We talked the other day about presidential candidates and foreign policy expertise. There are basically two categories: less experienced candidates who emphasize judgment, vision, and temperament (such as Obama this year, and Bill Clinton in ’92), and more experienced candidates who emphasize expertise, knowledge, and background (such as Joe Biden).
Hillary Clinton has gone to great lengths to insist that she belongs in the latter camp, and emphasizes her foreign policy background shaped by playing key policy roles in specific conflicts: Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Rawanda.
One of those claims drew unexpected scrutiny yesterday from an unexpected source: Sinbad, the ’90s-era actor/comedian.
Sinbad, along with singer Sheryl Crow, was on that 1996 trip to Bosnia that Clinton has described as a harrowing international experience that makes her tested and ready to answer a 3 a.m. phone call at the White House on day one, a claim for which she’s taking much grief on the campaign trail.
Harrowing? Not that Sinbad recalls. He just remembers it being a USO tour to buck up the troops amid a much worse situation than he had imagined between the Bosnians and Serbs.
In an interview with the Sleuth Monday, he said the “scariest” part of the trip was wondering where he’d eat next. “I think the only ‘red-phone’ moment was: ‘Do we eat here or at the next place.'”
Clinton, during a late December campaign appearance in Iowa, described a hair-raising corkscrew landing in war-torn Bosnia, a trip she took with her then-teenage daughter, Chelsea. “They said there might be sniper fire,” Clinton said. Threat of bullets? Sinbad doesn’t remember that, either.
Clinton has boasted publicly, “We used to say in the White House that if a place is too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the First Lady.” To which Sinbad responded, “What kind of president would say, ‘Hey, man, I can’t go ’cause I might get shot so I’m going to send my wife…oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.'”
The Clinton campaign responded quickly, noting a Washington Post story from May 26, 1996, that said, “This trip to Bosnia marks the first time since Roosevelt that a first lady has voyaged to a potential combat zone.”
I don’t doubt the accuracy of the WaPo article in ’96, but the problem continues to be that the Clinton campaign is fundamentally making the wrong argument about Clinton’s strengths as a candidate. They’re still running as Joe Biden, when Clinton’s record — impressive in its own right — is better suited for a different campaign pitch.
Stories like this one seem to be increasingly common.
Sen. Hillary Clinton claims that her experience in dealing with foreign affairs qualifies her to handle a crisis call at 3 a.m. and be commander in chief.
Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign accuses Clinton of exaggerating her foreign affairs experience. It says that nothing in her background shows that she’s more prepared to handle an international crisis than he is.
No question is more central just now to their rivalry for the Democratic presidential nomination. Clinton has said that Obama hasn’t passed the “commander-in-chief test,” but that both she and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain have.
To bolster the claim, she’s trumpeted her role as first lady in bringing peace to Northern Ireland, helping to open Macedonia’s borders to Kosovo refugees and challenging China on women’s rights, all as proof that she has what it takes to manage a foreign crisis.
Yet while it’s impossible to know how much she conferred privately about such matters with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, when he was in power, public records and interviews with former Clinton administration officials and others strongly suggest that Clinton overstates her role.
Claim by claim, the McClatchy piece seems to debunk several Clinton campaign claims. In one especially embarrassing example, one of the key Irish negotiators last week called Clinton’s description of her role in the process a “wee bit silly.”
It’s probably too late for the campaign to switch gears and change the pitch. And who knows, it’s certainly possible that the Clinton campaign can still use this perception of background to win the Democratic nomination.
I’m worried, though, about how these claims will stand up to scrutiny in August, September, and October.