Hillary Clinton's camp has its test ready for Barack Obama

Could it be that Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign is taking some cues from the Top of the Ticket?

At the risk of immodesty, we ask because in the wake of our request for readers to devise a commander in chief test for Barack Obama, a Clinton aide put together an essay exam for him.

Here are the seven questions posed by Lee Feinstein, national security director for the Clinton campaign, in a Wednesday release:

• Will you stand by your definitive commitment to removing all combat brigades from Iraq within 16 months, or will you, as your former advisor said, not rely on "some plan" you "crafted as a presidential candidate or as a US Senator?”

• Do you regret that you have never held any substantive hearings on Afghanistan or any other subject, since you became chairman of the subcommittee on European Affairs in January 2007?

• Do you agree with General Tony McPeak that you are more qualified to be commander in chief because you don't “go on television and have crying fits?” Are you prepared to remove General McPeak from your campaign for what is viewed by many as a sexist comment?

• Are you still willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of an Obama administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of ...

Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea? Are there any circumstances in which you would not conduct such meetings?

• As voters evaluate you as a potential Commander-in-Chief, do you think it's legitimate for people to be concerned that you have traveled to only one NATO country, on a brief stopover trip in 2005, and have never traveled to Latin America?

• Earlier in the campaign you were asked how you would respond to a terrorist attack on two cities in the United States. You talked about the need for an effective emergency response but were initially unclear about the need for a military response. What do you think that says about your readiness to be Commander-in-Chief?

• You publicly broadcast your willingness to attack Pakistan unilaterally, a statement which caused unrest in that country. Recognizing that we need to combat terrorism wherever it exists, do you wish you would have made your comments in a way that didn't cause unrest?

We trust Feinstein is not banking too heavily on hearing back from Obama anytime soon.

-- Don Frederick

Comments

[Luke]

I don't suppose the Clinton campaign has the answer sheet for this one...I suspect that if they ever release that, it would clearly show that this is the test he would have to pass to be the vice-president after losing to Billary in a landslide.

[gorgon '08]

Is this really a test... or a push poll?

Each question is transparently designed to deliver what the Clintons desperately hope will damage our perception of Obama as commander-in-chief.

Barack will do what all great presidents have done: appoint the 'best and the brightest', listen to them, then use his good judgement.

How many "questions" above are actually twisted replays of what Barack has said or done? Virtually all of them.

This looks less like legitimate questions asked during a campaign and more like something we used to hear on Radio Moscow back in the 1970s.

How about questions that illicit bona fide and useful answers, not mass push polls as has been the regular habit of the Clinton campaign.

[Gabe Small]

"@ Oh, and Barack, have you stopped beating your wife yet?"

If Hillary steals the nomination based on this type of fallacious spin, I will abstain in November.

[jon]

Dear gorgon 08. You might want to rethink your use of the term "best and brightest" . Please review the context in which the term originated!

[jennifer potenciano]

To perceptive people, Obama is an "idea thief" and a "issue juggler." One time, a Filipino blogger in the Times of London wrote that Obama is, by habit, a compulsive "crowd pleaser given to adopting his audience's particular ideas and beliefs, just to please them." The next day, Obama charged that Hillary--not him (Barack)--engages in the "politics of the moment" to please the crowd.
What a way to throw an accusation against him (Obama) upside down, and pelt Hillary with it.
Yesterday, I blogged in this well-respected paper, the Los Angeles Times that he (Obama) uses the race card in dissimulation to rile Hillary and maker her appear like a villain to the American Blacks. Subliminally, Obama uses race as his trump card to sell himself to the voters--and with nothing else, not experience, not vision, not wisdom. Today, the papers reported that Obama yesterday charged that Hillary toys with the race card in a very "subtle" way to advance her candidacy. I hate to say this, but this is really the apt figure of speech: Obama is an idea kleptomaniac.
Second point: Obama is an expert at playing the "carrot-and-stick trick" to fool the American electorate. Let's not anymore mention his double-face/about-face on the NAFTA issue, and the Iraq disengagement plan, if he ever hacks it as a Democratic "presidentiable."
What this blogger's saying is that, again subliminally, if not war-room-wise, Obama encourages his surrogates' low blows,innuendos and ad hominems against Hillary. To soothe her bruised ego, the next day, before a throng of news people, Obama would publicly rebuke his "erring" staff, even disowning their position and opinions, or, even more, goint ot the extent of firing them. Imagine the tremendous amount of brownie points he earns out of the charade he successfully puts up with! The American Media, again, have been had by Obama.
This blogger has read voluminous works on politics--and has known more than enough political lessons from politicians of yore and of today to know that Obama--despite his call for a decent highroad political campaign--is, simply put, just being a Machiavellian politician. Forget taht crap about his spoutings on "New Politics." Don't you notice, every Tom, Dick and Harry makes the theme of "New Politics" (with "Change" as subtext) as their clarion call whenever they become political candidates themselves?
This blogger, therefore, suggests that Hillary should take on Obama--and call a spade a spade. There's no need for Hillary to be apologetic for every TRUTHFUL ACCUSATION she lobs against Obama, for most of these, anyway, stick. Obama is running true to form. I thus advice the US PRESS to be more perceptive on Obama's rotten tricks of the trade. ****

[Ari]

This is pretty damn sad.

What is wrong with the Clinton campaign, seriously. It's as if they are just slamming a republican opponent or something. It's getting to the point that I don't ever want to see her again.

Hopefully the Obama campaign will resist sending their own list out. It's bad enough that every pundit on the planet is now going to provide their own mock-test for her. Like Olbermann asked last night - does she realise that her own staff are pulling her down and ruining her chances?