Someone else noticed! 2008 candidates unqualified for Prez!

John B. Judis has a piece in The New Republic called “Nobody running in 2008 is qualified to be president.”

Someone noticed!! Well, knock me down with a feather.

Mostly behind a firewall, but the little you can read, includes this……

What worries me is the foreign policy experience of the six leading candidates. Four of them–Republicans Giuliani and Romney and Democrats Edwards and Obama–have none. Clinton’s experience was largely by osmosis when she was first lady. She remained on the sidelines as a senator. Only one of the candidates, McCain, appears to have thought long and hard–and to have been in the thick of the national debate–about America’s position in the world. But in his dogged pursuit of a neoconservative agenda, McCain shows little evidence of having acquired any wisdom from that experience….

Matt Yglesias concurs, and adds….

……Inexperienced candidates tend to make reference to the fact that they’ll be backstopped by veteran advisors and professionals which is, of course, true. The trouble is that what inexperienced presidents-elect normally do is decide that they want to keep their options open and parcel out the top jobs such that all the major strains of thought present within his party are represented at a high level. This, in turn, tends to lead to some of the floundering. People with conflicting visions get appointed because the president doesn’t have a clear vision of his own, and then the president approaches his early big decisions as a personnel management issue (how do I keep the whole team on board) rather than figuring it out.

I think there’s potentially a real problem here. A Democrat taking office in 2009 is going to face an ongoing national security crisis — call it “the Bush administration legacy” — from Day One. And, unfortunately, it’s not going to be possible to just press a button and undo it all.

The MSM and many in the blogosphere can’t seem to wrap their tiny little minds around this. They are, for whatever reason, happy with the “freak show”.

Cable news? Fine! They are in the entertainment business after all. But what I don’t get are the political blogs…..the big guys. Apart from Matt Stoller, Steve Gilliard and Steve Clemons, they all pretty much ignore the need for NS experience. They think that making Wes Clark SOS will cover it….

No! It won’t!

The President makes the decisions. With the country…indeed the world…in the mess it’s in, and likely to be worse by 2009, we simply can’t afford Hillary/Obama/Edwards in the driver’s seat. Muddling through foreign policy will not work. in today’s geopolitical climate.

Yglesias and Judis have shown they get it. And I fervently hope that Judis’s article gets talked about, passed around, and discussed on TV, because this meme will be perfect for laying the groundwork for a Wes Clark candidacy.

The Hagel Dynamic

Steve Clemons is all a twitter at the thought of Chuck Hagel entering the presidential race. Since Steve’s forte is national security, I can understand his excitement.

Agree with him or not, you have to admit that Hagel’s has been the loudest, most consistent voice (except for Wes Clark) among possible contenders, on the debacle that is Iraq, and indeed, Bush’s whole foreign policy “vision”.

I think Clemons is right in as much as his entry could really shake up the race….

……..I’m must concerned about getting the Democratic contenders to shape up. I think with Hagel in the race — they will have little choice but to mimick his views on the Iraq War and foreign policy.

Wes Clark played this role on being the first significant political player to endorse direct negotiations with Iran.

Hagel will stir the pot in good ways. Americans need to get to know him to see if the other issues they care about mesh with the Senator’s views — but on foreign policy and national security and Iraq — I think he gets it right.

With Hagel in the mix, the current Dem contenders will have to face national security head on, instead of the usual sound bites and we all know how much they prefer to retreat to the safe cocoon of domestic politics.

As Matt Yglesias points out ….

When an issue is important to them, Democrats will really fight for it. Not just lip service –

But…..

I by no means begrudge airport baggage screeners their newfound union rights. Still, the speed, alacrity, and daring with which the Democrats pushed forward on this issue does make a telling contrast with the parties sloth and timidity in taking the progressive side in other fights about national security issue…..

And finally this…

Sadly, there are virtually no institutions of any consequence organized around providing a progressive take on the substance — as opposed to labor procedures — of national security issues. And until that changes, you’ll keep having what we have today; a Democratic Party with very clear ideas about whether or not airport screeners should be represented by unions, but very hazy ideas about how to deal with Iran.

