Obama knows he's going to get slaughtered on national security
 

His distortion of McCain's "100 year" comment to mean a "100-year war" is evidence of how insecure his campaign is on the issue. If Obama had any real security credentials, he'd be able to attack on substance. Instead, he's relying on uneducated voters who don't understand what McCain meant.

Amusing.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/0...-war-comments/

What exactly are McCain's national security credentials? That he was a soldier in Vietnam?

What were Clintons or Bush's?

Since the Pentagon makes our security decisions, I am not really worried about credentials. Perhaps you can help me understand what McCain knows that Obama does NOT know or cannot readily find out from one of his cabinet members or advisors?

This is a bi-partisan comment, actually. I am not convinced that any of our past presidents had any special or noteworthy "national security credentials." What were Reagan's?

The older I get, the more I realize that our Presidents do very little other than travel around, give speeches, and waste taxpayer money on elaborate motorcades.

I generally agree. However, I'm still very convinced (and this may, in fact, be my quirkiest political belief) that Reagan's military policies brought down the Soviet Union. Star Wars was the most effective weapon never built.

I agree. Reagan unapologetically telling Gorbachev that the US would defend itself against the Soviet Union is what I believe won the cold war. Gorbachev felt that it wasn't a bluff.

But I think his point was that Reagan had no military experience or bona fides and yet Tex would still enthusiastically point out how great he thought Reagan was in foreign affairs.

You don't think ending the Cold War is good foreign affair?

We are talking about foreign affairs experience prior to being elected. I don't think Reagan could have claimed ending the Cold War as experience prior to his election. What am I missing?

Then I misread your post above, as I thought you posted that Tex thought Reagan was great in foreign affairs, rather than any experience before he took office.

I agree with you that Reagan didn't have any experience in it before he took office.

But Reagan had been governor of California and Obama has no experience whatsoever. Reagan had the ear of the military, but Obama is considered the enemy of the military. That aspect is significant.

No. My point with Tex was that Tex wouldn't have ever mentioned with Reagan his total lack of foreign affairs experience prior to assuming the presidency, and yet today would tell you Reagan was one of the greatest foreign affairs presidents we have had. Me thinks Tex focuses on "experience" as a critical issue only when it suits him.

Obama is considered the "enemy of the military?" Where do you get that idea? If you mean "Archaea considers Obama the enemy of the military," we can agree. Otherwise...

What does being governor of California have to do with foreign affairs as opposed to being a US Senator?

Check out this link, Arch... It doesn't seem to support your theory.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/...ry_shifti.html

We've been over this before, Cali. Obviously experience is not the sole predictor of Presidential success.

To TripletDaddy's question ... are you serious about McCain's credentials? Have you familiarized yourself with the man's history at all? Listen, I'm no McCain fan as anyone here can tell you, but there's no question he understands the military. Let's at least be real here.

And no, Reagan did not have significant national security credentials. But then again he didn't get slaughtered on the issue because of it either; he didn't need to lie about Carter's failures (or misconstrue some idle comment) because they were obvious. In fact if memory serves, Reagan came across as infinitely better prepared on the issue than the sitting President. And Reagan wasn't perfect in office anyway. Not long ago his cut-and-run from Beirut was mentioned. But Reagan's foreign policy successes far outweighed any failures.

Thus the comparison is obtuse. Obama has none of this. He has no gravitas. He has no credibility. Earlier in the campaign he sounded more like a Code Pink protestor than a responsible adult commander-in-chief. Obama isn't Reagan. He's Kofi Annan.

But don't take my word for it. Watch his campaign. Watch what a big deal he makes out of the so-called "100-year war". This is not the rhetoric of a man confident in the American people's support of his security positions.

Again, do me the favor and outline what his credentials are. Your response is simply evasive and non-responsive. Being a soldier, spending a chunk of it as a POW, does not give you "national security credentials." Please walk me through what you feel are his top 3 or 4 specific traits or credentials that give him a clear advantage over Obama. I am pretty clueless as to these obvious characteristics to which you refer. Sounds like you are too.

