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Commander in Chief?
Okay, if we're going to get into this Commander in Chief bit, how about pressure under fire. Do you cave at the first sign of defeat or do you stick to your guns? Proverbially speaking that is. Hillary, as evidenced by the ad she ran on TV in the last days of her campaign in Texas and Ohio, has caved. Caved to the good old boys, the-worry-about-your-kids-at-3am, the fear mongering, war crowd.
Three am? Give me a break. That is the most anxiety ridden time in the whole 24 hour spectrum. I am capable of worrying myself into a lather about where I put my wristwatch or my eyeglasses at that hour. I don't need to be encouraged by anyone in that direction.
And the American people? Do we need this? Is Hillary going to invent her own color code. Will her next ads tell us, it's code gray-green today, where did you store your armor? Gas mask? Duct tape? Am I the only one who thinks, been there, done that, and as far as I can see it only made matters worse.
Hey, when Obama quoted FDR, Hillary, it would have been wise to listen. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself, words said during the depression, on the edge of World War II from a man who was clearly battling a mortal illness.
What do I want in a Commander in Chief? First, someone who can remain calm and second, someone who will not abandon ship. We are fighting a battle right now, a battle for the heart and soul of our nation, for democracy, for placing diplomacy and cooperation before aggression and violence, for the good old fashioned morals our fore mothers and fathers celebrated, not as in we're going to invade your private life and tell you who you can marry, but as in, we don't torture and we don't wage unprovoked wars.
Hey Hillary, you didn't have the courage to stand up against the war in Iraq until polls showed that well more than half the country was against it. Then you never apologized for your misjudgment. Then you supported a bill that gives Bush the right to attack Iran. And then, when your back was against the wall in the latest primaries, you did not hesitate to use a tactic that hurts both your party and the nation. In other words, no, I don't want you as Commander in Chief. You've already jumped ship too many times.
Susan Griffin's new book, Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy, On Being an American Citizen, will be published early in April.
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Hmmm. Thought Hillary was the tough one, fighting for Health Care for over 15 years. Standing with Bill during six years of Ken Starr. A Senator with twice the raw Senatorial experience than her opponent. Ran and won in the NY senate after public embarrassment no person should ever go through?
Frankly Clinton is simply responding to Obama attacks that same issue. What is weird he made a speech with nothing on the line while Clinton actually voted. This is not an equivalency no matter how you spin it and not something that reflects Commander in Chief material no matter how much you conflate Obama.
In fact Obama has yet to prove that he has stood up and made tough decisions when his ass was really on the line and it mattered. He was fighting unopposed until Alan Keyes carpet bagged into that tough campaign he had during the speech.
If you want someone who doesn’t change their mind then just vote for Bush.
If you want someone tough, for example someone that has fought the special interests on Health Care without pause for 15 years and has the negatives to prove it, well you know who that is.
Hillary is solid and you know it. I have no proof that the calm light weight does not even seem comprehend the magnitude or the detail of the issues of the President, including Commander in Chief. His recent foreign relations rookie blunders by his top advisors in a week demonstrate that he is not ready. I mean he isnt even president yet and has two foreign relations messes under his belt already. Nice judgment there Barack!
Maybe one thing Obama should learn is not to attack your opponent simply in an attempt to deflect his own weakness.
Hmm.. looks like any other politician, doesnt it?
Who do I want answering the phone? Let's review some history.
Fear tactics used by:
Dick Cheney, George Bush, John McCain, Joseph McCarthy, and now Hillary Clinton.
Hope tactics use by:
Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and now Barack Obama.
Think. Where have these tactics gotten us?
Stil...Hillary Clinton is not a monster...as far as I know.
Sorry but Sen. Obama has not convinced me to feel comfortable with him at the helm of the highest office in the land ... in all the debates with Sen. Clinton he stuttered and seemed unsure of himself when discussing key issues. She appeared to me to have a much better grasp on all topics, especially health care and foreign affairs. Repubs and Obama supporters delight in denigrating Clinton, but I find these personal attacks to be totally unwarranted ... many of them distorting what she says because of these people's bias against her. Obama may continuously talk about hope and change, which I agree are great themes, but when you compare the depth of these candidates, in my view she wins hands down. Hillary is the best prepared and strongest candidate to go up against McCain in the general election. I'm afraid that Barack would not hold up against the Repub smear machine .... he'd be another Kerry or Dukakis. We can't afford another such outcome.
