Barack Obama recently got stumped talking about Hanford:
The topic has been picked up locally and nationally.
On one hand it wouldn't be fair to hold a Presidential candidate coming off of months of a mind-numbing campaign schedule for knowing about every little bit piece of federal policy (that's why we have Congress).
BUT...
Patty Murray mentioned Hanford as one reason she endorsed Hillary Clinton and John McCain discussed the issue during his recent visit to the state.
Staffs with record-breaking influxes of cash should be better equipped to get the candidate briefed on the issues. More stumbles like that could become major unforced errors.
Posted by Eric Earling at May 19, 2008 07:06 PM | Email ThisThe Hanford Cleanup is a potent topic in Eastern Washington, but I'm betting 90% of the voting public couldn't find Hanford on a map, much less articulate the issues surround nuclear waste disposal there.
Obama is unprepared for the job he's seeking just like he was unprepared for his first morning in the senate.
His first morning in his D.C. Apartment, Mr. Fauxbama failed to recognize he would need a shower curtain when he took a shower in the morning. Like a kid you send off to summer camp,Obama found himself "soft and helpless. My first morning in Washington, I realized I'd forgotten to buy a shower curtain and had to scrunch up against the shower wall in order to avoid flooding the bathroom floor."
...and this mutt wants to handle the nuclear football?? God help us all.
Posted by: Rick D. on May 19, 2008 07:44 PMWhy people support him is beyond me. Sen. Obama is truly an empty suit! Wait a minute... I just thought why he's so wildly popular among the young in this country. Those supporting him are products of our failed educational system. Now it makes sense. His supporters don't know what it takes to be president, why should we expect them to support someone who actually has those qualifications?
Posted by: p on May 19, 2008 07:53 PMAs for his quote about "Lay off my wife" - If she makes misstatements or controversial statements, she is fair game.
Too much whining there - he can't do anything about it before the election.
I agree with the earlier comments. Obama clearly knew it was a nuclear waste site, he just didn't know the details of how the clean-up was progressing. Or not, in this case. But, at least he was frank about it.
Posted by: Bill L on May 19, 2008 08:22 PMB Obama has not read about the Manhatten Project.
B Obama doesn't know where most of the USA nuclear fuel was generated, probably won't be able to find Iran's sites either.
B Obama doesn't know one of the biggest enviro issues in the USA to leftist. LOL he clearly hasn't studied enviro literature.
Means he is G. Bush dumb, but he is still better at the English language.
Posted by: John McDonald on May 19, 2008 09:27 PMI never said it was a "gaffe" and offered sympathetic comments on why him not knowing about it is forgivable. And yes, obviously his answer under the circumstances was solid.
The point is that he wasn't briefed on it when he probably should have been. Someone campaigning with a potential experience deficit and enough money to pay a huge staff shouldn't end up in that circumstance, and it could well bite much deeper if it happens on a bigger stage.
Posted by: Eric Earling on May 19, 2008 09:55 PMObama is an empty suit. That's all there is too it.
Posted by: pbj on May 19, 2008 09:58 PMA gaffe is often a simple slip of the tongue, improper wording, doing something stupid out of anger, etc.
Obama had a long time to think about this ... he clearly had no IDEA about a MAJOR BIG TIME event in US History. I mean folks we are talking about what ended the biggest baddest war in the history of the WORLD! This is ignorance of a BIG TIME scale, of course most of his supporters are probably clueless too - so I doubt his poll numbers will reflect his ignorance of non-Hollywood history.
Karl Rove got G. Bush to take an interest in books with a reading contest, perhaps someone close to B. Obama could get him interested in learning with a History channel watching marathon disquised as a charity event.
Posted by: John McDonald on May 19, 2008 11:49 PMHe is not a contestant on "Are you smarter than a 5th grader", in which case his statement would be funny.
There are no excuses for being stupid at this level, as we have found out for the past 8 years.
Posted by: John McDonald on May 19, 2008 11:54 PMSurgery -- Hmmm, "I'm going to say something you rarely hear a surgeon say, I have no idea what you have but I think I'll just start cutting, but rest assured this practice will make me better in the future."
911 Operator --- "Hmmm, you live in XYZ place, I'm going to say something you rarely hear a 9-11 Operator say - never heard of it, can't help, sorry gotta go, but I promise I learn by my next shift."
747 Pilot --- "Hmmm, I going to say something you rarely hear a 747 pilot say, I haven't flow anything bigger than a Cessna. I promise I'll read the manual before we go up tomorrow"
Software Engineer on an interview --- "Hmmm, I going to say something you rarely hear a software engineer say, I've never heard about C++ before, but if you hire me I can learn it before I show up for work next week."
Life is not fair Duffie. No one asked him to be able to draw the equation for nuclear fission, just be able to point to Hanford on a map and know what it is. Perhaps he and he wife spent so much time hating this country they forgot to read the history books.
HAHAHAHAHA.
Posted by: Army Medic/Vet on May 20, 2008 06:22 AMOne word sums up Sen. Obama completely and succinctly - "GLIB"
Posted by: Rick D. on May 20, 2008 07:04 AMI had an apple and a bowl of cereal for breakfast. I dutifully reported this to Mr. Obama to know whether or not I meet his "eating too much" standard.
Hold on, Hussein. What am I missing here? On what particular calendar day did it suddenly become necessary for me to seek the approval of any Euro-weenie nation before I decide what truck I'm going to drive? And to what international body do I apply for permission to eat steak? Also ... is there some Internet site I need to visit to determine where I set my home thermostat on any given day?
