What does Obama need to do tonight...

[Labors of Hercules]

To blow Hillary's "He's not experienced, especially in foreign policy" argument out of the water?

:nuke:

[maddiejoan]

1. He needs to suddenly become as good as Hillary on policy

[Windy]

23. Her surpasses Hillary "Rouge Nation" Clinton by leaps and bounds.

He has a cool head and will deal with other nations with intelligence, a depth of knowledge on the issues when he MEETS with them directly.. and a willingness to reach out to other nations to calm tensions.

He is the best face the US can put forth to re-establish our position on the world stage.

[maddiejoan]

30. Rouge Nation?

http://www.cherryculture.com/product_image.php?imageid=4399

[anigbrowl]

32. If this were a foot race to reach orur foreign policy goals... (long)

Obama wouldn't be trailing Hillary, he'd be coming up to lap her.

I don't want to write a whole long essay on it (as I doubt I'd change your mind no matter how much I wrote on the subject), but I consider this one of the areas where Obama has already shown himself to be a genius. I'm not talking about the Iraq war etc., but his comments on Pakistan.

Last year, Obama said openly that Pakistan had been a poor ally, and that if he were President he would renew the hunt for Osama bin Laden, and conclude it - even if that meant going after him without cooperation from the Pakistani regime. A firestorm ensued - "zOMG we're going to BOMB pakistan, a sovereign country!!!11!" Republicans who cheerfully discuss the idea of nuking Tehran and consider all Arabs to be 'camel jockeys' or 'ragheads' were suddenly (pretending to be) aghast at the idea of breaking international law, and talking about Pakistan and General Musharraf like it was the promised land and he were Jesus Christ 2.0. George Bush himself took time out to condemn the remarks and reaffirm our bond with Pakistan yadda yadda.

Flash forward to today: Musharraf has only a fingernail grip on power, after being soundly defeated in an election. He's imposed martial law on the country, moved the election, had opponents arrested, and seen one of his opponents assassinated (not saying he was involved, but how badly have you been running the country when that can happen so easily?). Meantime we've given up on telling Pakistan everything we're up to/asking permission, because the fact is that half of the Pakistani intelligence service are AQ sympathizers. Instead we have attacked AQ by carrying out our own operations on our own terms.

Now the thing is that anyone who has closely watched Pakistan over the last few years could have told you this was going to happen. Musharraf is not a very good leader and it was glaringly obvious that Pakistan was not a very good ally. Obama just 'told it like it is' instead of repeating the kind of pious coded bullshit we've become used to from the current administration. A bold and risky maneuver, that most people at the time said had backfired and showed how 'naive' he was.

But by saying so, he put Pakistan on notice that under an Obama presidency, they could no longer expect to receive handouts of financial and military aid that a dictatorship could use to maintain its grip on power - and to an extent, that emboldened Pakistni people to reassert their democratic rights and vote Musharraf's party out - despite bombings, assassinations, extreme press censorship and the imposition martial law. Musharraf tried every tool in the dictator's manual to suppress political dissent in the country he ruled, but the Pakistani people firmly rejected his rule...AND they rejected hard-line Islamic parties that sympathize with Al Qaeda as well, which surprised many observers.

Now, think about this. Bush has been a staunch supporter of Musharraf since 2001, constantly patting him on the back and telling him that 'America has no better friend in the region than Pakistan' and suchlike. Obama, running far back from the presumptive nominee last summer, said what a lot of people have been thinking privately: Pakistan is a semi-dictatorship, has not been a great ally, and this co-dependent nonsense needs to end. Hillary Clinton...well, I don't know what she thinks about Pakistan. And, I suspect, she doesn't either - back in January she was talking the elections as if Musharraf was a candidate (he wasn't - the election was for the legislature rather than the presidency), betraying a startling ignorance of the country.

Who has done more to advance the cause of democracy in Pakistan? Obama, that's who. Evan as a non-frontrunning candidate 15 months out from the election, he has demonstrated an ability to exert influence abroad. The timing and tone of his remarks were no accident: he knew he was going to cause huge controversy and that he would get trashed for saying what he did, but gambled that by the time the primaries rolled around, people would see the wisdom of what he said last fall.

And if you doubt this, why doesn't Hillary Clinton bring it up in debates and on the campaign trail? Because Obama can point at the events in Pakistan since then and say four words: 'I told you so.'

[rox63]

2. The "experience" issue doesn't seem to be making a difference to voters

He just needs to avoid screwing up in any major way. She's the one who needs to find an effective way to trip him up. And she hasn't been doing too well on that so far.

[polichick]

3. Just what he did last time...

Point out that her "experience" enabled Bush, while his judgment was correct ~ and add the part about changing the mindset that got us into this mess.

[SteppingRazor]

4. The "right experience/wrong experience, you voted for the war" argument has been working fine...

other than that, he just needs to show up, look good, talk good, and not say anything stupid. Shouldn't be too hard for him.

[BigDaddy44]

5. Just what is her foreign policy experience?

She's been a senator for 8 years. And on a few committees. What great foreign policy experience does she have? (And sorry, her husbands experience doesn't count.)