Then why does Obama consistenly poll better against McCain?
Weren't those 'who'd fare better against McCain' polls taken early last month? According to the latest Newsweek poll, the race between Obama and Clinton is now a statistical dead heat, so the polls you're referring to may need to be updated
Extemely well written, thoughtful post.
Dear Ms. Griffin,
Eloquently expressed indeed, enough said. Agape.
Right now, we need someone who knows the ropes better. Who knows McCain well enough to stand up to him. We need someone who's been to Iraq, been to many other places in the country. I know what Rice said. She was assistant secretary for foreign affairs for Africa. M. Albright was SENIOR Secretery of Forgien Affairs and said that HRC does know a good amount. We need someone who knows the errors of the Trade Agreements. We just lost jobs again....the Military Aircraft contract went aboard. What avout CAFTA and FTAA? We know someone who does know what she needs to know.
Not someone who doesn't really know....what he doesn't know yet.
You are caught in Hype about that ad. I did see it as alarming and fear mongering. I saw it as a very good thing to think about and nothing more.
Clinton has already said McCain has proven himself and has experience. Why would she beat him? There is little difference between the two. They have both flip-flopped when they thought it to be politically expedient. We can not handle for more years of the same tactics that either Clinton or McCain would bring to the office. Use your brains people not your "fear" response.
Why nobody calls Hillary a flip-flopper??
Hillzilla isn't really a flip flopper. She is more anything goes and if you call her on it one of her multiple personalities takes care of it. Just flip-flopping is a comment to her all cost politics.
You need a much stronger word!
Multiple personalties? Hillzilla? Now compared to the phone ad that sounds like a negative, personal attack. At least I'm not sure I see the relvant policy being evaluated by a comparison to Hillary to Godzilla. Perhaps it highlights her love of endangered species?
Flip-flop does not have enough dimensions to contain the schizophrenic rantings of Sybillary
The ad is silly. What's not is Clinton's need to pad her resume with trips she took as First Lady that in no way impact her ability to be commander-in-chief. I she so insecure, she needs to invent a narrative that distorts the real record in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and elsewhere?
Hillary has a dangerous need to 'prove' herself. LBJ had to 'prove' himself as an anti-communist; the current President needed to 'prove' himself with a war on terror whose first shot was destroying Iraq.
Hillery needed to 'prove' herself on toughness by supporting Bush in Iraq. What next?
Yes, this hits it. My observation is she is driven by external forces to "proove" herself. And she will not let anything get in the way. We are all losing here. Tapping into the fear response is disgraceful. Obama seems driven by a desire to help greater amounts of people. I know, he's not perfect and he is a politician. I would much rather have his calm, unflappable judgement answering that 3 a.m. call.
I understand your point, but my worry is that Obama may go down with the ship unless he's more willing to deal with fear-based attacks head-on. Saying "that's so uncool" is not going to resonate with most Americans, including large numbers of working-class Democrats.
I worry that my friends who are of the "latte-liberal" variety and who adore Obama because he seems to have as strong a distaste for violence and bad manners as they do are unaware that they're encouraging him to run the same sort of out-of-touch campaign that doomed Kerry, Gore, Dukakis. It's nice to feel morally superior and all, but that moral superiority is precisely what has cost us elections and fueled the "liberal elite" tag the GOP has pinned on Democrats.
It makes no difference how eloquent and charming and high-minded Barack Obama is--if he cannot connect with the average Joe and Jane, who are most concerned with economic opportunity, health care, but also safety--all the feelgood speeches in the world won't cause them to vote for a nice but relatively unknown guy with lots of "foreignness" to him over an old warhorse like McCain who has a history of bipartisanship.
Obama has to ignore the academics and the suburban white professionals and urban gentrifiers, all of whom make up his most-spirited core of support, and instead court blue-collar Democrats. Now. If he loses them to Hillary and still manages to win on the delegate count (which will be controversial if she wins the popular vote, which she may if she keeps the blue-collar dems), he may not be able to hold onto them against McCain, who polls well among blue-collar dems and Independents.
