Quote:
Originally Posted by
Harald 
I find this rationalisation *extraordinary*. Does a man of your knowledge and experience really not understand to know something you have to SEE it. The only way you can understand what truly powerful people or people with very diffierent cultures mean or how they can *play* you is by meeting them.
Yer woman can reorganise a dairy in Alaska (badly) but she will REALLY make mistakes.
This type of emotional intelligence you are talking about I consider very relevant to politics and I'm of the view that most people at this level already have a fair amount of it or else they wouldn't have gotten to that level in the first place. So no matter what you may believe, I think the understanding of human nature is already known to folks at this level. I'm sure before each meeting with a foreign leader, all the most knowledgeable people on that particular country brief the VP and P no matter who is in office.
Now the most prominent area where this "playing" can occur is of course on matters of force and military and if anyone has shown he can be played it is Obama who constantly treats actual aggression like a dispute over who had the basketball last at the final recess bell. He has constantly bantered about a willingness to talk with every two-bit dictator who demonstrates some bad behavior and then demands the attention of the president of the U.S. Obama is the one who claims he will end preemptive war but then demands that all the "invisible" walls be torn down and talks of NATO protecting the bloggers of Iran. Obama is the one that has already scared the hell out of our trade partners and even needed to reassure them that his rhetoric was election bullshit with regard to NAFTA.
There is a big difference between suggesting someone is a dangerous lightweight and having had someone already prove it. It isn't suggested about Obama, it has been proven. His response to Russian aggression in Georgia changed several times within the first few hours as he tried to figure out his head from his ass. No matter what Palin is second on the ticket but Obama is the top and has already shown he lacks clear judgment in this area. Palin was shown to have had ABC cut her responses in half to make her appear more like a warmonger.
The desperation of the left in this area is palpable. Palin has shown she can already field pitches in this, her weakest area and by the debate I have no doubt she will be hitting questions out of the park. Biden grows more tired, mumbles more and more and already gives almost daily gaffes which the press simple ignore due to bias. As usual they will help screw up the expectations game and I'm sure there will be loads of spin after a VP debate in which Biden can't deliver. Biden has always been small time. Being small time for 35 years is still small time. Every time BIden has moved up from the minor league to the major leagues of politics, he has been a complete non-factor. It doesn't matter whether it is Senate Panel questioning or running for president, it hasn't been there for him.
Worse still, instead of just hoping he is an empty suit Biden has proven it. The press ignore his hair plugs, his veneers and yes, his tanning, and fail to mention that when the chips have been down several times in his life, Biden has always resorted to the words and ideas of others and been caught doing it. Biden has gotten by using that keen Irish wit that seems to still go over so well on the East Coast. On the West Coast it wouldn't get him crap. Outside of Delaware it hasn't gotten him crap. BIden calling Obama unprepared is the clip in my sig. The other gaffe is of him calling Obama clean and articulate. There are dozens more like this. They aren't even hard to find nor are they old. He does this regularly. George Allen had one Macaca moment and cost himself and election. Biden has one of these about every four-six months and the complicit Democratic press hasn't made it cost him anything. If he lucks out and doesn't screw up between now and the end of the election, Obama will have lucked out.
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