By the way, ambassadors are very rarely experts on the country in which they serve.

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/columnists/ayesha-siddiqa-beyond-the-original-sin

Which Americans are pretty good at… ;^)

And of course Bush lost the 2000 election – but even that he’d come that close, was a very sad comment on us as that electorate.

You might also expect party leaders, to only back the qualified amongst those vying for air in the primaries. The Democrats thought they’d accomplish just that with the “Super Delegate” system they cooked up a few decades back. Here again for my money, it proved to be a total joke
in the 2008 cycle. They piled on behind the new face drawing the biggest crowds – some even going so far as to effectively try to deny Hillary her chance, by pressuring her to quit. While the states were still voting. Ridiculous.

In Barack’s case along with the inexperience, we get an intellectual whom
is (and has already been) far more likely to make informed and balanced decisions. Sarah Palin, anyone… ;^)

As you suggest Carol some of it comes down to the major media IMO,
who should be on this issue much stronger of exactly whom is serving in advisory capacities. That would help us at election time. But they’re mostly beholden to entrenched interests of mega-corporate owners, all entangled with the Washington elite, serving the god of ratings & maybe tossing us a kernel of accurate info along the way.

Wrong on health care and everything else, John McCain has been right
all along about divorcing the money from our electoral and legislative processes. Obama has promised it also. Meanwhile, regular citizens just
go online and render the traditional media more and more irrelevant… ;^)

What I intended to say, I don’t think, is all that different from what you are saying. Perhaps I just didn’t say it very well.

I was trying to make several points. One is that I agree with you: “foreign policy decisions about country x should be made largely by people who know country x. Not by our high-level leaders who think they know everything simply because they are high-level leaders.”

Secondly, I think its imperative for the US to elect ‘qualified’ people for public office. By qualified, I mean those with the experience, skills and expertise to do what’s best for our country, and the international community. So much of the time, those who ‘serve’ have an agenda to impose and they serve themselves and those who support them.

As voters, we can do more by meeting our responsibility to read and be more thorough in learning about the people we’re electing, before going into the voting booth.

But I’m also thinking out loud about how we could weed out “leaders” who are clearly unqualified for public office, those who don’t have the skills, expertise, or knowledge to lead the country; for instance, someone like George Bush, who clearly was not qualified to be President. He wasn’t allowed to hold press conferences for quite a while, as President, until he’d been “trained” to speak and address the issues (without demonstrating that he clearly didn’t know what he was talking about). Bush had a personal agenda he was determined to impose on the country, on behalf of the far right element in the country. After 30 years of imposing their agenda, they’ve set the country back on many levels and countless concerns and issues.

Adding to the problem, our MSM no longer seems to do its job of keeping people informed — most of the media are far too busy propping up the current administration and powers that be, whoever they are.

I think all of these problems are worth thinking about and discussing, and that’s what I meant to say.

I’d like to think both Obama and Hillary, are balanced enough and intelligent enough not to form policy with blinders on, as it strongly appeared was true of Bush/Cheney.

But I’m going to watch this now to see what reporters if any, cover this issue of whom exactly their advisors are for Afghanistan, or say Sudan / Darfur, North Korea – list goes on and on.

I tend to doubt any voices, could fundamentally change offensive U.S.
policy against a terror organization proven lethal to Western civilians. (even if ignoring those voices to begin with, gave rise to that enemy)

Yet only when we know in detail where we tread, can we expect successful outcomes. That was the change that Petraeus brought in Iraq – he paid attention to local expertise, and found ways to work with the interests of civilian Iraq, instead of our previous (and failing) posture as occupiers only.

Not that Petraeus is the best example. The entire situation there remains awful IMO. But Bush finally turned to someone, who would fold in the knowledge of nationals wiser than himself.