I’m not sure that Hagel can win the nomination. As with the Dem primary process, he will have to contend with the “crazy” base. But just like Wes Clark, if he survives the primaries, he’d have a damn good chance at winning the GE. The war in Iraq is just going to get worse, not to mention Iran and Afghanistan. By 2008, the electorate will once again look for a “daddy” and if the Dems don’t have one in the running, they will turn to the Republicans again.

Which brings me to Wes Clark.

He has to get in the race!! No ifs ands or buts.

He is the only Dem who can take on the likes of Hagel and McCain….and he’d wipe the floor with Giuliani.

I think a Hagel candidacy will do many things but most of all, it will help Wes Clark. Even some in our “crazy” base will be forced to stand up and take notice.

Clark and Hagel will so obviously be the grown ups in the race, and boy, that’s a contest I’d pay money to see.

StopIranWar.com

Wes Clark’s second push to stop an attack on Iran

Wes Clark has sent out another plea for action to help stop a war with Iran. This one includes a great video.

Silence.

That is what worries me. With every passing day that the administration won’t talk to Iran, we come closer to an Iranian nuclear weapon, and the time at which the decision must be made whether or not the administration will use its military option.

In today’s video blog, Jon Soltz, chairman of VoteVets.org, and I discuss the serious consequences of using military force against Iran–the impact on our men and women in uniform, U.S. influence in the region, and the stability of the Middle East.

The Bush Administration may refuse to have direct talks with Iran, but we cannot remain silent.

An attack on Iran will put additional strain on our already overextended military. It could well affect the United States’ ability to extricate our forces from Iraq, as our troops will likely face even more attacks on the ground. And there will be potential for hostilities on American embassies abroad, a hike in oil prices, and an increased likelihood of terrorist attacks wherever Hizballah has active cells. You just don’t know, and quite frankly, I don’t want us to find out.

I need you to stand with me today.

Make your voice heard. Tell George W. Bush war with Iran is not the answer.

Visit StopIranWar.com and sign the petition today!

Then be sure to watch our latest video blog.

Your efforts are having an impact. The media is starting to pay attention. Democratic leaders in Washington are starting to act. But we can’t rest now. We cannot remain silent.

You would think that Daily Kos, MyDD and many of the other big lefty blogs would be all over this. I mean, what could be more important than trying to stop the Middle East from going up in flames, not to mention the additional danger to the men and women on the ground in Iraq? But they appear to be more interested in trying to get the candidates to say no to the Fox hosted debate in Nevada. StopIranWar.com offers a badge they can sport on their sites but so far the big guys have shown no interest.

No wonder the voters think Democrats don’t care about national security.

Military strike could speed up Iran’s nuclear program

ABC Net has an interview with Dr Frank Barnaby, a nuclear physicist and weapons scientist in the UK and co-author of a report warning against a military strike on Iran

…..FRANK BARNABY: Judging by the progress it’s made so far, it would take Iran up to 10 years more to get a nuclear weapon if they go along the way they’re going.

At the moment the program is to, what they want to do is to become as self-sufficient as they can in nuclear power. In other words, they have a nuclear power reactor built at Bushehr by the Russians, and they plan to have a number of other nuclear power reactors.

What they want to do at present is to produce a nuclear fuel for those power reactors so they become self-sufficient. So that’s the program at the moment.

Now, if there was a military attack, then it’s likely that Iran would decide to go have a crash program to produce a small number of nuclear weapons as quickly as they could. And they could, in our estimate, do that within a matter of months or …

STEPHANIE KENNEDY: So they could have a nuclear weapon in a year or two?

FRANK BARNABY: Yes, absolutely, yes, as a result of a military attack, yes.

STEPHANIE KENNEDY: What about the scientific community in Iran, are they currently behind the nuclear program, or are they wary about it and a military attack could actually garner support in the scientific community in Iran?

FRANK BARNABY: I think a military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities will almost certainly cause the people, including the scientific community, to get behind Iran and help it make, do what it could to get nuclear weapons, a small number of them probably, in the smallest time as possible. So it would mobilise the community to do that…..

Raw Story has more….

The report suggested that Iran could salvage enough material for a bomb from the reactor at Bushehr after any attack, or turn to the black market, where small amounts of uranium or plutonium would be easy to smuggle.

