Is Barack Obama Too Naive To Be President?

Slate.com ^ | June 5th, 2008 | Fred Kaplan

[The_Republican]

The question of the moment: Is Barack Obama too naive to be commander in chief?

Now that Obama is the presumptive Democratic candidate, this is the line of attack that John McCain is aggressively pushing. In part, this is because he doesn't have much else to run on. In part, it's because there's video footage, from the Democratic primary contests, of Hillary Clinton making the same accusation.

So is there something to the charge?

The notion stems from the Democrats' CNN-YouTube Debate of July 23, 2007, when a viewer named Steve asked the candidates whether—in the spirit of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's bold trip to Jerusalem—they would be willing to talk with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea "without preconditions" during their first year in office.

To the surprise of many, Obama answered, "I would." Clinton countered that she would not make such a "promise" (though Obama didn't either—the question was whether he would be "willing"). After the debate, she went further and called Obama's response "irresponsible and, frankly, naive." A presidential visit is special; it shouldn't be undertaken unless the outcome is all but known in advance.

Even some of Obama's own staff asked him after the debate whether he wanted to retract the remark. No, he told them, he meant what he said. He clarified later that there would have to be an agenda—he wasn't keen on talking for the sake of talking—but "preconditions," which means a great deal more, shouldn't be required.

On Tuesday, hours before Obama clinched the Democratic nomination, McCain, signaling the start of the general election, told a crowd in New Orleans, "Americans ought to be concerned about the judgment of presidential candidate who says he's ready to talk, in person and without conditions, with tyrants from Havana to Pyongyang."

[weegee]

He’s playing the JR Bob Dobbs Church of the Subgenuius card:

“Act like a dumbs**t and they’ll treat you like an equal.”

He cannot fess up to what his true agenda is. If he gets caught making a politically unpopulist statement, he made a “mistake”. Freudian slips maybe.

[Tolkien]

Anti-American

Anti-life

Anti-Gun

Anti-white

Anti-capitalism

Anti-Christ

[arthurus]

No one is too naive or too anything else to be president, alas. Hussein is too lots of things to be a successful or maybe a successful-for-America president. We really don’t know what constitutes success for Hussein. It might be wholly incompatible with success for America.

[arthurus]

I don’t think ignorance and naivite will be any sort of consideration for those who vote for Hussein.

[beckysueb]

Uh, yeah.