'Preparedness' and the Democratic Nomination

March 14, 2008 — -- In the race for the White House, theatrically both Democratic presidential candidates have pushed their individual preparedness to be commander in chief.

As a key claim to that argument, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama cites judgment while New York Sen. Hillary Clinton cites experience in foreign policy, simultaneously pushing the notion that Obama hasn't passed the commander in chief threshold.

Having visited more than 80 countries as first lady, Clinton says she is prepared to answer the proverbial 3 a.m. phone call reporting a crisis and Obama is not.

But Obama's foreign policy adviser Susan Rice, a former assistant secretary of state for African affairs during former President Clinton's presidency, says the former first lady exaggerates her experience.

"There is a pattern of Sen. Clinton overstating her role in a number of specific instances to justify this notion that as first lady she garnered crisis management experience," Rice said.

Speaking at a rally earlier this month, Clinton touted her role on the international stage, "I've been able to participate in peace processes from the Middle East to Northern Ireland and was particularly involved in bringing peace to Northern Ireland."

Experts say Clinton's small but significant role was to engage women's groups and bring them into the peace process.

"Undoubtedly, engaging women's groups in the peace process was a valuable contribution, but it is not the same as saying she helped negotiate the Northern Ireland peace agreement," Rice said.

Clinton foreign policy adviser Jamie Rubin, assistant secretary of state for public affairs and chief spokesman for the State Department from 1997 to May 2000, disagrees with Rice's assessment.

"Sen. Clinton didn't say she brought peace to Northern Ireland alone, she said she helped," Rubin said, "and a Nobel Prize winner, the negotiator and the women on the ground have attested to the fact that she did indeed help."

In December 2007, Clinton told a story about a 1996 trip to Bosnia, "we landed in one of those corkscrew landings and ran out because they said there might be sniper fire."

It was a trip Clinton took with her daughter, Chelsea, songstress Sheryl Crow and comedian Sinbad.

Earlier this week, Sinbad slammed Clinton's recollection of the trip to The Washington Post.

Quipped Sinbad, "I think the only 'red-phone' moment was, 'do we eat here or at the next place?'"

"I never felt that I was in a dangerous position. I never felt being in a sense of peril, or 'oh, God, I hope I'm going to be OK when I get out of this helicopter or when I get out of his tank," the comedian said, saying that Clinton's "attitude of entitlement" turned his support to Obama.

Rubin said, "The fact the Obama campaign is stuck with trying to denigrate the successful first ladyship of a Democratic president is an act of desperation on their party."

For his part, except for his time on the foreign relations committee, Obama has little foreign policy experience with only three official trips abroad: Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

His campaign focuses on his 2002 speech against the war in Iraq with little action in the U.S. Senate to end the war last year around the time he started running for president.

It's a delay in action to end the war that feeds into the notion pushed by the Clinton campaign that Obama's talk is not always backed up by quick decisive action.

Said Rubin, "It sounds like someone who has been playing politics with Iraq all along."