Obama: Open Mouth, Insert Foot

It must be the new campaign strategy for Sen. Barack Obama, since he seems to be doing it a lot lately.

Let's begin with foreign policy qualifications, Obama style. At a recent fundraiser there were questions about whether or not Sen. Obama, should he become the Dem nominee, choose a vice president with foreign policy experience. Here is what he had to say:

"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. [...]

"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. . . ."

So, living in Indonesia from age 6 to 10 makes Sen. Obama a foreign policy expert? Does he seriously think we will believe that the experiences of a 10 year-old, and he may have been a bright 10 year-old, somehow make him an "expert" on foreign policy? I think it takes a serious suspension of belief to buy this argument.

Mayhill Fowler, who authored the article at Huffington Post, had this observation:

"...[E]ven though I've researched and written on Hillary Clinton's trips abroad and consequently been critical of her claims, my estimation of her foreign travels is that they were sometimes quite a bit more than a dance, a briefing and a tour. What Barack Obama's remarks last night in San Francisco reveal, however, is his self-confidence--to the point of cockiness--right now."

Now THAT certainly isn't an understatement.

Could that cockiness be the reason why he felt comfortable making this comment about the people of Pennsylvania?

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

"And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Oops. Might not have been one of his finer moments.

Sen. Clinton's response:

“I saw in the media it’s being reported that my opponent said that the people of Pennsylvania who faced hard times are bitter. Well, that’s not my experience.

“As I travel around Pennsylvania, I meet people who are resilient, who are optimistic, who are positive, who are rolling up their sleeves. They are working hard everyday for a better future, for themselves and their children.

“Pennsylvanians don’t need a president who looks down on them, they need a president who stands up for them, who fights for them, who works hard for your futures, your jobs, your families.”

You can listen to Sen. Clinton respond to this, and other issues, below.