To everyone else who has responded, Reagan actually proves my point....he had ZERO national security experience when elected...yet his charisma and his oratory (tear down this wall) was very effective...as was the accumulation of silos all over the globe. Arch mentioned California as a redeeming quality on Reagan's resume, but I am sure he was joking, as being the Governor of California has nothing to do with establishing "national security credentials."

The big difference that I see between and Obama when it comes to national defense is that Reagan wouldn't hesitate to kick some ass. Obama thinks we should talk.

I'd prefer a guy who doesn't put up with any crap and McCain is more like that.

Graduate of the the Naval Academy, Aviator in the Navy and continued military service until 1981, a year before he was elected to congress.

He comes from a military family. Born on a military base. Grew up in the military culture. His direct ancestors have fought in every war the U.S. has entered into, including his father as a commanding officer in Vietnam.

Ranking member and former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Cmmte.

In sum, McCain has spent his entire life in and around the military. His family life, education, career, and political career have all been tied to the military.

I am fine with all of that.

If your conclusion is simply, "look, i dont really have any specifics, i just like X instead of Y," then cool. More power to you.

But if someone starts talking BS about how one candidate lacks "national security credentials," then I want to know exactly what credentials the other candidate has that absolves him from the same accusation. Clue me in if you have it all figured out.

Tex is basically unable to point to specific things, so he responds with the old "if you dont know, I am not going to tell you."

The bottom line is that McCain really has no national security credentials.

He was a soldier in Vietnam, but not sure how that makes him qualified to ensure the safety of our own borders. He cant even keep Arizona's border intact. Also, as a soldier, he was shot down and captured for 5 years. Awesome. He is SO much more qualified....

It's not evasive and non-responsive. I'm simply stunned that someone would ask such a stupid question, particularly when the answers are so widely available. There's plenty of places to get educated about his military involvement (here's his Wikipedia page, for starters), but here's a quick summation:

- Grandfather was a Navy Admiral
- Father was a Navy Admiral (thus he grew up around military life and culture)
- US Naval Academy Graduate
- Naval Flight school graduate
- Served 6 years as naval combat pilot, including surviving two crashes
- Had flown 23 bombing missions when captured in Vietnam
- Spent 5.5 years as POW, surviving torture
- Attended National War College
- Became CO of a Florida training squadron and earned Meritorius Unit Commendation
- Served as US Senate Naval liason for 4 years
- Retired after 20 years in the Navy at rank of Captain
- Served on the Senate Armed Forces Committee since 1987 (is currently the Ranking Minority member)
- Was member of Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs

Refer to this list the next time you get an ignorant urge to call me "clueless".

Perhaps I unnecessarily distracted from my point by using the word "credentials". It appears to have distracted the myopic to highlighting every successful president who had no military experience. Yes, there exists a successful commander-in-chief who was once an actor. This is no great secret. You think you're the first to come up with it?

Obama doesn't have any credibility on national security. Reagan did. Rightly or wrongly, people believed Reagan ... they felt he knew what he was talking about and they trusted his vision of what America should be abroad. And once in office, Reagan proved that by and large, he DID know what he was doing.

Obama doesn't have that. And he's up against a candidate who can make an even better case for himself than Reagan did. This 100-year distortion reflects that insecurity. If you can't see that--what a great weakness this is for him--you're just whistling Dixie.

This statement alone reflects so much ignorance it really makes further discussion pointless.

Walk me through his military service, as it pertains to "national security credentials."

Born on a military base? His direct ancestors and family were in the military? Serious?

If that is where we are at, then just do yourself a favor and admit that you are not really aware of any specific credentials pertaining to national security.

The only one I would agree with as being remotely persuasive is his tenure on the Armed Services Committee...except I have no real idea what he does on that committee. It is mostly an oversight committe. Liddy Dole is a member, too. Should we elect her on her national security credentials? Also, the ASC oversees pensions, R&D, and other ancillary matters.

