Obama's Mini State Dept.
The discipline and organization of the Obama campaign is truly remarkable.
A Cast of 300 Advises Obama on Foreign Policy
Every day around 8 a.m., foreign policy aides at Senator Barack Obama’s Chicago campaign headquarters send him two e-mails: a briefing on major world developments over the previous 24 hours and a set of questions, accompanied by suggested answers, that the candidate is likely to be asked about international relations during the day.
Behind the e-mail messages is a tight-knit group of aides supported by a huge 300-person foreign policy campaign bureaucracy, organized like a mini State Department, to assist a candidate whose limited national security experience remains a concern to many voters.
In contrast, McCain has loose-knit group of about 75 advisers, consisting of a virtual "who's who" of the neoconservative foreign policy establishment:
McCain receives advice from several generations of Republican strategists and former top foreign policy officials such as Henry Kissinger and Richard Armitage, often grouped in the realist camp of foreign policy, as well as William Kristol and Robert Kagan, leading neoconservative voices. The campaign lists Kagan as a leading foreign policy adviser...
The last two names on that list really tell you all you need to know about the direction of McCain's foreign policy should he become President. McSame indeed.
Hey, if Kristol is advising McCain's campaign, shouldn't he disclose that every time he speaks on Faux news?
www.tinryurl.com/SendRoveToJail
Neil @ 2:
Try this instead.
http://sendkarlrovetojail.com/
Thats my boy!
Krisken @ 1:
Only if Fox Newz were a news organization.
Who needs evidence and experts and analysis when you've got ideology and Bill Kristol Truthiness?
I think at this point that the only thing keeping McCain's campaign from coming apart is that the MSM has left him mostly alone. Time after time his closest advisors have been outed as possible criminals, lobbyists, sleazy political operatives, people with very conflicting interests, or men like Gramm who open their mouths and shoot themselves in the foot (or head). They're not advisors, they're liabilities. McCain is running a deficit, and his fundraising won't improve before the election, and it could drop more. Moreover, McCain is a danger to himself out there. If he doesn't have Lieberman to try to steer him out of trouble, he's continuously saying the wrong thing, flip-flopping, evading answers, forgetting or mixing up facts, and generally alienating sentient people. The man himself is a walking rebuttal to his presidential bid.
It's a lot of fun, isn't it?
What's with the number 300? Bush '00 - 300 Economists. McCain '08 - 300 Economists. Obama '08 - 300 Foreign Policy Advisors.
300 isn't a very big number - Bush and McCain both proved you can get 300 people to agree with you no matter how stupid your idea is. It's too many people in too many places doing too many different other things at the same time to sit down and have a discussion, and I doubt half of these "experts" even meet the candidates they "advise".
So what's the deal?
Professional organization vs. Flailing advice from the likes of which got us into this hell.
I would like to know the ideology behind his advisors. Kennedy-and-Wilson style Democratic Party imperialism we don't need, particularly since the Republicans have illustrated why that's a spectacularly bad idea.
Dr. Susan Rice is one of Senator Obama's advisers and if you have ever heard her speak on tv you know that she is a very smart no nonsense woman.
The NeoCons obviously have more experience with foreign policy.
Hell, they've been fucking up the world since the Nixon White House.
Cast of 300? Is this Sparta?
I'll go with "no experience" compared to the "experiece " we have been living with.
Could "no experience" actually be better?
jafari @ 14:
Are you referring to Sparta, Mo?
bill doh @ 16:
It just doesn't seem to be a prudent decision, to have a bunch of actors from an action movie be advisers to a campaign.
now THAT has got to be one of the funniest things i've heard in a week.
The chinese have just taken over wikipedia!!!
The chinese have taken over wikipedia!!!
General_Rennenkampf @ 11:
Ideology and imperialism are one of the same hand and there are these 'tubes' that permeate a 'life-line' among "advisors". I'm not sure about the Republican illustrations that you reference: are they caricatures or .....?... I am very interested in your comment.
