Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Chicago Showdown

Another debate, and debate they did last night.

The Democratic presidential candidates met at the home of Chicago's NFL Bears, Soldier Field. The right venue for the scrapping rivals.... "Obama and Clinton Take the Gloves Off in AFL-CIO Debate." (WaPo)

There was a lot of the verbal pushing and shoving between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Obama defended his earlier threat to take unilateral military action inside of Pakistan in pursuit of al-Qaeda terrorists if President Musharraf, one of our staunchest allies, didn't.

As the wiser adult, Clinton sent Obama to the woodshed for a time out, scolding, "I think it is a very big mistake to telegraph that, and to destabilize the Musharraf regime, which is fighting for its life against the Islamist extremists who are in bed with al-Qaeda and Taliban."

Sen. Chris Dodd weighed in with Clinton on Obama's hypothetical willingness to unilaterally invade a friendly nation, calling it irresponsible... and, a clearly irritated Sen. Joe Biden pointed out the debate was already settled U.S. policy.... "It's time everybody start to know the facts - the facts" he reprimanded.

While Chicago is Obama's stomping ground, Clinton scored on him time and again, and indirectly punched holes in his thin resume by pointing to her front-line experience.... "For 15 years I have stood up against the right-wing machine, and I've come out stronger. So if you want a winner who knows how to take them on, I'm your girl."

There were other dustups.... a particularly nasty one was between former Sen. John Edwards and Biden. Edwards tried to paint himself as the champion of labor. Biden issued a scathing putdown, pointing out his three-decade fight for labor as opposed to Edward's running-for-president union support. Ouch.

The impish Rep. Dennis Kucinich lightened the mood, calling himself the "Seabiscuit of this campaign," pleasing the union audience with his no-holds-barred pro labor agenda of ending NAFTA and taking the U.S. out of World Trade Organizations.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson showed up.... the wallflower at the lively candidate rumble. He didn't seem to connect with the boisterous audience, although he promised to banish "union-busting" Department of Labor and OSHA attorneys.

Lots of elbows were thrown, but Clinton made it clear the real target is the Bush administration because America needs change.... she "wants a united Democratic party that will stand against the Republicans."

Her opponents showed up for a practice scrimmage, but, Clinton took the field with steady authority. Like it or not, she's probably going to be the Democrat's girl come next November.

1 comment:

elgringocolombiano said...

I can't believe the MSM & the public are gullible/naive enough to believe H Clinton's talking point that she has the most experience.

H Clinton has 6 yrs experience as a Senator. THAT IS IT. She has 0 executive experience.

Maybe Oracle should hire me to be their CEO. Or Minnesota can hire me as Governor. Because I'm like H Clinton, I also have 0 experience being the executive/CEO of an organization of even 100 people, much less one of 50 000+ people.

Of course, Richardson is the only 1 with executive experience as NM Governor. His domestic & foreign experience is the best of either party. But forget Richardson for a second. At least some of the other US Sens & Reps have been there for decades, & have been comittee Chairs, etc, such as Biden, Dodd, or Kucinich.

H Clinton stans, pls try to refute this if you want. But don't ad hominem attack me saying I "hate women". If a woman was running that was successful running a large organization would also daughter H Clinton. Michigan's Governor Jennifer Granholm, for instance.