Obama vs. Clinton
Posted by
tgirsch
To repeat a phrase I find myself saying a whole lot lately, I agree with Hilzoy:
However, I also think — and as far as I can tell, he doesn’t — that there is a substantive difference between the two, concerning the question: do you see negotiations as something that should be used as necessary, and regarded as a useful but neutral instrument, or do you regard them as having to be justified in some way, and/or used only when certain conditions preconditions are met? On this one, I’m with Obama. I say why below the fold.
I think that diplomacy is an incredibly important tool of foreign policy, and the more of it we engage in, the better. Moreover, it’s not important just because it can lead to agreements. If you talk to people, you can often get a better read on what motivates them, and what they think matters, than you could otherwise. You keep channels of communication open and maintain relationships between individual members of different countries’ governments, which can be incredibly important: there were times during the Cold War, for instance, when despite the enormous distrust between the US and the USSR, there were individuals who had negotiated opposite each other enough to know that the other played straight, and that can be very useful in a pinch.
…snip…
Well, OK, I do have one idea: it’s the peculiar view that negotiating with someone confers some sort of legitimacy on that person. This is a view that we can make true if we want. If we go around saying that we will only negotiate with people we think are absolutely wonderful, or that negotiations with us should be thought of as a certification of quality, like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, then it will be true that a lot can be read into our decision to negotiate.
To me, that’s a very good reason not to say things like that. Negotiations are a tool. They should be used when they are the best tool available for a given purpose. If we let people know that we will only negotiate under certain conditions, and those conditions are not “when negotiations would be useful”, then we are limiting our own freedom of action, just as surely as we would be if we declared to our family members: “If I use the vacuum cleaner, that means there’s a burglar, and you should call 911.” Making things you might actually need to do double as parts of a secret code deprives you of the freedom to use them as needed without sending a message.
…snip…
I also agree with another of Obama’s points: namely, that judgment matters more than experience, and that “The notion that somehow from Washington you get this vast foreign policy experience is illusory.” This is plainly true. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld. Years of experience. I rest my case.
And I think Obama is absolutely right to tie this in to Clinton’s vote on the Iraq war. I believe that Clinton’s vote to authorize the war was sincere — which I don’t believe about either Edwards or Kerry. For that reason, I do not think about her what I think about them: namely, that they were willing to cast what has to be one of the most important votes of their lives for political advantage. But precisely because I do think her vote was sincere, I think it casts an enormous cloud over her judgment.
As they say, read the whole thing. I’m on record as supporting Obama, especially over Clinton. I know it’s early, but so far, the more I learn about his positions on most of the issues I care about, the more I like him. Let’s not forget how right he was about Iraq, even before we went in.
I agree. And I think Obama is taking a bad rap for his diplomacy comment at the debate. I interpreted his affirmative answer to mean his administration would have talks, not him personally (have not studied transcript, could be wrong here). If Obama had clarified his response that way, he would have completely deflated Hilary’s rebuttal (US prez can’t validate rouge leader by personally meeting with him). As things transpired, she got a sound bite which probably closed 500,000 voters minds to Obama. Too bad.
Comment 7/30/2007
I do tend to agree as well, particularly with regards to Syria and Iran. It’s bizarre, tortured logic to claim that it was in our best interest to invade Iraq, when we’re half a world away, but the countries that border Iraq have no vested interest in the eventual outcome. As the world’s only remaining super-power, it’s not only in our best interest, but almost an obligation, to open lines of communication with the rest of the world.
The only part I take objection to is Hilzoy weighing experience over judgement, and using Cheney and Rumsfeld’s lack of judgement as examples. This, in my opinion, no way negates the benefits of experience; the more one has dealt on the international field, the better one’s judgement in world affairs. I have to assume that Bush’s lack of international experience, coupled with his, forgive me, typically American, obsessively insular attitude toward the rest of the world (shared by Cheney and Rumsfeld), is what got us into the mess in Iraq. That, it seems to me, ties in directly with the need to talk to the rest of the world.
Comment 7/31/2007
janusz, re experience in international affairs. I would prefer a President with no direct experience but good judgement over one with plenty of experience and poor judgement. Assuming the non-experienced President’s good judgement includes recognizing his own lack of experience. Experience can be supplemented by staff, but ultimately judgment is not something that can be outsourced.
Comment 7/31/2007
The only part I take objection to is Hilzoy weighing experience over judgement
Care to take another crack at that sentence? She clearly values judgment over experience (not the other way around), and I agree with her. What you want is a decision-maker with good judgment, helped by a group of advisers with experience (and, hopefully, also good judgment). In my dream scenario, you have someone with Obama’s apparent judgment advised by people like Zbigniew Brzezinski and Richard Clarke.
In other words, what Ted said.
Comment 7/31/2007
We may be splitting hairs here, but not only do I not consider experience and judgement necessarily mutually exclusive, I don’t see how one can exist without the other. Good judgement is built on experience.
Many things led to the war in Iraq. I think one of the major reasons for the rush to go in (aside from gross stupdity), was Bush’s lack of understanding of the social volatility in Iraq, something that would have been immediately obvious to anyone with even a modicum of experience with multi-ethnic, third world countries (Bosnia, Rwanda, China, Russia being examples in recent memory). His lack of experience in this area was no small factor in the rush to go in (though I would love to know what his advisors were saying). Ultimately, he had the last word, and exercised extremely poor judgement.