Alternatively, the Iranians may already set have up clandestine facilities with centrifuges that could escape an attack.

“It is a mistake to believe that Iran can be deterred from attaining a nuclear weapons capability by bombing its facilities,” the report said.

“In the aftermath of a military strike, if Iran devoted maximum effort and resources to building one nuclear bomb, it could achieve this in a relatively short amount of time: some months rather than years.”

The group’s executive director, John Sloboda, said: “This report doesn’t get into the rights and wrongs of military strikes. It asks whether they will achieve their objectives…

“The conclusions should be food for thought for even the most hawkish: military strikes against Iran will simply not work. Indeed they could even bring a nuclear-armed Iran closer.”

So………not only will an attack on Iran spread violence throughout the Gulf Region, but it will also pretty much guarantee that Iran obtains nuclear weapons. Despite all this, the neocons in the administration seem determined to go ahead with their plan to rule the Middle East.

As Scott Ritter says….

…There’s nothing Iran can do that will satisfy the Bush administration, because the policy at the end of the day is not about nonproliferation, it’s not about disarmament. It’s about regime change. And all the Bush administration wants to do is to create the conditions that support their ultimate objective of military intervention…..

STOP IRAN WAR

‘Wes Clark brings a new direction to the Democrats’

Bernie Quigley has a beautifully written first hand account of Clark’s recent visit to New Hampshire, in support of Carol Shea-Porter.

….He said he admired Carol’s voice in Congress and called her “one in a hundred” in bringing issues to focus. He encouraged those present to give generously to her reelection.

Clark recalled incidents in Estonia leading up to the Kosovo conflict, bringing up some interesting and enlightening behind-the-scenes episodes which brought home the extended influence of the Cold War in tragic detail. He advised the crowd on the possibilities of advanced warfare with Iran behind the hubris of a Commander-in-Chief who refuses diplomacy. This evening was a detailed and advanced seminar on the specifics of conflict in the Middle East which would complement his recent talk at the Y in New York. If was a private affair and I’d feel it inappropriate to pass along some of his most interesting anecdotes and private observations.

I’ve been dragged unwilling to Democratic events in Boston politics since I was a child and Jack Kennedy was a Senator here. But this event brought a distinct sense of awakening. As I said to Susan Putney, a key supporter of Carol Shea-Porter, Wes Clark brings a new direction to the Democrats. He is to the Democrats what Tedy Bruschi is to the New England Patriots: He provides a vital bull-dog heartbeat to a new generation and he embodies what we mean by duty, honor and responsibility to family, country, and world.

He goes on to talk about other Democrats who are trying to change the direction of the Party…people like Carol, Jim Webb, Joe Sestak, Mark Warner and Kathleen Sebelius.

It won’t happen over night. Both Parties have been so corrupted by power and money that they will resist change with all their might. They want one of their own in the White House and people who will play ball in Congress.

We must support populist progressive candidates over entrenched insiders in Primaries…..candidates like Wes Clark, and Eric Massa, who has just announced his exploratory committee for 2008.

They are the future of the Democratic Party.

STOP THE IRAN WAR

“I think about it every single day” :)

From the Democracy Now interview…..

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think of these generals who run for president?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: I like them. It’s happened before.

AMY GOODMAN: Will it happen again?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: It might.

AMY GOODMAN: Later in the interview, I followed up on that question.

AMY GOODMAN: Will you announce for president?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, I haven’t said I won’t.

AMY GOODMAN: What are you waiting for?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: I’m waiting for several different preconditions, which I’m not at liberty to discuss. But I will tell you this: I think about it every single day.

Woohoo!!!

There is no doubt in my mind that Clark wants to jump in the race, but right now stopping a looming Iran War is uppermost in his mind. Besides which, the CorporatePress will eventually get tired of the Hillary/Obama/Edwards circus and will be ready to look at someone who brings so much more to the table.

We must never forget that Clark is a master strategist. If he determines he’s got good shot at winning nomination, he will pick the right time to enter the race.

In his words……”Trust me!”

stopIranWar.com

Wes Clark interviewed on Democracy NOW!