[Windy]

24. I would like to know her specific experience too..outside of being first lady accompanying Bill. nt

[Thrill]

6. Chris Dodd already helped him with that

When he said he was skeptical at first. But now he truly believes he is ready. I would just use that line.

[Labors of Hercules]

8. Is there a link to Dodd's endorsement yet, by the way?? nt.

[Thrill]

13. Link

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/26/dodd.obama/

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

7. I'm still trying to figure out how Hillary has more experience than Obama.

It's a worthless argument for Hillary anyway, because she has far less experience than McCain. And in any case, I'll take good judgement over experience any day.

[Labors of Hercules]

11. "I'll take good judgement over experience any day"

Good response.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

15. EXACTLY!

[quantass]

31. Well said..

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

29. AP sent this out about Obama's Senate Foreign Relations work here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4776192&mesg_id=4779471

[katty]

9. the usual, be relaxed-his mellowness makes her crazy

[Rageneau]

10. Merely showing up has worked pretty good for him so far.

[hisownpetard]

33. !!!

:toast:

[eleny]

12. Keep on pointing out that her experience didn't always lead to the best decision

And he ought to remain , as usual.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

17. perfect

[cottonseed]

14. Wax on. Wax off.

Watch out for the leg sweep.

[Avalux]

16. He needs to do exactly what he's been doing. Stay calm and let her go nuts.

Obama does not need to go out there and try to prove anything. Hillary will try to cajole him but he should not take the bait. Let her talk then answer in an even, low voice.

[Shine]

18. Agreed n/t

[SoxFan]

19. Flood the Spin Room

Tony Lake, Merrill McPeak, Samantha Power, Susan Rice, et al should be deployed vigorously to shoot down any nonsense coming from Team Hillary.

[AtomicKitten]

20. Just be himself by being cool as a cucumber and sticking to the issues.

[rox63]

21. The * admin had a lot of "experienced" people in it

Folks like Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. They're evil, but they're very experienced at it. I'll gladly take good judgement, an open mind, and the courage to think outside the box. I think that will serve us much better than Clinton's "experience".

[babylonsister]

22. Point out the poor decisions she's made on foreign policy, i.e., IWR. nt

[COFoothills]

25. He just needs to hold serve...

...be poised, calm, collected. Presidential if you will.

Needs to keep his cool regardless of whatever desparation hail mary hand grenade HRC might toss his way and answer questions directly and clearly.

If he does that, he's the nominee.

[Independent-Voter]

Just smile and nod as Her Shrillness melts down. It's going to be something to see.

[anigbrowl]

26. Point out that experience =/= excellence

W's cabinet was very experienced. After all, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice all had stellar resumes. But not only did they fail to see the signs of 9/11 beforehand, they made the much more serious error of losing focus in Afghanistan as soon as the easy part was over and trying to get a domino effect going by knocking over Iraq. If they were working from the PNAC playbook, they probably hoped to carry that action forward into Iran and then see Saudi Arabia and possibly Egypt collapse under the weiht of their own sociopolitical contradictions.

I could write on and on analyzing what's wrong about their foreign policy...not just in the middle east, but in terms of failing to keep up elsewhere and allowing China to become a more powerful global player in places where the US should have been providing a real alternative (and thus giving China good reasons to moderate their own politics)...or allowing Russia so many opportunities to capitalize on its power while shedding the trappings of democracy and reverting to a semi-dictatorship.

Also, voters are saying that they are not making their selection this cycle based just on experience. The electorate is tired of being told what to believe by politicians 'who know best' - after all, those 'who know best' got us to where we are today in Iraq and economically speaking, so 'super secret experience powers' are out this election season. Clinton's schtick, which does appeal to many in her base, is that the world is a scary lpace and ordinary people don't know enough to understand, so they'd better put someone like her in charge. She never says what she'd actually do - she just goes into state-department-speak to reinforce the idea that foreign relations is too complex for regular people to understand.

Obama, by contrast, lays his policy out simply and clearly - to the point where it has allowed Clinton to attack it as simplistic. Obama's theorem is that voters do in fact have their own opinions on foreign policy and have a basic grasp of how the world works and how you deal with people - and that while foreign countries are quite different from America, they're not that THAT different, certainly not to the point of being impossible to communicate with. Obama has (rightly) been playing up the idea of a USA that negotiates from a position of confidence and self-belief, rather than one that does from a position of defensiveness and suspicion.

In short (because for the number of people who will read and respond, it's not worth writing an essay about), Obama just has to express confidence in his own judgment, AND the ability of the American people to judge HIM. That way, when he goes abroad, foreign leaders will know he has the country behind him because he has tested out his policy message at home. If Clinton were president (he can imply), she will talk down to the populace and treat people like children: 'foreign affairs is too complex for you, only I really understand what is going on and what to do'. And we've just had 7 years of that.

[tammywammy]

27. He needs to do exactly what he did last week

Hillary needs the blow out, he needs to hold steady.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

28. Bring up Iraq.

It's the war, stupid.