Obama is probably going to be the first president since Roosevelt with significant cultural exposure to a non western culture, and I think this is a necessary antidote to the whole “My Oil Is Under Your Land” attitude that many people in high circles have.

Right. If Obama wins the nomination and the general election, his experience in an Indonesian elementary school will magically neutralize the western world’s thirst for oil and money.

Oh wow. I just don’t see it at all. I guess I should turn in my feminist card.

Hillary’s foreign diplomacy experience was that of just a wife having tea parties. Obama’s childhood years in Indonesia is The New Way to cure the world of all evils. Get it now?

But Obama reminds me of my peers and me in our insular, high status academic orbit who often think rather prematurely that we know best, based on a combination of basic smarts, fancy educations and access, versus appropriate, proven experience.

This is quite ironic as this criticism seems to me more appropriately applied to those who are privileging “Washingtonian diplomatic experience” over actually being immersed in a given local society where daily interaction with the local populace and society is required. It also privileges “top-down elite school of understanding foreign affairs and diplomacy” which in recent history…has been at best, a hit-or-miss affair for the US as the current problems in the Middle East and other parts of the world would show.

Not only does this remind me of the uncritical elitist mentality among state department superiors and politicians decried by classmates who worked in the Foreign Service, but also the academic elitist mindset where solely gaining academic degrees, even PhDs in a field specializing in one society or region of the world is enough basis to claim expertise on that society or region and by some seemingly logical extension….the entire world. This academic elitist mentality is too common among many American grad students and some Profs and one which more clued in Profs and fellow grad students who realize the limitations of experience gained in academia do their best to head off by calling this BS out when it manifests itself.

I don’t even see why Clinton’s supporters feel Clinton is vulnerable on this point as she strikes me as someone who takes her work seriously enough to go above and beyond most politicians to make the effort to learn about the foreign countries she’s visited beyond what most politicians would do….if they even bother to put on the facade of going through the motions.

If anything, this whole issue should be reframed as “Who had the most meaningful foreign policy experience??!!”….as that would not only change the dynamic of this dispute…but also call into question McCain’s “extensive foreign travel in childhood, military, and political career”.

I am curious to know what people think about Obama’s elitist comments about small towns.

Which remarks of his are elitist and where should I look for them?

I know staying wasn’t his choice, but I’d imagine an exposure to such extreme violence (only the military had guns, others used machetes) and the resulting stigmatization of Suharto’s dictatorship would be a life lesson. Not the same as growing up in Jersey.

Assuming that living in Jakarta in that period was a negative experience due to Suharto’s rise to power a few years before…I am doubtful the massive killings that arose was solely an Indonesian responsibility/happenstance considering how the US military attempted to cultivate relationships with its military leaders…including Suharto….especially after the predecessor Sukarno rejected US aid and opted to get his support from the Soviets and the Chinese Communists.

In short, it is a serious question as to how much responsibility the US had in initiating Suharto’s coup and the subsequent killings that resulted. Thus, it is a dumb strategy to use this against him as that would not only call into question the opponents’ possible anti-foreign/racist motives…..but also open up a can of worms regarding past American support for coup-based regimes…scrutiny that I doubt any of the candidates would want as it will do little but result in a game of passing the blame…..and if Obama’s campaign spins it right….make him smell like a rose compared to his opponents.

As a child Obama lived in the epicenter (Jakarta) during one of the greatest mass killings of the 20th century. Most Americans fled the country. I know staying wasn’t his choice, but I’d imagine an exposure to such extreme violence (only the military had guns, others used machetes) and the resulting stigmatization of Suharto’s dictatorship would be a life lesson. Not the same as growing up in Jersey. Just saying.

How is this young senator who had alot of priviledge in this country going to compete with a guy who was a POW for 5 1/2 years. Obama will have to walk a fine line downplaying McCain’s experience without overt disrespect, which I think will be nearly impossible. He completely disrespected his other democratic rivals during one debate that got Richardson so annoyed he had to point out the value of experience. Also taking down an experienced opponent is not going to impress many older people who disdain youthful entitlement.

This is so rich! If we’re going to see who is privileged among the choices of Clinton, Obama, and McCain…….the edge will go to…McCain!! McCain was no mere working/middle-class sailor who enlisted and pulled himself by his bootstraps…but came from a prominent privileged Navy family. I mean he is the son and grandson of Admirals for crying out loud!! I doubt that fact hurt his chances of attending the elite United States Naval Academy at Annapolis and getting some of the assignments he got during his career. Though things have improved by the time my cousin graduated from a topflight engineering school with an NROTC commission as an aviator, he along with other ex-navy people have admitted that being a USNA graduate is a great boost in furthering one’s Naval career….or in the realm of professional connections in areas such as business and politics. In fact, from what I have seen in the workplace, being a USNA grad confers at least as much, if not more prestige as/than graduating with an Ivy-level degree…especially in fields such as politics, business, science, and engineering.

Moreover, while his 5.5 years as a POW is a great draw, it could also be spun to express concern about strong anti-Asian prejudices to the point of publicly uttering racist slurs which along with his infamous uncontrollable temper may call into doubt his fitness as a President who is supposed to represent, in part, all Americans.

Also, I am curious. How much of this “disdain” over youthful entitlement is a genuine concern over ageist concerns…..and how much of it is really the elder group telling us “young’uns” to sit down, shut up, and let the “grownups” handle the serious business of politics?? Trust me, McCain’s campaign will have no qualms about using this against Obama or Clinton…

This is what has been getting my goat for the last few weeks because there is a real easy answer and one that shouldn’t even be outrageous- because that is what this particular thread is all about. On another thread we may discuss racism, still another ageism or LGBT issues or any number of other issues but each thread is usually about one particular area. The candidates have to tough it out because they can’t stop people from parsing every statement to death, it happened before the internet and will continue into the future with whatever other form of communication gets developped.

I am sorry Kristin if you dislike the word ‘sect’ but as I was trying to make it a more global sentence encompassing different denominations in all the world religions as opposed to just Islam. I picked sect over denomination as the second is perceived as particular to Christianity while sect is more globally accepted if currently badly misused. Just using Sunni and Shi’a would imply that there are just two main subdivisions of Islam and that is untrue just as Christianity is more diverse than just Protestant and Catholic.

I wanted to mention that this comment from zuzu came closest to showing me where there may in fact be sexism underlying Obama’s statement:

Also, his “I’ve been on those trips” argument is a little hollow. He’s presuming that his trips were the same as hers. Sometimes they were, sometimes they weren’t, but reducing her entire experience to seeing children dance and taking a tour of a factory negates a lot of the more actively-engaged stuff she did. Which just happened to be, in large measure, a lot of work with and meetings with women’s groups and organizations, as well as groups that worked on children’s issues. It’s probably not coincidental that those get erased, and not even dismissed along with the factory tour and the dancing kids and the tea parties.

I think this is a very good point – that Obama is presuming that his experiences are comparable to Clinton’s, and in fact ignoring other types of experiences she may have had. However, the question in my mind is still, would he have done the same thing with a man – ignored certain of that man’s experiences and presumed that his experiences were the same. Maybe yes, maybe no, I think it is hard to say. I do think it is entirely possible that Clinton’s other experiences did in fact get unconsciously erased in his mind (or consciously, but that we really don’t have any evidence for one way or the other) because she is a woman, because those experiences were related to women’s activism, and because women’s experiences tend to go unseen. I’m not convinced that there is enough in this one statement to conclusively say that this is the case, but it is important to talk about this possibility.