Interesting thought
- Posted by Martin on November 21st, 2007 filed in Barack Obama, General, Hillary Clinton, Martin
I’ve been largely ignoring the puerile back and forth between Obama and Clinton on the ‘experience’ question. They’re both incredibly underqualified for the role of President by any objective measure, so it’s a battle of Lilliputians and not worth much attention.
However, an interesting question arises:
At one point will a Clinton candidacy prompt the following question of Laura Bush “Do you feel qualified to run for President, after eight years as First Lady”?
What would be the reaction if she said “being First Lady doesn’t qualify you to be President”?
Clinton’s attack dogs would be forced to rubbish Laura, which would be a bad move indeed. Roughing up Bush is one thing, but the lovely Laura is somebody quite different. I find it an interesting prospect.
Maureen Dowd piles on in a column linked at CQ.
OldGuy says:
Yeah I’m still trying to figure out Hillary’s “experience” claim.
When Bill “BJ” Clinton was governor here she was experienced at covering his ass. As first lady I’m sure that experience came in handy.
One thing she knows how to do is bully people around….gee…ain’t that what dictators do?
Rus Bowden says:
Roughing up Laura Bush has already been done successfully. Sam Hamill did it, and got thousands to join Poets Against War: http://www.poetsagainstthewar.org/
He said he was overcome by a kind of nausea at the invitation to a poetry symposium Laura Bush was having at the White House: http://www.baymoon.com/~ariadne/editorial/white.house.fears.poetry.htm#invitation.response
Beth says:
Oops, the upgrade to WP2.3 apparently deleted two rather nasty anti-Laura comments from drive-by trolls that were in moderation (since they had never commented here before). Pity.
Oh, and Rus? Links to such rubbish are not really necessary.
Talmadge East says:
Mrs. Clinton had an obvious impact on Bill Jeff’s presidency policy wise (and was criticized for having to much of one in the ’90s by the GOP) and does have a right to lay claim to some of that administrations successes. Conceding that, she should also be questioned about any perceived failures. Regarding the Laura Bush question, I think that is beside the point. Mrs. Bush took a very different path in life. Her choice to be an educator is wholly admirable and should be respected, but she didn’t make life the life choices of someone who aspires to be President. I still think the argument can be made that Mrs. Clinton does not have the proper experience (although the American people thought Harry Truman did and he was not even a college graduate).