The real decisions are made by the Pentagon, not the ASC. Unless we are worried about a President who can help make decisions about retirement benefits for old soldiers.

Your basic contention was that since he went to a military academy, flew in Vietnam, and now sits on a Committee that helps oversee military pensions, that he also has some level of expertise on national security.

My grandfather was a WW2 soldier. My father was in the National Guard (before I was born). I guess that gives me some measure of national security credential. Sweet. Maybe I should run for office.

I guess we're dealing with a definitional problem. What do you mean by "national security credentials?" Education? Experience? Rank? Non-military?

Perhaps if I understood your expectation of an answer a little better I could look at Wikipedia on your behalf.

This is likely best answered by Tex. It is his offering, not mine. Tex claimed that Obama lacked any real security credentials. I asked him for 3 or 4 specific examples of national security credentials.

So far, we have, amongst others, that he was born on a military base (that one was yours. It was pretty sweet, actually), that he went to the Naval Academy about 50 years ago, that he was a pilot in Vietnam (shot down and captured, btw), and that he currently sits on an oversight committee with Liddy Dole helping to decide fair pensions for retired soldiers.

I don't see how any of this pertains specifically to our current national security threats...ie, terrorism, border patrol, and illegal immigration. Help me see it.

McCain is the Senator for a state that is one of the most notoriously LACKING in border control. Has he done anything in AZ that has helped control the tide of illegal immigrants? I think that is way more relevant than the fact that his grandfather was a soldier.

When pressed about Reagan's complete lack of national security experience, the only response seems to be, "well, Reagan was different, but I cant really explain why...."

Hell yeah that was sweet.

I now realize you're just baiting Tex.

Carry on.

I came to that conclusion too. I should've seen through the trolling earlier. Good one, DDD.

I just realized that by extension, being born in a hospital qualifies all of us with credentials in the field of medicine.

Also, the knowledge and experience correlated to the occupations of my relatives will somehow transfer to me, thereby giving me great insights into many areas.

The future is bright for me.

Let me know when you dig up some specific answers to these questions.

Until then, do you think Liddy Dole and John McCain are going to come up with some sweet solutions to how much vacation time is fair for officers in the Army?

Once he is done tackling that, he will be ready to take on Al Qaeda.

So you're saying Obama would have done
 

the same as Reagan? Then you are delusional.

It's a combo of being firm, knowing your enemy, and willingness to use whatever power to protect the US. I'm not sure Obama has any of the above attributes.

Do you even realize the hypocrisy of what you just wrote?

You acknowledge that Reagan had no national security credentials (i.e., no gravitas, no credibility). And yet, you find he was a sensational leader in foreign affairs. You note that he wasn't criticized on his lack of foreign affairs (I don't know why that is relevant, unless you are saying he should have been), but was able to criticize the policies of the previous president (Carter) because they were so bad. Then you conclude there is no comparison. Odd, because that sounds like the exact same situation to me- just replace Obama's name with Reagan and Bush's name with Carter.

I do find the fact that he is only a couple of years removed from the state house disquieting. I think of my own delegate running for president three or four years from now and it makes me shudder. But I think it is right to say that there have been those with little foreign policy experience who have done fine. There are others who have not.

Much more troubling to me is what he says he is going to do, which is begin an troop withdrawal very quickly. What I want to hear, from any of them, is that their goal for the Iraq War is x. And that as of today, tactic y appears best calculated to achieve that objective, with the caveat that so much changes between today and January that new tactics to achieve x may be needed by then.

To simply say that you are going to draw troops down is not a tactic to achieve any foreign policy goal. It is a tactic to please the electorate. I'm not necessarily saying that is a bad thing to please the electorate, but I do think we all need to be aware that it is not a foreign policy or plan but rather a domestic election strategy.

My honest assessment of Obama is that he does not put forth any real plan on Iraq (1) because he astutely realizes that he may not need to and as things change it could undermine him and (2) because he doesn't at this point comprehend what is going on there. I don't mean that as a slam, but I do think until you have the joint chiefs reporting to you and are getting the daily security assessment you only have a cursory understanding of the complexity of things. This is not unique to him. It is also the reason I don't worry that much about what any new president may do. They will find this January that their options are very, very few.

