Wed 26 Dec 2007
Washington Post’s online politics explorer Jose Antonio Vargas went to a political button shop in Des Moines, IA the other day to take the pulse of retail politics — literally retail politics — and he shot some video interviews. The store owner talks about paraphernalia sales trends as indicators of candidate popularity, and a handful of likely caucusers chime in on their favorite presidential hopeful.
Around the 2 minute 50 second mark is where my brain absolutely explodes, unsurprisingly. An Iowa woman visits the store with her six-year-old daughter to pick up a Santa sackful of Hillary buttons and t-shirts and explains why she switched to Hillary from Edwards, and in so doing includes this gem of an assessment:
I do think that Hillary has the most, um, experience, as — especially as far as foreign issues, foreign policy.
I know it’s unwise to insult Iowans before the caucuses, but come on. I’ve heard some silly things in my life, but that’s just plain ign’r'nt. That does nothing to dispel my paranoia that a number of fans of the top 3 are only fans because they haven’t bothered to dig beyond the trio that the MSM is pumping down their throat.
The New York Times tries, too little too late, to be accurate about this “experience” crap.
But during those two terms in the White House, Mrs. Clinton did not hold a security clearance. She did not attend National Security Council meetings. She was not given a copy of the president’s daily intelligence briefing. She did not assert herself on the crises in Somalia, Haiti and Rwanda. And during one of President Bill Clinton’s major tests on terrorism, whether to bomb Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, Mrs. Clinton was barely speaking to her husband, let alone advising him, as the Lewinsky scandal sizzled. In seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, Mrs. Clinton lays claim to two traits nearly every day: strength and experience. But as the junior senator from New York, she has few significant legislative accomplishments to her name.
Seriously, people, this is the future of our country at stake. Please do some homework before you drink the Kool-Aid.
