In a New Yorker article on the foreign policy views of the leading Democratic presidential contenders, Jeffrey Goldberg calls Hillary Clinton the most experienced candidate, but implicitly acknowledges the point I made last week -- Hillary's experience is largely as First Lady; she has no advantage in direct legislative or executive experience over her rivals:
Hillary Clinton, who has not announced her candidacy but is said to be close to doing so, is a connoisseur of statecraft, the candidate of the Democratic foreign-policy elite. She brings the most experience in foreign policy to the race—much of it gained vicariously, in her husband’s White House (my italics).
...Hillary Clinton’s decision to give Bush her approval in 2002 was influenced by her recent White House experience. “I have respect for Presidential decision-making and I saw what the Republican Congress had done to Bill on a range of issues, denying him the authority to deal with Bosnia and Kosovo and second-guessing him on every imaginable issue,” she said. “And I don’t think that that’s good for the country, and I had no problem in giving President Bush the authority to do what he stated he would do and what I was assured privately on many occasions would be done.”
Maybe I'll print up some bumper stickers with the slogan "Hillary '08: More vicarious experience"...
Comments