In short, Obama's gotta show some cojones and a willingness to hit hard--against both Hillary and anyone who'd like to take a shot at the U.S.. Otherwise he risks losing the nomination. If he squeaks past Hillary, he'll probably lose to McCain, even with a recession and a quagmire in Iraq. That may sound incredible, but don't forget: we're a people who chose "security" four years ago, even though that involved voting for the dumbass that got us into a huge mess.
What if we made the "gutter" politics of the Clintons were made useless by maintaining the high road. Clinton thinks that being a slime ball is a qualification that she has and Obama needs to learn before he is ready to be pres.
I hope that his high road message is victorious and more people follow his lead. Clinton isn't leading anything. Do any of you want your kids growing up to be like the Clintons???? I don't.
Obama isn't going to loose against McCain unless Hillary wants him to. She may very well want the republicans to win for her next shot in 4 years. People who think she is putting the party first are nuts. The Clinton's never put anyone before themselves.
OBAMA/ZINNI Bring it!!!!!
Sadly, you are correct. The fear thing seems to work. It is dispicable but a reality. I think Obama is by far the best candidate and part of why I like him is he doesn't play these games. But he needs to win. He needs to come back hard.
I suggest a t.v. spot with clips of fear speeches by Cheney, Bush, McCarthy, McCain and then Clinton.
Then cut to "hope" speeches by Roosevelt, King Jr. , J. Kenney, R. Kennedy and then Obama.
Obama needs to hit back hard and educate people in the process.
I was an Obama skeptic until I attended his rally with Ted Kennedy at American University. If you could have felt the electric excitement in that room, heard his thoughtful, yet inspiring oration, I really think you would change your tune.
Obama should not get down in the mud with the Hill and Bill, McCain and Rove. Hill and Bill are playing a dangerous, transparent game that won't suceed in a restoration. It will only further taint their legacy.
Want to see how Sen. Clinton reacts under fire? The long held republican seat of Denis Hastert has just been taken by a democrat endorsed an campaigned for by Sen. Obama! It occurs to me that all congress persons are running, and that they are all super-delegates. If their offices were to be flooded with e-mails explaining the positive effect on their future that a rapid public endorsement of Sen. Obama could have, well, it simply wouldn't be right for them to ignore it, would it? And if it also sent Johnny McWarmonger the message that rolling in the mud with Barack is an unwise strategy, so much the better! There are enough super-delegates to put Sen. Obama over the top BEFORE the looming Pa. primary and it's feared smear on the reputation of the party!
Susan, that ad works because there are a lot of us out here who know that the world is a scary place, and we don't expect the bad guys of the world to be impressed with the audacity of hope.
It is sad to see that Bin laden ( further aided by Bush and the flawed middle-east strategy) has succeeded in his objective to make you, your children and grand-children shudder in your boots for years to come.
Probably it would be a good start to figure out how we can defeat fear instead of caving in to it. If you don't know what the problem is, you can't fix it, but if you know what the problem is then you can work towards a solution.
Hillary has set you up and you obviously know it. Don't let fear win.
no. the ad worked because 'a lot of you out there' are morons to lazy to do basic research on the individuals currently running for the highest office in the land, and making an intelligent decision about who is best qualified to lead.
if your way of dealing with the 'scary world' is to rely on sound bites and commercials to help you make important choices in your life, then you deserve whatever it is you get.
The world is not scary. Fear is nowhere but in your own mind.
The commercial asked an open ended question, it was actually neutral and could solicit an answer for just about anybody running for president. This was no attack, it was a mere question based on the surety that bad things to happen from time to time, whether it is a hurricane, an earthquake, an attack, civil war somewhere, plague, etc, the question of who you trust to have the skill set and experience needed to handle the crisis is very valid. I for one, trust Senator Clinton, especially after seeing her in action after 9/11 and being at the forefront of recognizing the potential chronic respiratory disease from breathing all the particulates that our heroes of the day faced in the days to come.
