More on Presidential Qualifications
The Democrats are getting all the attention this cycle because they seem to have the more dynamic candidates, yet the Republican candidates are hands down more qualified on paper. The job of president is basically an executive job, since the president is essentially the CEO of the U.S. Government, Inc. (what the clever blogger Mencius calls "SovCorp"). So I would look to proven management skills as the principal qualifications for the job (on paper, of course).
In fact the Democrat front runners are a rather sorry lot, when you think about it. Hillary's principal qualification is being married to a former president, which is an awesome qualification for president of Argentina but not necessarily in the world's only superpower. She was a partner in a law firm and boss of her Senate staff which has no doubt given her many opportunities to yell at and humiliate various underlings but this is not quite the same thing as managing an organization. Edwards was a very successful attorney, and so had plenty of the same experience, but I've never heard anyone ever suggest that being a trial lawyer qualifies you for being anything other than a trial lawyer. And Obama was a community activist before becoming an Illinois state senator and then a U.S. Senator for the last couple years. So, on paper, they're a remarkably unqualified lot.
The Republicans, on the other hand, have a wealth of relevant experience. Mitt Romney, in particular, has a very impressive record in the private sector; he rescued the 2002 Olympics, and was a well regarded 1-term governor of Massachusetts. There is no doubt he could handle the executive responsibilities of the office of POTUS. Giuliani was a US Attorney, a job with great deal of responsibility, and who successfully put away several mobsters. He was also a highly successful two-term mayor of New York City. He too clearly has substantial executive skills. Huckabee was a two-term governor, but also had a lot of managerial experience as a pastor, running televisions stations, and in leadership positions in the Baptist church. Although he's had one checkered career, and not much in the way of leadership positions, McCain has at least been in congress for over 20 years and a four-term Senator, which is head and shoulders above what the Democratic candidates have to offer.
Yet there's something very off about the GOP group. They don't give the slightest hint that they're going to do anything sensible when they get into the oval office. They're still playing with post-9/11 emotions, sabre-rattling over Iran and Islamofascism; still promising to cut taxes, despite our large deficits; still extolling the virtues of free-trade, despite our horrific and very dangerous trade deficits. Nothing to make us think that they've actually been paying attention the last eight years and might have noticed even one thing to make them rethink their positions.
Not that I'm going to vote for Obama or Hillary - there's just no way. Maybe Romney would be the best choice - he seems to be the smartest of any candidate, and that might be enough to trump his phoniness.
In fact the Democrat front runners are a rather sorry lot, when you think about it. Hillary's principal qualification is being married to a former president, which is an awesome qualification for president of Argentina but not necessarily in the world's only superpower. She was a partner in a law firm and boss of her Senate staff which has no doubt given her many opportunities to yell at and humiliate various underlings but this is not quite the same thing as managing an organization. Edwards was a very successful attorney, and so had plenty of the same experience, but I've never heard anyone ever suggest that being a trial lawyer qualifies you for being anything other than a trial lawyer. And Obama was a community activist before becoming an Illinois state senator and then a U.S. Senator for the last couple years. So, on paper, they're a remarkably unqualified lot.
The Republicans, on the other hand, have a wealth of relevant experience. Mitt Romney, in particular, has a very impressive record in the private sector; he rescued the 2002 Olympics, and was a well regarded 1-term governor of Massachusetts. There is no doubt he could handle the executive responsibilities of the office of POTUS. Giuliani was a US Attorney, a job with great deal of responsibility, and who successfully put away several mobsters. He was also a highly successful two-term mayor of New York City. He too clearly has substantial executive skills. Huckabee was a two-term governor, but also had a lot of managerial experience as a pastor, running televisions stations, and in leadership positions in the Baptist church. Although he's had one checkered career, and not much in the way of leadership positions, McCain has at least been in congress for over 20 years and a four-term Senator, which is head and shoulders above what the Democratic candidates have to offer.
Yet there's something very off about the GOP group. They don't give the slightest hint that they're going to do anything sensible when they get into the oval office. They're still playing with post-9/11 emotions, sabre-rattling over Iran and Islamofascism; still promising to cut taxes, despite our large deficits; still extolling the virtues of free-trade, despite our horrific and very dangerous trade deficits. Nothing to make us think that they've actually been paying attention the last eight years and might have noticed even one thing to make them rethink their positions.
Not that I'm going to vote for Obama or Hillary - there's just no way. Maybe Romney would be the best choice - he seems to be the smartest of any candidate, and that might be enough to trump his phoniness.
posted by ziel | 1/15/2008 10:20:00 PM
2 Comments:
Why do I think I heard all the same arguments 8 years ago when we put the current guy in the White House.
We also found "phony" was his middle name. He wasn't going to nation build. He was a fiscal conservative.
The guy who really has the qualifications is Bloomberg.
Zeil,
On a totally unrelated tangent, "somebody" seems to agree with me on the possiblity of Muslim fanatics using primitive means as a tactic against us here. From John S. Bolton's excellent blog:
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Should Openness To Diversity Of Arson Be Valued?
If only you can prevent forest fires, as the slogan has it, will this individual initiative include pressuring authorities to control the borders and the privileges of illegals and other foreign criminals within those boundaries, or not?
Would authorities tell us if they suspected that the Islamic War of Religion against the Infidel had instigated such fires?
FromFront Page Magazine's Jihad Watch ( Main ) January 15, 2008 :
"U.S. intel alerted to threat of 'Forest Fire Jihad'
We have heard this before. And it may just be another attempt to claim credit for something that jihadists actually have nothing to do with, the way Al-Qaeda claimed credit for the East Coast blackout a few years ago, in order to "strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah" (Qur'an 8:60). Or it may not be.
Also, don't miss this from Abu Musab Al-Suri: "Jihad is an art just like poetry, music, and the fine arts. There are people that draw and there are others that are jihadists. They both act upon inspiration.”
From the World Tribune (thanks to Morgan Sinclair):
U.S. officials monitoring terrorist web sites have discovered a call for using forest fires as weapons against “crusader” nations, in what may explain some recent wildfires in places like southern California and Greece.
A terrorist website was discovered recently that carried a posting that called for “Forest Jihad.” The posting was listed on the Internet on Nov. 26 and reported in U.S. intelligence channels last week.
The statement, in Arabic, said that “summer has begun so do not forget the Forest Jihad.”
The writer called on all Muslims in the United States, Europe, Russia and Australia to “start forest fires.” [...]
Wildfires in California burned more than 500,000 acres beginning in October and authorities said arson was to blame for some of the fires. In August, wildfires broke out in Greece that authorities say were deliberately set."
Me again...............I worry that as times go on and we start to WIN MORE in Iraq and Afghanistan, if the terrorists might activate tangential or sympathetic assets here to do this kind of dirty work. Things like this are so hard to stop in a free country. Our elite would probably joyously take the opportunity to lobby for checkpoints, cameras, and other freedom-hating measures against our populace much like the left rallies around gun prohibition every time some whack job shoots up his workplace or school. This ugly possibility is still "out there" in my opinion, and seemingly has not been addressed by Homeland Security as of yet.
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