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Pags08 said 02/23, 12:06 PM
Leadership is a composite of many different qualities. while expierience ranks high among these, charecteristics like honor, judgement, and trustworthiness also form the backbone of leadership. the Clintonian definintion of "expierience" equates it with "ability", but this is simply not the case. This nation's expierience with the Clinton's indicates that although they are astute and succesful politicians, with decades of expierience under their collective belt, they lack some of the other qualities essential to leadership.

Pags08 said 02/23, 01:02 PM
Of course the entire premise that Obama lacks expierience depends on your definition of the term. Although Barack Obama has spent a relativeley short time in the Federal Government and has not held an executive power position, he served a long and distinguished term in his state legislature and in the US Senate he has voted liberal, but as we can see from his consitent position on the war in Iraq, this is not neccesarily a bad thing. Furthermore, it was not Kennedy's expierience that saw us through the Cuban misle crises, it was his judgement and the wisdom of the advisers he chose to inform his decisions. and the work kennedy did for the civil rights movement and for geting us to the moon, these acts weren't motivated by his own interest or first-hand expiereince with them but by his understanding of their meaning outside of himself. these were the qualities of a leader. it was not what JFK or RFK did that got them killed as much as what they believed and what they inspired the rest of us to do. the president's job is not to have his or her finger in every by and to be fully versed in every facet of everything. the presidents job is to compile information, and make a wise decision

Pags08 said 02/24, 05:32 PM
In his book "Hardball", Political commentator Chris Matthews writes a chapter on one of his political laws, "All politics is local." There is a reason we look for expierience in our candidates, because as you point out they should "know what they're doing", and the clearest manifestation of that is addressed in another of the books chapters titled "What have ya fone for me lately. granted there is a diference between local and national politics, but a strong grounding in what individual americans are like--their wants, need, fears and hopes--can only help a president. now, on the issue of the cuban missle crisis, i had the oppurtunity to attend a speech by Ted Sorenson, a speechwriter and adviser to the president who was president during that pivotal time. His comments indicated that President Kennedy authorized the military readiness only as a precaution at the advice of the joint cheifs of staff, however, when they recommended a pre-emptive strike to disable the WMD (sound familiar?) it was president Kennedy's stength of character and his wisdom in trusting advisers like Mr. Sorenson that led him to do the opposite of our current commander in chief and refuse to launch a strike.