Well said. The ad isn't fear-mongering. It's a realistic assessment of the world, a dangerous place. Obamabots don't like the ad, because it works. Some of Obama's ads make me want to buy the world a Coke in perfect harmony, but they don't make me feel very secure. The peacenik fringe supporters of Obama must be very disappointed to find out from Ms. Power that Obama doesn't really mean all that stuff he's been saying about ending the war in Iraq. More "positioning," I guess. Just like the NAFTA-gate revelations.
The so called "NAFTA-gate" revelations were lies. More Clinton lies. The Canadian government has confirmed that Obama did not say what the Clinton people accused him of. It may be a realistic assessment of one aspect the world based on what we do in the world. Maybe a different approach to foreign policy and national security would make us safer or "feel" safer. Seems like "fear" is a feeling as well. I would rather feel hope.
jw, the ad was an appeal to fear and it should be repulsive to anyone who has just witnessed the bush administration use fear and the accusation of 'weakness' to bully Americans (like sen. clinton and many other democrats) into going along with a horrific war (unless sen. clinton's judgement really is that bad, which is even more scary).
There are indeed a lot of people whose perception is that the world is a lot more dangerous than it really is. Of course, that's not to say there isn't risk from terrorism. However, the threat to any given person is miniscule. Unfortunately, certain politicians seem to have made a lot of hay by appealing to our lizard brains.
I really applaud this answer. The core question is "Who do you want to answer the phone?" The ad certainly plays to the issue of experience and there is a ominous subtone but the only fear mongering is that at 3 a.m. the President will have to make calls on issues that matter and perhaps quickly without a lot of input from key advisors. I'm not sure that this is a lot different from Mr. Obama campaign's emphais on the issue of judgement. The ad highlights the issue of experience v. judgement without experience in international relations and suggests that experience is more important. But if you believe that experience is not that important, then you may answer the question differently than the "narrator" of the ad. The ad does not mention Obama by name, it certainly does not attack him personally. Just because Hillary paid for the ad, I'm not sure that the ad has that much punch unless you are sensitive to the experience issue. Mr. Obama, in turn, is free to ask, what is this experience really? This is not a negative attack, it just says you claim it, show it to me. (Although its funny that now Mr. Obama wants to raise the experience issue against Hillary)
The "red phone" ad could be used by anyone by changing the experience line to emphasize whatever particular item or characteristic that the "narrator" found important. I think Mr. Obama could easily run the same ad with one of his campaign themes, such as "Do you want someone that gave that moron George Bush discretion to do anything let alone go to war" or "Do you want the person on the other end of the phone to hear a new voice in America, or get the same tired response that the US has always given" or "Do you want the person that answers the phone to have the vision to move away from overly aggessive knee jerk US policies that have sapped respect for the US in the world and made us more vulnerable?". Or make it about health care or Katrina or whatever. Its a phone call.
While I'm not sure that going negative, particulalry in a primary, makes anyone appear noble or virtuous, I do not believe its a personal attack to highlight genuine differences between the candidates. This hypersensitivty to the "negative" issue is part of what makes experience so important in this campaign. All the way back to "You're likable enough Hillary", I believe Obama takes critiscism or attacks poorly. The very nature of his "high minded" campaign is that it is "negative" to clash over the issues, such as experience or the differences in their health care policies. If the policies are different, what is the harm of clearly saying that?
Why does anyone think that John McCain is going to be nicer to either Ms. Clinton or Mr. Barak as the Democratic candidate than they will be with each other. I'm not sure that Mr. Obama has ever been in a real, hard fought campaign. Certainly, he avoided a nasty campaign when he ran for U.S. Senate. Maybe he will do better than I think, but I KNOW how Hillary deals with mean spirited critiscism and I do trust her to deal decisively with adversity and opposition. Mr. Barak 's campaign style seems directed to condemning tough questions HE does not want to answer in the name of unity or "the New Politics". And his only response to any hard questions he doesn't want to answer is That's not right, I'm above all that. Hello, remember Willie Horton, the word liberal, the "risky proposition", the whole Swift boat thing (how the hell did someone who dodged Vietnam turn the war record issue around on someone that was there getting shot at -- even if Kerry did exaggerate his war record, he HAD a war record and didn't duck and hide from his civic responsibility). The Republicans have proven themselves masters of making elections about nonsense themes and highly charged (but not necessarily important issues) like values and not issues. They are really good at it. Saying, "No, that's not right or not fair" has lost the White House several times in my lifetime, I'd bet its not going to derail the Republican machine this time either. And I've heard the argument ever since I can remember (back to Nixon in '72), that everyone is tired of negative ads and neative politics, but people do them because THEY WORK! -- they always have and I guess that they probably always will. We say we don't like them but we react to them. They do what they're supposed to do and I bet that they will in this campaign, too. McCain is a fighter; Hillary is a fighter, Obama?
