Actually, the logic's perfect and plays well into her argument that she got some of her best experience while working with Bill in the White House:  Obama's inexperienced now, but will have the proper and perfect experience after shadowing Hillary for two terms.  Then he'll have the experience necessary to run for President, and the Dems. will have instituted a 16-year plan for control of the White House.  Very politically astute.

even better is the notion being floated that he could soemhow 'beoome ready', or be sufficiently seasoned over the summer as a VP candidate, one presumes by merely basking in the beneficial aura of one or both Clintons, thereby becoming able and well-qualified by osmosis.God, I hope he can shut her down in PA....

scottlooper's right.  The logic is fine.  Clinton can argue that Obama is ready to be President-in-Training, which is how she views the vice presidency.  Of course, by Hillary's logic, Michelle Obama will be tested and ready to lead on Day One some time next decade too.

Obama needs to pre-empt her by saying explicitly he cannot in good conscience serve on a ticket that engages in the kind of politics that Hillary does and that he believes such a ticket cannot win using the old politics of division.  He would be disappointing literally stadiums full of Americans who are part of a movement rejecting the old politics that Hillary stands for.

Chris,

I think you are buying into an overly concrete interpretation of the issue, in the interests of supporting Senator Obama. The VP is always less qualiied than the President. She is saying that he is less qualified to be president, but great as an understudy. And in terms of actuality, forfending an assassination of Clinton, Obama would gain a great deal of experience and credibility as VP. He would be unstoppable as a successor to Clinton.

But while you are torturing arguments, what do you think of Obama's maneuvering to get voter nullification in Florida and Michigan? He is pretending otherwise (of course), but even most media see him as disingenuously trying to nullify the votes in those states because they could otherwise end his candidacy (if he lost re-votes by significant margins).

And what about his demanding Clinton's tax returns RIGHT NOW (instead of April 15th, when she will release SIX YEARS of returns) while he simultaneously has released only last year's return and is refusing--at least so far--to release anything farether back (which might get us into juicy Rezko territory). I think Obama is the new super-Rove.

Actually, by that logic, Laura Bush is tested and ready to lead right now. Heck, Laura Bush's record of public service goes back 39 years, so by the Hillary standard, Laura is even more tested and ready than Hillary.

Everybody, I give you pccostello, performing the one-artist show, "This Is Your Brain on Hillary." Performances daily through August, or until the Clinton campaign stops issuing daily talking points.

I should also just highlight for emphasis. The notion they are presenting is not simply that Hillary is more qualified than Obama, but she's in a position to judge how qualified he is. On foreign policy. Based on her experience.

Am I the only Dodd/Biden sympathizer who sees this as a really cruel joke?

Well, to be fair, Laura Bush has never solved Eastern Europe's problems as part of a Power Rangers-ish trio with Sinbad and Sheryl Crow.

But it is generous of HRC to offer to take this fine, promising young man under her wing! Why, he just might go places some day with a mentor like her. It might even make sense if, you know, she wasn't losing the race for the nomination to him.

No mice, you aren't.  ILast fall I wished Biden, who, you know, actually has 35 years of experience (the hard way: he ran for, and won, a US Senate seat at 30, the soonest you could do it), would take her to town on that one.  I wish he'd endorse Obama and run with that all over his neighboring state of PA...

pccostello,

If the VP is always less qualified than the President, where does spouse of President fit?  Above VP or below, if senate experience is the barometer I assume you were for Biden prior to your HRC support.

Is this true?

Second that emotion, miceelf.  And what scottlooper is forgetting is that, grotesque or not, the country doesn't get to assume that a VP gets eight full years to become "ready" to be CiC.  That cliche about being one heartbeat away isn't just rhetorical flourish.  So, should someone pop Hillary on day four (God forbid), she's asking us to trust a guy who she spent a campaign painting as not ready if she tries to have Obama as her VP.  

rhube,

you're such a corker.

but answer the argument. obama is trying to get voter nullification in Florida and Michigan, but he can't afford to admit it. And he is refusing to release as many years of returns as Clinton. In fact, he won't even go past last year. why won't he release six years of returns? Clinton is going to. What is he afraid of? And do we want a candidate who has to nullify votes in two major states in order to win the nomination?

The best way Obama can "demonstrate his foreign-policy bona fides" is to say something that makes sense, instead of the feelgood rubbish he's been dishing out.

I'm gonna be putting this link up for a while, because the air is so thick with Obama-preciousness, that someone needs to open a window.

