it is like to actually be president. Let's take his words at face value. What DOES prepare someone to be President? Is there any other job in the world that places that much responsibility on the head of one person? I thought his answer was fair and if it was a dis to Obama, it was just as much a dis to McCain, and if anyone had asked Clinton the follow-up question, there is little doubt he would have said the same thing about John McCain.
But let's go beyond that for a minute.
Our current President, George Bush, prepared for the presidency by avoiding the draft and the Vietnam war, coking up and boozing when he was younger, and bankrupting every company he ever ran. His term as Governor of Texas is notable only for the large number of executions and an astonishing increase in environmental pollution.
Exactly how did that qualify George Bush to be President?
Ronald Reagan. What prepared him to be President? Before becoming President, Reagan was a has-been actor and a hammy corporate spokesman. His term as Governor of California was notable only for the rioting he presided over.
What were John Kennedy's qualifications? He was rich, he had an attractive wife, mob connections, and one (or two?) terms in the Senate.
Arguably the only two Presidents we have had in my 50 years who were prepared, or nearly so on day one were Richard Nixon (he was VP under Eisenhower), and George Bush the First (who had been VP for eight years and before that was the US Ambassador to China and director of the CIA among others).
And look how their terms turned out.
Aside from George Bush, Ron Reagan was the least qualified President of the last 50 years, and yet many Americans (sorry, I'm not one of them) credit him with ending the Cold War and believe he was one of America's greatest presidents. (By contrast, George Bush the Second is easily one of America's worst presidents and will almost certainly be convicted as a war criminal if he is ever brought to trial for his crimes against the American and Iraqi people, and all of the Disappeareds he and his cronies have sent off to be tortured in secret.)
So I guess I have two points. First, what the hell does that question mean anyway: "is he ready to be President"? What makes someone ready? Second, Clinton had it exactly right. There is nothing that prepares anyone for the job.
So what we have to rely on is our impression of the candidates' judgment. Not "are they ready" - but do we think that in a crisis this person is more or less likely to come up with the proper response.
The bottom line to me, is that the scorn being leveled on Clinton for his remarks should have been leveled at the interviewer. The question was not merely pointless, but it was unfair. A "fair and balanced" question would have been "do you think EITHER Obama or McCain is ready to be President?" or it should have been followed up with a question about Clinton's opinion concerning McCain's readiness.
Obviously, I believe Obama is more likely to make the right decisions than McCain. McCain has flip-flopped on every principled position he held before George Bush became president. His short-term "solutions" to our country's energy and economic problems are gimmicks that will do nothing to help America in the short-term or the long-term. He is in the pockets of the Banks (hey, remember the Keating Five scandal?) and Big Oil, the industries that have been bleeding this country dry. He supported the Iraq war when it was obvious to Obama (as it should have been to everyone) that the case for war was FALSE. Yes... McCain was right, we should have gone into Iraq with more troops than we did, but (i) that ASSUMES that we should have gone into Iraq in the first place, and (ii) he wasn't a "maverick" on this issue, he was listening to what the Generals Bush fired for not telling him what he wanted to hear (at least as far as troop levels were concerned).
Hey, dropping bombs on villagers from 20,000 feet and spending four years in a vietnamese torture camp may make McCain a war hero, but it DOESN'T qualify him to make military decisions. He skated through Annapolis as a legacy (the son and grandson of Admirals, he might not have gotten into Annapolis at all but for the distinguished history of his family, kind of like the way GWB got his degree from Yale (the so-called "gentleman's C"). If anything, McCain's years in a tiger cage and under torture ought to DISQUALIFY him because the psychological impact of what he endured will certainly color any military decision he makes, and likely make him to quick to support an unnecessary war... whoops, he already did that.
Finally, it scares me how clueless McCain really appears to be. Five years into the Iraq war, he still doesn't understand the difference between Sunni and Shia, doesn't know that Iraq and Afghanistan don't share a border, and doesn't realize that Czechoslovakia hasn't been a country for more than a decade. He doesn't know how to turn on or use a computer (true). He doesn't know that inflating your tires properly can save gas (that isn't even controversial). He doesn't even know (unless he and Cyndi are secret kinks) that a convention of biker gangs is not really the place to enter your wife in the local "beauty" pageant.
He has no energy policy other than more drilling and more nukes... the same policy that we have pursued over the last 30 years.... which allowed our dependence on foreign oil to go from 20% to 70%. He has no economic policy other than no new taxes (although he's been in Congress for every tax increase of the last 26 years, and I believe, voted for the majority of them). That's not a policy. It's a recipe for deepening America's financial hole.
So what is it exactly that makes McCain ready to be President? I honestly have no idea. What makes Obama ready to be President? Same answer.
But I can tell you this. I trust that Obama is more likely to make the right call when he has to, because so far, I believe that where Obama and McCain have both been asked to take a position on the same issue Obama's choices have impressed me more than McCain's.
Oh, and all of that is before we start talking about Judicial appointments.
So let's get over Bill Clinton's comment. Is there ANYONE in this country that believes he wasn't right? Media hyperbole notwithstanding, I don't think so.
posted by BuddhistAttorney | 5:57 PM
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