I believe that just change of face and personality in the White House will help. Sort of like when Crowton left BYU, any warm body not named Crowton was going to help right away by simply not being his predecessor. I don't really mind Obama on foreign policy because, as I say, I think he will not do anything radical as commender in chief. I will likely vote against him for two reasons: (1) liberal jurists (2) he is perhaps the most liberal member of the senate.

*Sigh* Why do I bother trying to unravel your contortions ...

Wrong. I said Reagan came with no national security credentials (that I remember, anyway). I said Obama had no gravitas or credibility.

He was, but that's not really relevant. We're talking about during the campaign.

It's relevant because though Reagan was neither a military man (though I think he did enlist; don't think he saw combat) nor a foreign affairs expert, he came across as knowledgeable and confident in his views. People trusted him on national security. The fact that Carter was such miserable failure at it only helped him further.

In other words, Reagan succeeded on the issue despite his credentials. Obama has none to begin with, his opinions shared thus far have been immature (to put it politely), and he's up against a candidate who is very strong on the issue.

I can't see how there's any similarity at all. It's like saying Obama and Reagan both liked to eat at McDonald's. Yeah, so?

Obama isn't running against Bush, a fact many libs have yet to figure out. He'll be (presumably) running against McCain.

He's weak, and his "100-year war" attack reflects that.

Very well put. There's no way to go but up from the current administration. I also think you're correct about Obama and foreign policy--he's wise enough not to shake anything up too much.

You're second point is what I'm amazed that everyone seems to be overlooking. I'm finding all these people who are talking about voting for Obama, but who would NEVER vote for Clinton. You press them on it and they have no idea why, other than he's trendy and "shiny". This guy has the most liberal voting record in the senate. I don't have a problem with Calicoug voting for him as he obviously has liberal opinions. But Obama's got this huge voting block that have no idea why they're voting for him, and I think they'll get a rude awakening to find out that he's nothing new--it's standard Ted Kennedy liberalism.

I have no opinion on Obama's National Defense credibility, but I've got to throw in here...

To minimize the effect personal experience in the military has in one's understanding of the workings of said military, the effects of war on soldiers, and so on, is incredibly dishonest. This knowledge on the inner workings of the military cannot be underestimated in terms of National Defense.

Furthermore, while the fact that my father was a retail-store manager for 30 years doesn't qualify me as being a credentialed economist, it certainly gives me some insight into the effects of minimum wages on the operation of a business. My degree in economics, however recent, certainly does give me those credentials.

The items Tex listed are, to me, compelling reasons to trust McCain in terms of National Defense as POTUS.



IMO, you're barking up the wrong tree here. Your best bet is the route Cali has taken. I find his arguments in this case to be far more compelling. Alternatively, pointing out the inherent fallacy in the original post would be the way I would go (specifically, that attacking someone using that person's support for an unpopular war isn't defensive in nature at all - it's an offensive tactic, and may well be effective in the anti-war community).

To be fair, I think a large portion of the voting populace have no real understanding of why they're voting for the person they're voting for. I don't think the general public is as educated on the issues as they should be.

The effects of war on soldiers? Here is the effect of war on soldiers....it traumatizes and scars them for life. Since McCain understands this, are you suggesting that he will pull everyone out of Iraq, where we are currently at war? What is the relevance of understanding the effect of war on soldiers?

The POTUS has very little, if any, contact with the military at the troop level (other than the aforementioned speeches and expensive motorcades). The POTUS stays in Washington, gets briefed by the Pentagon and his cabinet advisors, asks them what THEY think we should do, and then goes with it. Do you think the Pentagon presented GWB with a plan for invading Iraq and then Bush said...."no, I think we should flank from the left, not the right!"

