Friday, August 29, 2008

it's not experience, it's qualifications

no one has presidential experience, except an ex-president. We're not looking for someone who did the job before; we're looking for someone who can do it now. We're looking for someone who has shown by their life of activities, and words, and thoughts, and relationships, and accomplishments, and challenges and successes; and also failures and what they learned from them, that a person is qualified to be President.

It made no sense to me when Hilary Clinton made an issue of experience, and the issue failed to persuade voters and she eventually dropped it. Now John McCain is trying the same issue (in fact so far his whole campaign has been lifted from Clinton's playbook: experience, elitism, and now an appeal to feminist identity politics - and remember, she lost). Clinton and McCain don't have presidential experience, neither do Obama and Biden, but all four of them are qualified to be President.

The question is not whether Sarah Palin's two years as the Alaska state governor gives her presidential experience, of course not, but that's not the issue. The issue is whether she is qualified to be President. And here the answer is obviously, and dangerously "No." To demure and say she was picked only as the Vice President, takes a very reckless approach to our nation's future. And that degree of recklessness from John McCain then raises doubts about his own qualification for the job of President.

2 comments:

Bill Baar said...

...the answer is obviously, and dangerously...

How so? Elaborate on the obvious...

(Readers can decide if it's dangerous.)

And how much to you know about Obama?

Doug said...

A recent study determined that John McCain is TEN TIMES more likely to die in office than Barack Obama.
I'd rather take my chances with Obama than a possibility of a President Palin. Her record on gay rights issues alone makes Bush look like Barney Frank.