Oh please, the ad is basic fear mongering 101. Any entry level marketing student gets it. What fear mongers might answer the phone:
McCarthy, Cheney, Bush, McCain, Clinton.
If we use our brains and approach foreign policy and national security in an intelligent way and not use it create fear in our citizens we would be far better off. What hope mongers might answer the phone:
Roosevelt, King Jr., J. Kennedy, R. Kennedy, Obama.
Really, think people.
Ok, clearly I did not study entry level marketing. In fact there are many that will tell you that it is obvious in everything I say and do. So please explain the "obvious" to me. How is the ad fear mongering if you do not believe that experience is relevant or you believe Mr. Obama has more or nearly as much experience as Ms. Clinton. Doesn't the question become rhetorical? Respectfully.
Hey, Susan, shouldn't the real issue be why we are so focused on the Commander-in-Chief aspect of the office? After 8 years of the Bushies' Pre-emptive Doctrine aren't we all tired of our Dept. of War being our foreign policy face? Don't we all want to get back to diplomacy and statesmanship? The Commander-in-Chief part of the office shouldn't be the focus of the office. We need to know which of these candidates is going to prosecute the criminals from the Bushies, which one is going to restore the balance of power to our government by deconstructing the Unitary Executive that Darth and Addington have built, which one is going to restore our Constitutional rights that have been usurped by the Bushies and so many more really tough issues. The media is whipping us all into a frenzy with stupid questions that play into stupid headlines and all the while we, the voters, are getting cheated out of hearing where the candidates stand on the truly important issues facing our country. Let's all just stop playing into the media's hands and get serious about this campaign.
Good point. I've posted elsewhere that I'm voting for a president who happens to be CIC of the armed forces and not vice versa. Let's get a grip on reality. This whole war meme has seemingly warped our collective political consciousness.
Great point! This is a good talking point to spread around.
ARE YOU DISGUSTED THAT SHE RAN THE AD...OR ARE YOU SIMPLY FEARFUL THAT IT MAY WORK?
The flipside to avoiding war is being able to wage war. Is the world really that safe? is it really out of the real of reality that we could get hit by some form of attack?
One fallacy that people like Susan Griffiths oprate with is that they wanna argue that Bush made the world a more dangerous place with his pre-emptive war, but they don't want to acknowlegde that it is a dangerous place. I know some will have to think about that for a moment to get it, but Obama said there was no Al-Qaeda in Iraq until Bush let it in...well it's there now so why are some saying the thought of a 3AM emergency is fear mongering? I think it's reality mongering.
If you wanna attempt to make a case that you feel Obama can better handle the current threats, then make that case, but don't say there are no threats out there when you're candidate is accusing the current administration and his rivals of creating the threat.
Seriously, ask yourself if the threat is there or not. I think it's there, but at the same time it's not something I worry about everyday, but then I also don't worry about health insurance, mortgage crisis, bi-partisanship, bringing the country together, race or gender everyday either.
Sid,
It's clear that the ad was exploiting our own fears about protecting our children from whatever possible danger they might encounter. People generally know full well that the world is a dangerous place, which is why people also tend to cave in to that fear when our buttons are pushed, when our feelings are manipulated. I think it was precisely this fear that was used to whip the house and senate into line so that Bush and Cheney could invade Iraq. If there's anything that we should have learned from the Iraq debacle (aside from bringing more troops than we think we'll need), it's that we need to beware of our own knee-jerk reactions and the fears that drive us into poor decisions. I see this ad as a reprise of that kind of mistake.