I have already taken the stance that neither resume (Obama nor McCain) truly qualifies them to do ANY of the things everyone is talking about....what knowledge do either of them have of running the nation's economy? What do they know about sealing our national borders? What inside information does either man have with regards to the state of the environment? These men spend the majority of their lives in meetings and giving speeches. Everything they know is largely fed to them by someone else...they dont even write their own speeches, for cying out loud.

The only intellectual dishonesty being perpetrated here is the notion that one stuffed shirt "lacks serious credentials," while the other stuffed shirt has them.

The notion that McCain is a credible source for national defense is almost laughable. Didnt he basically finish dead last at the Naval Academy? He basically almost flunked out of school....the very place many here are proporting that he received credible training to lead up our national security efforts.

The critique that Obama has no specific plan for Iraq is fair. I get it. So what is the specific plan coming from McCain? one plan is to leave.....it is criticized for not being specific enough. The other plan simply seems to be to stay...with no real ability to provide an accurate timeline or details. Why is one plan more credible than the other.

The real issue is not to determine which person is the most "qualified." It should be to determine which person assembles the strongest overall team.

Mitt was allegedly the most qualified candidate...the brilliant strategist....yet he failed to run an effective campaign and failed to focus on key strengths....so much for his "gravitas" and "qualifications" as someone who can anticipate problems and adapt to them.

Do you realize how nonsensical what you just wrote was? Your argument appears to be (now) that neither Reagan nor Obama had national security credentials, but Reagan was better at convincing us that it didn't matter (because of his "gravitas and credibility" that Obama "doesn't have"). lol! Solid argument there, Tex, particularly given that the main reason given by many of his supporters (as even you have acknowledged, and then criticized, in the past, is his gravitas and credibility ("He just seems genuine and different")).

I think you will quickly find that the "experience" factor you so commonly allude to isn't going to help McCain out at all. Experience is something we look to as a predictor. It isn't a guarantee that anyone will be either good or bad at another job, particularly when that other job is so far more involved than anything any candidate is currently experienced in.

In addition to experience as a predictor, people look to statements made by candidates to determine what they will do, as well as votes on certain issues in the past (where applicable).

McCain has the unfortunate reality, politically, of being on the wrong side of the debate on whether to remain in Iraq or withdraw. The war is exceptionally unpopular, and people want to get out. McCain has no interest in getting out, and he certainly can't define for the American people how long we need to stay or what needs to be accomplished before we get out (which is what Obama is highlighting with McCain's 100 year comment- McCain doesn't have a clue what he is committing to other than an open-ended commitment).

If you think his 100 year comment hurts Obama because Obama repeats it, I think you don't understand American politics. You also clearly don't understand the reasoning behind Obama's use of the quote, particularly given your very odd insistence that it must mean, it MUST, that Obama doesn't understand foreign policy. How you even arrive at that conclusion is beyond me.

You really ought to stop typing. You're not helping your case.

Being President is easy! Just do what you're told!

Until you can cite something to the contrary, I have no reason to stop typing.

Being a President isnt easy--it is a lot work....travel, speeches, motorcades, debriefings, rinse, repeat. But it doesnt require any personal specialities in the areas of economics, military, environment, education, etc..

On the other hand, being Tex seem to be easy. Lob out partisan rhetoric and then hide behind empty platitudes when asked for specifics.

Being a good president is likely the hardest job in the world, I would guess.

Yep, that pretty much sums it up. Sums up politics, actually. Reagan was excellent at convincing people his national security approach was right, despite whatever his background was. And he was running against a weak foreign policy candidate to boot.

Obama has neither of these advantages.

More than a predictor, it goes toward the issue of judgment. Obama's given us no reason to trust his judgment on security. Reagan did. McCain is.

I agree people are weary of the war, but I don't think the cut-and-run philosophy is as popular as you think. We'll see.

It doesn't "MUST" mean he doesn't understand foreign policy. It reflects how weak he is politically on the issue. Saying McCain wants a "100-years war" is an obtuse distortion, relying on people to be uninformed and stupid.

I have. But keep talking. You make yourself look more fringe.

You were the one saying it's just doing what you're told.