Today we spend the hour with General Wesley Clark, the retired four-star general. He was the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO during the Kosovo War. In 2004 he unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic presidential nomination. He recently edited a series of books about famous U.S. generals including Dwight Eisenhower and Ulysses Grant – both of whom became president after their military careers ended.

Well for the rest of the hour we are going to hear General Wesley Clark on the possibility of a U.S. attack on Iran, the impeachment of President Bush, the use of cluster bombs, the bombing of Radio Television Serbia during the Kosovo War and much more. I interviewed Wesley Clark on Tuesday at the 92nd Street Y in New York.

Video

Transcript

StopIranWar.com

If you have a blog or website, please go to StopIranWar for this blog ad; carry it loud and proud.

We have to choose the right person for president

At kos and elsewhere, I constantly read comments by people who say that Edwards or Obama would have the best chance of winning. When someone points out that neither one have national security or foreign policy experience, they always reply that Clark could be the VP.

The following post from Digby goes into the whys and wherefores of how bad it is to elect a weak president even if he/she’s surrounded by strong VP/cabinet/staff. When you come right down to it, it’s the President that always makes the final decision and because of the power of the position, many are afraid to question it. I’m not saying that either Edwards or Obama would be anything like GWB. What I am saying and I think Digby is too, is that we need a President who has the smarts and experience to able to digest the advice he gets from his advisers and formulate it into strong and sensible national policy because he/she is the ultimate “decider” ;p

Digby puts it this way:

….This was an unusually incompetent group at everything but domestic electoral politics (and it turns out that they weren’t even all that good at that.) They may have had big plans and big ambitions, but they never had even the first clue about how to implement them. And they were led by a man of such shallow character and dim intellect that they could not learn.

This all proves that it really matters who the president is. It matters a lot. We will be electing a new administration in less than two years and it’s important to try to learn from this, beyond ideology, beyond partisanship. The Bush administration debacle is not, after all, confined to Iraq. There was Katrina as well, along with untold numbers of domestic, economic and foreign policy crises that have been put into motion and haven’t yet come to fruition. The malfeasance wasn’t confined to Don Rumsfeld or Doug Feith…..

….and ends with this…:

The president matters. But whether or not we want to have a beer with him or whether or not we approve of his private life is not what matters about him or her. These are false hueristics and they don’t add up to leadership any more than years of political experience translates into great political skills. Citizens need to think a little bit harder about this choice, look a little deeper, ask some serious questions. Part of the job is certainly PR and a president does have to be the star of the national TV show for four years. But it’s a lot more than that and Americans need to rediscover a healthy sense of the requirements of this particular job.

Most importantly, the people who work in politics and the media need to take this more seriously. Presidential politics isn’t American Idol, it’s a contest for the leadership of the United States of America and putting together an “electable” package cannot be the only focus. And it goes without saying that this kewl kidz and mean girls nonsense from the press has to stop. The past six years have been a tragedy and we desperately need some thoughtful, intelligent, competent leadership to set this right.

Much more

“A General in the Shadows”

A very nice Op-Ed from a young person who obviously has more sense than the pundits

The entire piece is great but I especially like the explanation for why Wes is waiting.

snippet

…..But this frenzy will calm, and by delaying his announcement, Clark avoids the struggle of maintaining momentum over the course of a protracted campaign. The primaries are still almost a year away, and the earlier a candidate declares, the more time opponents have to dig up material for campaign attacks. The key to winning the primaries is peaking in popularity as the early ones occur, mid-January to mid-February, a lesson that Howard Dean learned in 2004. Clark is purposefully waiting in the background, waiting for the frenzy over Clinton and Obama to die down and calculating an entrance which will allow him to peak at the right time.

Democrats in this country have been handed a golden ticket for the 2008 Presidential elections. The situation is extremely promising politically: the outgoing Republican President is unpopular to a historic degree, the Republicans’ war, the number one issue facing the country, is going poorly and historical precedence shows us that it is rare for a party to keep the presidency for 3 straight terms. In this climate, why would Democrats want to potentially wake conservatives from their apathetic slumber by picking a Clinton and an Obama?

Why not pick a man like Wesley Clark, a war hero, a moderate and a man who can lead our country through these difficult times?