Shelby Steele on Obama:

rtsp://video.c-span.org/archive/arc_btv/btv012708_steele.rm

Hillary is going to say that should she die in office, Bill will become the Regent for Prince Obama.  Once he's old enough, and has enough experience, Bill will let him be president.

pccostello,

You said: "obama is trying to get voter nullification in Florida and Michigan, but he can't afford to admit it."

Can you offer any evidence to support this other than pure speculation?

Campigns used to float dubious ideas, now they spray them.

Chris wins this one, hands down. If he's not qualified for POTUS, he's not qualified for VP, and v-v.

Frankly, neither one's as well qualified as Biden. Or Dodd, for that matter. sigh

Chris-

If one were to follow the implicit logic behind the Clintonistas' experience meme, what Obama really has to do to prepare himself to be president is marry Hillary, then, if she's elected, serve as her First Gentleman for the next eight years.

Does anyone know for sure if PCC works for SNL?  He's a great parodist.  Scottlooper, I'm Canadian, so what the hell do I know about VP's readiness or not to be CiC.  But I seem to recall something from my grade 12 US History in Boston ... Theodore Roosevelt, maybe, who became Pres less than a year after his election?  There was William Henry Harrison, in office barely a month.  James Garfiled did not last more than six months in office.  All this to point out the obvious: if Obama is not ready on day one, he is not ready to be VP; and if Mrs. Clinton picks Mr. Obama after having questioned his readiness, it will reflect very poorly on HER judgement.  The Vice-Presidency is not a training ground.  Incidentally, neither is long-term occupation of Bill's Bed (where is Gennifer Flowers?) or the bedroom next door, for that matter.

JosephCUomo,

You beat me to it.  I think Hillary is obliquely offering to divorce Bill and marry Obama, you know, to give him some White House experience.

Actually, it's Hillary who's trying to nullify votes. Specifically, my vote. The good people of Michigan and Florida made a choice to violate party rules and hold a contest that would award no delegates but would, if their gamble paid off, give the winning candidates early "momentum." This cheating didn't pay off, and instead the states like mine that followed the rules and risked voting after the nomination had already been decided got to participate in a meaningful contest for delegates.

By encouraging either the seating of MI and FL delegates or revotes, Hillary is trying to let voters in those states count twice. But I only got to vote once, for actual delegates, whereas Hillary wants voters in Michigan and Florida to vote twice, once for "momentum" and once for actual delegates. Doubling anyone's vote is the same as halving everyone else's vote.

So, tell me, pcc, why are you and the Hillaristas trying to disenfranchise me and the people of the 48 states that didn't cheat?

And where were all the Hillaristas and their concern about "experience" and "Day One" readiness when I was on the fence about Biden, convinced that he would be a terrific president but not sure that he had the campaign mettle for a national race? If the Hillaristas had discovered these ready-to-be-C-in-C scruples in December, they'd have flocked to Biden, and pulled a lot of Biden-doubters with them.

Chris, you forget Dan Quayle. He was certainly exceptionally qualified and was an excellent understudy besides, I mean look at him now.

pccostello, how do you reconcile Obama being a corrupt Chicago style pol. who is also an empty suit being worthy of being Hill's running mate? Shouldn't  you condemn it, or are you so used to there being multiple voices in your head that this dichotomy simply fits well within it? Be consistent with your postings, say Hillary is mistaken for suggesting Obama should be on the ticket, or don't say Obama isn't qualified. You can't have both.

Oh, and don't forget incompetent, pcc. Remember how incompetent Obama is? Why would HRC want an incompetent veep?

Fortunately for the Democrats, Elliott Spitzer can now accept the Democratic VP nomination without breaking his promise to NY voters to finish out his term.

Chris,

Well,  the obviously less qualified VPs are more difficult to dredge from memory, but Quayle to Bush comes to mind. I also would not conceed Bush to Reagan--Reagan had been a Governor and Bush, as I recall, had not held elected office. Nor would I concede Gore to Clinton--again, Clinton had been a multiple term governor and founded the DLC. There is also Kemp to Dole, Edwards to Gore. And Shrub had been a governor to Cheney's representative.

Actually, now that I think about it, there are more good examples for my side of the argument than for yours!!!

And the VP is an understudy. They should be viable--in McCain's case, exceptionally so. But most are one step back from the person they subserve. It is emphatically not the same as judging someone for the presidency itself.

