It looks obvious

“Things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” — Albert Einstein

Prior knowledge is not a requirement

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How can one reconcile this statement:

“We need a president who can restore our confidence,” she said. “We need a president who is ready on Day 1 to be commander in chief of our economy.”

with this:

When asked why she’d appoint Alan Greenspan to a working group of financial leaders to design a response to the housing crisis, Clinton told the Philadelphia Daily News:

"Not only that, but the Fed didn’t act while he was there. But he has a calming influence still to this day on Wall Street — don’t ask me why because I never understand what he’s saying – but nevertheless people respond to that Delphic oracle approach. I think it would be wise to include him. And recently he’s come out and vert smartly so [sic] that we have to deal with housing and maybe we need to have some kind of buyout mechanism for mortgages. So he’s moved on his understanding and depth of the problem — but you know you could pick three others.

I guess that commanding the economy has nothing to do with actually understanding the monetary policies the central bank implements…. :)

As a side note, and it isn’t only semantic - someone should explain the entire cadre of candidates that the President is not the commander in chief of the economy, nor the commander in chief of the country. The President is mere commander in chief of the Army, which is a lot of responsibility by itself. The country, its citizens and the economy have no commanders.

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Written by Rogel

March 25th, 2008 at 3:00 pm

Posted in 2008 campaign

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    What's the problem with reconciling it? She is clearly claiming that Greenspan makes no sense, but that he "calms the markets". That's not a contradiction to the ability that she claims to be so-called "commander in chief of the economy".

    She's implying that no one understands Greenspan. I don't know if that's true or not, but in any case there's no contradiction.

    What do you have against Clinton, anyway?

    (Not that I like her myself. I'm just wondering why you're targeting her so vigorously).




    without understanding what Greenspan says, then there is no contradiction. She doesn't say that Greenspan makes sense. She's saying that he "calms the markets". It's not the same thing.
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    I don't think that she was claiming that Greenspan doesn't make sense. He was the chairman of the Fed during her husband's presidency and was held, rightfully, in high regard. One can disagree with Greenspan's monetary policies but no one ever argued that he make no sense. I think that the reading of what she was saying (and that is the commonly understood reading) is that what he said is "above her head". This can be fine statement, although politically problematic, unless you are arguing that you have the knowledge and experience to "run" the economy.
    By the way, I would argue that what she suggested as measure to handle the sub-prime crisis is even stronger evidence that  she is not qualified - but this is a different story :)
    I don't target Clinton more harshly than the other candidates. I think that McCain and Clinton are equally dangerous. I wrote some of the reasons here and some in hebrew here.

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