If McCain were smart, he'd take everything Bill Kristol says, and do just the opposite. But we all know he's not that smart...
i'm just worried about the cross-over of PNAC members joining McCain, there's too many not to be concerned about
(Richard Armitage, William Bennett, Max Boot, Rudy Boschwitz, Bruce Jackson, Jeane Kirkpatrick, John F. Lehman, Richard Scaife, Randy Scheunemann, Dick Thornburgh, Vin Weber, Paul Wolfowitz, James Woolsey, Robert Zoellick, among others)
JimboSlice @ 20:
I don't know if that's Chinese that did that, seems like the actual Chinese is all gibberish, but I'm hardly an expert. Anyone get a good translation?
Reverend J @ 24:
It isn't Chinese, the boxes contain numbers. It could be a hoax, since this doesn't show up on wikipedia's main page.
Why would a war hero , like McSame need advise from a draft dodging, chickenhawk like bloody Bill Kristol? That alone tells me he doesn't use good judgement. Kristol has been wrong at every turn in the road for all of these eight years of illegal war in Iraq. He has not been right one time.
And yet, McSame is the more "experienced" and "tested" candidate. LOL. Well, sure, if you count getting shot down as a prerequisite for "experience" and "tested". The Obama campaign and its set-up remind of the machinations behind the campaign and the administration of JFK. Get a bunch of brainpower together and solve the problems....don't leave it up to just one guy to think all this shit up.....cause even a SUPER knowledgeable, extremely bright guy can have some bad days.
Obama's foreign policy statements have been the wiser from the get go, as revealed also by the moves of the Admin recently, and has Grandpa playing catch up.
For what it is worth, this is from DEBKA, and it might not be worth much since they have had a lot of hyperbole in the past that did not amount to much of anything:
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5447
i have to disagree.
he's mcworse!
and I thought all that money just went to pay for TV commercials.
Obama doesn't need 300 advisers. He needs 3 attack dogs to go on cable news and ridicule McPudding and be spoilers on Hannity and O'Reilly. They don't even have to win the debate, they only need to neutralize Republican talking points.
Kristol and Kagan advising McCain on foreign policy? The Project for the Non-American Century isn't done yet then.
wasaperson @ 21:
Afghanistan was all PC and Green Berets and Harvard and Kennedy - planned and executed by the Intelligence Committee and Shays making sure his pals in PC and Harvard and Kennedys got cash. Obama is one of them, so is his wife and his dad. Of course he's for Afghan aid since he had interest in the money going around the USAID admin and to his pals. Shays arranged most of it, but he had friends making sure the dems got the cash. So, we have the dem war, Afghanistan and the Repub war, Iraq. The CIA bought into Afghanistan and surprise, there is interest in paying. Obama's brother on the payroll? USIP and the retired federal employees it hires got their new building on the mall.
Yes, the dem war was a success.
Obama is for aid because he and his pals got paid. Iraq was no money, so he wasn't interested, but Malaki sure responds fast now. Obama and his pals were interested there. They had to be told it was no money and they ruined him anyway.
Obama wants troops out of Iraq and the Iraqis are just going to agree, they've learned their lesson about Obama and his pals. Obama wants more money into Afghanistan, well, I don't think his pals can get much more, but it's good that he's backing up the original pay out.
Sorry you guys got screwed out of some money, but when they were recruiting it was a foreign country and we have to fess up when they figure out the plan. Atrios, Ecchton Stans, Russians - sometimes we get confused.
Prite @ 33:
Been drinking Grandpa's cough medicine?
anwaya @ 32:
No, but it still doesn't know that Czechoslovakia isn't a single country anymore.
Prite @ 33:
WHAT?
Richard Armitage isn't that the TRAITOR who first outed the agent and we still haven't talked about who in the middle east died because of the outing
Comments are closed on this entry