Mayor President
This topic of experience has struck a chord with readers. Many of you have different views on what type of experience a president needs in order to be qualified for the job. Many have some valid points.
In an email one reader told me that foreign policy experience is a must for a would-be president. It is hard to disagree with this, it seems that when a president is criticized it is usually over foreign policy mistakes (cough, cough). When looking at the current candidates I see some very thin foreign policy experience.
Rudy Giuliani, who for some reason I want to like but I don’t, seems to act like he has foreign policy experience. It a recent magazine article Giuliani discussed how he would ‘deal with Iran,’ which seems a bit naive. Here is a guy who was a lawyer and a Mayor trying to say how he would deal with a hostile foreign nation. It is like a basketball player giving directions on how to perform open heart surgery.
I don’t like this, if Giuliani wants to give advice on how to deal with a trash strike I’m all ears. But when he discusses how the U.S. can deal with Iran, “…by undermining popular support for their regime, damaging the Iranian economy, weakening Iran’s military…,” I wonder where he gets his information.
It just sounds like he is regurgitating information from his aides. As a Mayor I can guarantee you that he never dealt with Iran. Don’t get me wrong Giuliani was a great Mayor. But being a Mayor, whether it is of New York City or of Smallville, does not qualify someone to be president. There are simply too many areas that a president deals with that are in foreign territory for a Mayor.
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