Something else to remember: Obama was for an invasion of Afghanistan, but was one of the cool heads who called for rethinking our rabid intent to march into Iraq. I think it's the same tempered judgment that will actually put us and the rest of the world more at ease.
You might ask yourself whether voting to authorize a conflict that creates a threat, and then exploiting the threat you had a hand in creating for the sake of defeating someone who had better judgment in the first place, is actually a strategy that you could support. If I were part of a mafia family, I would probably support it - in any other context, I wouldn't.
I don't feel expoloited by the ad...I had a very rational reaction to it.
Obama's entire campaign is premised on the "knee-jerk" reaction of voting for change. Don't you realize that ever challenger in presidential elections offers change as the prime reason to vote for them? Where's the proof he will bring about change?
Obama gave a speech opposing the war in 2002 when he wasn't in the Senate, but now that he's there he votes alongside Clinton. Is that change you can believe in?
There's nothing going to happen at 3:00am or any other time any where in the world that will require a split-second decision by the President. That's what all those services and agencies are for. The President isn't going to call the police for you or send the rescue squad or change an alert -status code he's going to be told about it by the people we pay to respond to these sorts of things. He will then get on the phone and make sure that its being done right within policy guidelines. Remember when the planes flew into the World Trade Center? There's actual film footage of a guy telling Mr. Bush what was in progress and he . . . kept reading "My Pet Goat" to a bunch kindergarten kids.
Al-Qaeda was NOT in Iraq until we got there because it was run by a brutal secular dictator who would kill anyone even suspected of supporting such a thing. Gen. William Odom, former head of NSA, has publicly stated that if we pull out of Iraq Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq will be butchered(his word not mine) by the Iraqi's because they are foreigners. I don't see a flood of them running through the country blowing up strip malls so I'm not sure how they'll really hurt us. Remember that the worst act of terrorism committed on US soil prior to 911 was carried out by a disgruntled ex-soldier and self-described "Christian", maybe we should round up everyone fitting that description and ship them off to Gitmo for waterboarding.
It may not be at 3AM, but something is going to happen.
Sen. Obama is much more savvy about the threats we face than clinton is. His opposition to the war was partly for our own protection and to keep us focused on afghanastan. And he said he was willing to target terrorists in pakistan and for that he was mocked by both clinton and mccain--until the pentagon took out a high ranking al qaida leader in pakistan with a missile a few weeks ago-- exactly what obama said he'd do-- don't hear mccain attacking the bush admin. for that action.
What has Obama done about Afghanistan? By his own admission, he's been to busy campaigning to hold Senate sub-committee (he's the chair in case you didn't know) hearings on what NATO can do to help because he was too busy campaigning. Will he be too busy running for re-election to do things if he gets elected?
I'm not trying to be snide about this, but how can Obama premise a campaign on the idea that he was not only against the invasion of Iraq, but in support of the war in Afghanistan, but not do anything to make progress in Afghanistan? How can you support that? What kind of judgment is that?
You do realize that striking targets within the border of a sovereign country is an act of war, don't you? I realize it's not on the scale of a 150,000 troop invasion, but you should know that it is an act of war nonetheless...just as many Americans premised 9/11 as an act of war.
I am not fearful that it worked. It did work. I am saddened. I am sad the fear won over intelligence. I am sad that so many American are still in fear and that politicians exploit it. I thought we could move on, progress and get real things accomplished. Being fearful about the world around you doesn't change the reality. It paralizes people into inaction just as the powers that be like it. Clinton or McCain, doesn't really matter. The outcome of either of those people in charge would differ on only a handful of issues.
Clinton = McCain = Bush = Cheney = McCarthy = FEAR
Obama = R. Kennedy = J. Kennedy = King Jr. = Roosevelt = HOPE
Hopeful is not necessarily the most important quality, state of being or position when war or other unknown emergencies are the discussion. I prefer confidence and action.
Also, I would contend that Clinton has as many positives she would like for our country as Obama does. She's not devoid of inspiration and hope (even though Obama supporters will say she is).
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