AlanSP,

As for evidence that Obama is hopinng for voter nullification in Florida and Michigan, just read the news. This is not the kind of thing he will admit, because it is again a case of his saying one thing and doing another. But he is doing everything he can to block an agreement on a re-vote. Just listen to his surrogates when this is discussed.

rhube,

I can't figure out why, but there is something likeable about all of your stubborn non-sequitors and irrelevancies.

gregstolhand,

To answer your question--the spouse of the president fits in right under the president. :-)

pccostello,

Which surrogates are you talking about, exactly? Here's part of the transcript when Tom Daschle was on Meet the Press Sunday:

MR. RUSSERT:  So you would be open to primaries in Michigan and Florida?

FMR. SEN. DASCHLE:  Oh, of course.  Absolutely.  We would be.

MR. RUSSERT:  Paid for by private donors.

FMR. SEN. DASCHLE:  Absolutely.

and shortly after that:

GOV. RENDELL:  Let them vote.  Let Florida and Michigan vote.

FMR. SEN. DASCHLE:  Absolutely.  We don't have any problem with that.

I mean, if that doesn't scream that Obama's trying to block new primaries, I don't know what does.

This is a specious argument. Any one of the three potential Presidents has lots more "experience" than lots of people who have been President. So what? This is just campaign rhetoric, and hackneyed campaign rhetoric at that.

The sad fact is that there is no way of predicting exactly which crisis (es) is/are going to ambush the next President, but we are virtually certain that at least one will come up. The track record for how past Presidents have dealt with the unexpected is decidedly mixed. Anyone who has any particular confidence that ANY of these people will steer an unerringly optimal course are living in a fool's paradise.

There is no significant difference in the qualifications or likely major policies of any of these three. Vote Obama.  At least he's entertaining.

Chris,

I don't know if you'll see this, but thank you for your welcome and your argument.

I think you make a good case for the specific "commander-in-chief" issue among past vice-presidents--many of them did have stronger foreign policy credentials than their president (e.g. Mondale and Carter). But my argument was that in general, the president is seen as more qualified than the VP, virtually by defintion. For example, I do think the role of Governor of a large state, like Reagan in California, does trump what the first Bush had done, even though Bush had superior foreign policy credentials.

But more, the problem Obama faces on this issue--and the reason the issue sticks--is that its not just foreign policy credentials--he has so little else to draw on in terms of background and experience in general. So, with him, the issue of C in C gets additional force not because he just lacks foreign policy credentials, as did Reagan, but because his credentialing in general is very weak. Our knowledge of him is very weak. In fairness, what we know about him really comes from his meteoric rise from 2004 to 2005, after which he started running for president, and from a speech he made in 2002.

Obama actually doesn't have a background that matches ANY recent VP in terms oif experience--not even the dreaded Quayle-- and we don't have as much to go on as we do about any other VP.

In a way, that defines the difficulty of this election: As Evan Thomas (???) wrote in Newsweek, Clinton suffers from the press hostility that develops with all two term presidencies, and Obama benefits from being a blank page on which voters can imagine wondrous and magical things (sort of like a movie), without the intervening cautions of an actual record.

PC you may be right about the two-term presidency thing, but you're also ignoring the *advantages* of being the incumbent, which Clinton had been embracing until recently. Had Obama been the one to lose 12 contests in a row, he'd be getting the Huckabee treatment right now. The press is searching for every chance to frame this contest as ongoing, even as Clinton loses in a way that no one else can and stay in the race.

And, as for your voter nullification thing, "read the news" just won't do. Which news are you talking about? I haven't seen any such thing, and I've read a lot of news. So perhaps you could be a little more specific.

Pccostello,

Thanks for the reply, I disagree with most of your posts but that was a hilarious reply:)

mice,

A number of talking heads have pointed out that there is no advantage for Obama in having a re-vote in states that he would likely lose when the present situation simply nullifies the significance of the voting in those states.

The evidence is indirect, since of course Obama won't say what he is doing. But his campaign is dragging their feet on Florida and Michgan in every possible way, trying to run out the clock so that eventually there will be no time for a re-vote. Clinton's allies are pushing the issue--thus Rendel and Nelson's op-ed yesterday becasuse she wants a re-vote. Obama is trying not to solve the problem, and Clnton is trying to solve the problem. I think Clinton should hit him with this.

The terrible thing here is that Obama actually hopes that he can nullify the votes of millions of people for his personal gain.

chris,

fair enough. be well.

So, Clinton supporters are pushing this harder than Obama supporters are and that's evidence of "voter nullification"??? Wow.