Look, this is just too complicated for me. I just can't be expected to find my way through the maze of international relations for help in deciding what vehicle to buy, what to have for lunch, and how cold I can have my home on a hot summer day.
I'm sorry, Mr. Socialist, but you're just going to have to help out dumb Americans like me. We'll need some huge government agency - perhaps even a cabinet-level department - to poll the nations of the world on a continuing basis in order to set
the parameters for what we, as Americans, can and cannot do with our own money and our own lives inside our own homes.
Don't want the world pi**ed off at us now, do we?
Ken Howard
God save us if the simpletons vote this freak into office.
Posted by: Ken Howard on May 20, 2008 07:40 AMSee folks, I *told* you this is a cult.
Posted by: Gary on May 20, 2008 07:49 AM
Obama doesn't know much about anything other than patting himself on the back.
Man we are either screwed or REALLY screwed.
We've already had a 15W lightbulb in a 100W job for the past 8 years, swapping a 15W one for another 15W and expecting a brighter result is not change.
And yes my anologies were fair, a President should know history very WELL, like Doctors should know the body, or 9-11 the emergency system. Knowing about the Manhatten Project is 5th grade level history, it did end WWII afterall. As liberals love to say "Those who don't know history, and condemn to repeat it".
That said, I'm still voting for B.Obama because like McCain I'm for affirmative action, and Obama should get in simply because he is partially black, and since he is especially un-informed this only makes the case for affirmative action that much stronger. Really, I am voting Obama. If McCain was truly consistant, then he would spot Obama 5 points in the election because no partial black has been elected yet.
Posted by: John McDonald on May 20, 2008 09:14 AMNot really a novel approach at all. Google Neville Chaimberlain and "Peace in our time".
Posted by: pbj on May 20, 2008 01:56 PMIll be hopping in my SUV, turning up my a/c, stopping at Burger King, with my 45ACP, and my lilly white rear end while flipping off those jealous whiny Europeans...Life is good.
Posted by: Hank on May 20, 2008 01:57 PM"Please don't build a nuke."
"No."
"Please don't bomb Israel."
"No."
"May we eat as much as we like please?"
"No."
Well, at least he tried. Carter talked for 444 days and didn't achieve squat.
Obama said other countries are not okay with how much I eat, and therefore I must eat less. And you're okay with that? So that what... they'll *like* you?
Oh, and to answer your question, Bush garners more respect than Carter.
Posted by: Gary on May 20, 2008 02:20 PMI seriously doubt that. I can tell you (from first-hand contact/knowledge) that I have a pretty good feel for the way folks think in Canada and they are perplexed and confounded at how we could have elected a President like George Bush, whereas they do respect and admire former President Carter - more as a human being than his tenure as President, tho.
I would suspect the majority of the rest of the world feels that way too.
But, whatever - no one is going to dictate what or how we eat...we are the breadbasket of the world for pete's sakes!
I don't know about that. I would say taking a President's embassy hostage for 444 days is a pretty obvious sign of disrespect.
Posted by: pbj on May 20, 2008 02:27 PMAnd if he was so great, why doesn't he run? Bush was re-elected. Carter was slaughtered. Who cares what some guy in Toronto thinks about it?
Whether someone respects you, or *likes* you, are two completely different things.
Duffman, as for dictating what we eat... *your* guy said we eat to much and he cared what other countries think about that. Don't you see that as a big problem with your guy? Again, who cares what other countries think about what I eat?
Obama does. And it's bizarre.
Posted by: Gary on May 20, 2008 02:39 PMYeah, wonder how they got released so soon after the 1980 election? High respect for Reagan, or maybe some nifty promises of arms deals. I'm guessing the later.
Bunny rabbits don't vote either. =P
Your guessing the "later"?
I think it was because the Iranians knew Reagan meant business. He was an asskicker and could care less if the Iranians "liked " him.
Posted by: pbj on May 20, 2008 04:04 PMactually, his preferred outcome would be to change the latter into the former by voting for Obama or Clinton.
Posted by: Rick D. on May 20, 2008 05:54 PMWhile rabbits don't vote in our elections, neither do Canadians. At the end of the day, Obama's ignorance (How could he NOT know about one of the largest nuclear waste sites in the world?) goes to yet another of the dozens of reasons why the only way this clown should ever get into the White House is with a tour group.
Carter was inarguably the worst President this nation has known. His incompetence and ineptness is only matched by the the political observations of our more leftist trolls... those who give a rat's patooty what the rest of the world thinks in particular.
We cannot run this country to suit the rest of the world, who, like many posters here, are inculcated with hatred for anything with an "R" after their name.
Carter was a buffoon and a disaster as a president by almost every available measure.
The issue was not Barry O's response. The issue is his ignorance, again put on display as it has been for many of his foreign policy blunders. That leftists are drawn to this lightweight is proof of their ability to be manipulated... as if it was a requirement to BE a leftist.
Posted by: Hinton on May 21, 2008 07:36 AM"The Obama campaign is now offering a more nuanced approach that would not necessarily include a presidential meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- and that stresses diplomatic work that would take place before any such meetings take place.:
Sounds exactly like we're doing now. Your man stabbed you in the back. He was for talking to Ahmadinejad before he was against it.
Posted by: Gary on May 21, 2008 09:19 AMYou libs always like to throw around this Dick Cheney tells Bush what to do line. What proof do you have? Do you just hate the man so much that you have to make up BS statements in an effort to make him look worse?
Posted by: REBEL on May 21, 2008 12:24 PM