wrote in message
...
On Wed, 8 Oct 2008 06:44:51 -0700 (PDT), riverman
wrote:

On Oct 8, 8:29 pm, wrote:
Using only the debate, make your case as to why either of these
goofballs deserve to be POTUS. Feel free to quote the gibberish and
economic impossibilities either candidate used. For extra credit, show
how your candidate manages to use X dollars of revenue to pay for X
times 2 dollars of government spending while simultaneously reducing
taxes, funding Social Security and Medicare, eliminating the deficit,
and solving all the problems in the world...

Sheesh,
R

The role of POTUS is leadership. Leadership has very little to do with
experience, IMHO. It does not mean the leader needs to be an expert on
everything, nor does the leader have to do everything themselves. They
have to be able to work WITH people, to generate goodwill and
endorsement, they have to be able to distinguish between paths that
might lead to disaster and those that might lead to success. They have
to be able to take and weigh counsel, they have to be able to make
tough decisions after considering complex factors, and they have to be
able to make a lot more less-tough decisions by generating support.

None of this is reliant on experience....experience often tends to
harden us to our inferior ways, or to crystallize a power structure
that is inflexible. Everyone, especially highly intelligent and
insightful people, can learn. As a British MOP said: if experience was
a prerequisite for leadership, then change of any sort would be
impossible since the status quo has, by default, the most experience
possible.

With these parameters, I think Barak Obama has repeatedly demonstrated
that he engenders goodwill; for foreign and domestic affairs the next
POTUS must represent intelligence, insighfulness, a willingness to
consider others' points of view, and a rejection of many of the
policies of the past.

John McCain, on the other hand, does not engender that sense of
goodwill or international support. His image is that of adherence to a
war strategy that alienates allies, he has not demonstrated with his
history a better ability to get along with folks, nor has he managed
to show in this campaign the ability to set clear goals, with
appropriate flexibility.

And most simply: according to their college and education histories;
Barak Obama is considerably more intelligent than John McCain. Two Ivy
League schools and head of the Harvard Law Review, vs graduating 5th
from the bottom of his Military Academy class. Obama is in the peak of
his physical and mental acuity years: McCain is closer to the end of
his life than the middle.

Most of these things are subjective, and therefore debating their
accuracy is not worthwhile....YMMV applies more than any challenge of
facts. But the POTUS generates support and is able to lead through
subjective assessments, and I believe Obama has that type of
charisma.

Besides, in either McCain or Palin....the last thing our country needs
is another 'down home good ol' boy' with a mediocre intellect.

Wow. You got all that from the debate, did ya...?

Idiot.

Wolfgang