MDF(smash)

Barack addresses the “who’s your VP?” question:

Mostly interesting because he levels some below the belt blows at his opponents, something he’s frequently accused of not having the balls to do…

Last night at a fundraiser in San Francisco, Barack Obama took a question on what he’s looking for in a running mate. “I would like somebody who knows about a bunch of stuff that I’m not as expert on,” he said, and then he was off and running. “I think a lot of people assume that might be some sort of military thing to make me look more Commander-in-Chief-like. Ironically, this is an area—foreign policy is the area where I am probably most confident that I know more and understand the world better than Senator Clinton or Senator McCain.”

“It’s ironic because this is supposedly the place where experience is most needed to be Commander-in-Chief. Experience in Washington is not knowledge of the world. This I know. When Senator Clinton brags ‘I’ve met leaders from eighty countries’—I know what those trips are like! I’ve been on them. You go from the airport to the embassy. There’s a group of children who do native dance. You meet with the CIA station chief and the embassy and they give you a briefing. You go take a tour of a plant that [with] the assistance of USAID has started something. And then—you go.”

“You do that in eighty countries—you don’t know those eighty countries. So when I speak about having lived in Indonesia for four years, having family that is impoverished in small villages in Africa—knowing the leaders is not important—what I know is the people… .”

“I traveled to Pakistan when I was in college—I knew what Sunni and Shia was [sic] before I joined the Senate Foreign Relations Committee… .”

“Nobody is entirely prepared for being Commander-in-Chief. The question is when the 3 AM phone call comes do you have somebody who has the judgment, the temperament to ask the right questions, to weigh the costs and benefits of military action, who insists on good intelligence, who is not going to be swayed by the short-term politics. By most criteria, I’ve passed those tests and my two opponents have not.”

[via: lindsaycampbell]

Source: lindsaycampbell