So, the “comic” strikes again. Comedian Bill Maher — the Democratic Party hatchet man with his own television show on the Home Box Office network — has crossed the line so egregiously that even President Obama’s campaign has condemned his remarks. Using the social media forum known as Twitter (and proving, once again, it has the word “twit” in it for a reason) Maher tweeted, “Why even listen to #MittRomney on foreign policy? His entire FP experience is 2 yrs trying to browbeat Frenchmen into joining his cult.”
He was referring to the fact that presumed Republican presidential nominee and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney spent two years in France as a Mormon missionary. What does that mean? It means that Romney had two more years of foreign policy experience than Obama had when he ran for president, won the election and took office.
As a former governor, Romney also has more experience in the executive branch of government than Obama had when he ran for the presidency. How many years of experience in the executive branch of government did Obama have when he ran for president? Exactly zero. Most of his career had been spent as an Illinois state legislator, and about a pretty average one, according to some observers.
In 2004, Illinois voters elected Obama to the U.S. Senate. He took office in January of 2005. Two very short years later, he boldly proclaimed to any American silly enough to listen that his two years as a senator qualified him to be president.
That amounted to quite a few silly Americans. The electorate lowered the bar for what it takes to be president and voted in the candidate whose campaign amounted to one word: Change. Few of those who voted for Obama pondered that change can be for the worse.
So the candidate of “change” brought to the table exactly zero years of experience in the executive branch of government, two years of whatever foreign policy experience he gained as a U.S. senator — and none of us can be sure what that was — no military experience (which would have been nice for a future commander in chief to have) and few other qualifications to be president.
Even had Obama served more than two years in the U.S. Senate, his run for the presidency might not have been all that impressive to some voters. Many of us remember the last president that was elected from the U.S. Senate who had no prior experience in the executive branch of government. That would be Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts in 1960, who knocked off Vice President Nixon in a close contest. And Kennedy, the claims of all those Camelot lovers notwithstanding, was simply not that effective a president.
He couldn’t get crucial civil rights legislation passed; it took his vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson, to do that after Kennedy’s tragic 1963 assassination in Dallas.
The Bay of Pigs fiasco happened under Kennedy’s watch. He did force the Soviet Union to back down and remove nuclear weapons from Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but that might not have been necessary had the Bay of Pigs Invasion been successful.
Shortly after Kennedy completely botched the race riot at the University of Mississippi, when rampaging whites fought the admission of one black student. One historian has claimed that Kennedy, to appease rioting racists, actually resegregated a fully integrated military police unit sent to restore order.
Kennedy’s record — or lack thereof — speaks for itself. So does Obama’s, which might be why his campaign folks tried to distance themselves from Maher.
Liz Smith, an Obama campaign spokeswoman, piously intoned, “Attacking a candidate’s religion is out of bounds, and our campaign will not engage in it.”
Maher donated big bucks to a super-PAC that supports Obama. Does Smith’s statement mean the Obama campaign will ask that super-PAC to return the dough?
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
