BlogWatch: Foreign Affairs

As I mentioned in my analysis on Maureen Dowd’s most recent Hillary-bashing column (and they are hard to keep up with), her final line is less slam dunk rhetorical than she thinks. Let’s look back at it:

But is living in the White House between the ages of 45 and 53 foreign policy experience?

Steve Soto’s answer at The Left Coaster is:

Yes, you twit. Or do you think being on the inside seeing how the world works at the highest level possible for eight years means nothing?

The major card she has left is experience, and despite the idiotic Obama love letters from the likes of Dowd, Hillary should frame the remaining debate along these lines and let voters make the call.

On the other hand, Pissed On Politics agrees with Dowd's assessment and elaborates:

It appears Hillary's charges that Obama lacks 'experience' is nothing more than a projection of her own campaign insecurities; that if people really take a closer look at her they'll see she is the one who lacks the necessary experience to be President.

What Hillary doesn't lack in experience is cut-throat politicking doused with secrecy. Perhaps what she means is that Obama lacks the cold calculating political experience necessary to manipulate the media and parley that control into an election victory. If that's the kind of experience Hillary is talking about, she can keep it.

Maureen Down says it better than I ever could.

MikeTrap also thinks Dowd has a point:

Great, balanced editorial by Maureen Dowd in the NYTimes. While she expresses reservations about the depth of Obama’s foriegn policy experience, she finally says what only another woman could say about Hillary.

Finally for today, Chris LaRoche wonders what the title of the column has to do with the substance:

The title of the piece — "She's No Morgenthau" — looks to be an on-topic reference to Hans J. Morgenthau, an international relations theorist and University of Chicago professor who immigrated to the U.S. from Poland after living through World War II.

But there are no further references to Morgenthau in the story proper, nor would a candidate's possession of foreign policy experience necessarily make he or she "Morgenthauian."

My guess is that Dowd is just showing off arcane knowledge imprecisely so that folks like us have to run to Wikipedia to figure out what she’s talking about. Maureen, just stick to pop culture like 50s rock songs.