Comment 7/31/2007
I wrote: “The only part I take objection to is Hilzoy weighing experience over judgement…
Ooooops!! What I meant to say was “weighing experience against judgement” (or vice versa). Mea culpa!
Comment 7/31/2007
Janusz:
I agree that they’re not mutually exclusive, but I don’t think anyone is arguing that they are. They’re simply arguing that of the two, judgment is more important, especially so in an executive. Of course, good judgment isn’t terribly useful without good information, but then good information isn’t necessarily a function of experience. In fact, in some cases, experience can be an inhibitor to good information. That’s part of what killed the neo-cons here; they tried (and are still trying) to make global terror fit into the Cold War model they’re used to and have experience with, but it just doesn’t work.
Comment 7/31/2007
tgirsch wrote: “I agree that they’re not mutually exclusive, but I don’t think anyone is arguing that they are. They’re simply arguing that of the two, judgment is more important, especially so in an executive.”
Fair enough, but I don’t believe that good judgement is an innate personality trait (which seems to be implicit in your argument), but rather a result of experience. I find it difficult to believe that anyone could make sound, reasoned judgements without the necessary experience. Advisors and experts are fine for fact-finding and offering opinions, but a novice would have a harder time negotiating through all the data to arrive at a sound judgement.
tgirsch wrote: “In fact, in some cases, experience can be an inhibitor to good information. That’s part of what killed the neo-cons here; they tried (and are still trying) to make global terror fit into the Cold War model they’re used to and have experience with, but it just doesn’t work.”
I would attribute that to a lack of experience at dealing with areas plagued by endless internecine rivalries by people living in close proximity, as opposed to matching the number of warheads we have with another country’s arsenal. Dealing with the Middle East is entirely different than confronting another super power, and the neo-cons floundering in the area shows their lack of experience in that arena (as well as a lack of creative thinking). I also think their inept response is not so much a result of experience as a continuation of bad habits formed during the Cold War years. Their view of a monolithic “enemy” is as self-defeating and ill-informed now as it was back then, with equally predictable results. But then I don’t believe the Soviet Union was defeated by Reagan’s foreign policy, but rather collapsed under the weight of its own inefficiencies.
That’s not to say that experience is the end all, it’s merely one more factor to be considered in the whole package. But it certainly can’t hurt.
Comment 7/31/2007
Fair enough. But what that doesn’t explain is how Obama, with no appreciable foreign policy experience, seems to have so much better judgment on that issue than so many others who have much more experience in the field. See again his 2002 Iraq speech.
Comment 7/31/2007
Actually Tgirsch, I think the real question is how could so many people ignore the obvious and support the invasion? Was the existence of WMD credible? Any thinking person would have given the inspectors more time to decide. The French had come up with a positive alternative to military action. Was Iraq a threat to American security? I don’t think anyone really thought so at the time. Was civil war a potential result of removing Saddam without a clearly thought out plan to fill the vacuum. Everyone knew it was. You knew it, I knew it. It was one of the reasons Bush sr and later Clinton hesitated to remove him when it became clear he would no longer do the US’s bidding. I don’t think it took great insight to realize this whole thing would go south. So how could just about every Democrat except for Feingold, Boxer and Byrd support such an invasion? Political opportunism? Bullied by the majority party? Corporate allegiances? I don’t have an answer for you. I will tell you it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Do I find Hillary Clinton’s support for the war, and later back-pedalling offensive? You bet I do. And there are many other things about her with which I’m extremely uncomfortable. Oddly enough, I’m less concerned with Obama’s lack of international experience than what the Republican’s will do with it. As experts in character assassination, they can potentially make mince meat of him over the issue. Another interesting thing about Obama is how effective he was in Springfield, a smoke-filled backroom political environment hostile to outsiders (and hewa an outsider) if there ever was one. He had the instincts to be effective, certainly a positive.
How do I weigh in on the Democrats and the primary now. I haven’t decided. As someone who often feels the differences between the Dems and Reps is often a matter of degree rather than real substance, I am stunned what has occurred over the last seven years. I knew it would be bad…I just never thought it would be this bad. I do know we have to keep the Reps out of the White House this time around…
Comment 7/31/2007
I currently support Richardson. I think he has eclectic experience needed for diplomacy and at home energy & infrastructure improvements. In addition, I think Richardson would efficiently get us to pull back to the staging areas in Kuwait and Northern Iraq. We will need to continue having an Air Force presence in Northern Iraq… I think we ought to keep fighting the good fight in Afghanistan. Soon we might be needed in Pakistan to flush out more terrorists who are becoming a headache to the government there as well as in Afghanistan. Obama is much too shrill for me at present. Hillary has plenty of baggage but is more practically minded. Richardson is a good compromise candidate between the two.
Comment 8/8/2007
That’s interesting. Hillary strikes me as far more “shrill” than Obama, although I don’t think the term fairly describes either one of them.
I don’t know too much about Richardson, other than that he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of even placing third in the primaries, never mind winning anything.
Comment 8/8/2007