Jophiel wrote:
He kept wanting his answer to be "I'd have gotten better information" but then had to admit that he he no idea what information the administration had and finally had to admit that maybe they were right. But he still would have gotten better information.
Yeah. Once he actually figured out what topic he was discussing. And that's a pretty horrible answer this far into the process anyway. Medved had a good thought on that today. He said something about why should we expect him to have people around him to provide him with that information once he's president if he can't get people around him to provide him with that information today? It's a valid point, but honestly while I don't expect a president to know everything about everything, I do expect them to know enough about most things to be able to weigh in with an opinion. You can get away with "I'd have people to provide me with good information" 0-1 times depending on the candidate.
This *wasn't* a gotcha question either. It wasn't a request to recall a specific example on some random subject the interviewer came up with, but a question about a position on a relevant major recent foreign policy issue. About the only even slight gotcha-esque part of the question was the interviewer was asking him whether he agreed or disagreed with Obama on the issue, without clearly outlying what exact aspect of the issue he was referring to. But honestly, if you don't have an opinion already about Obama's actions in Libya and the outcome, and can't speak at least semi-intelligently about the subject, you've seriously failed to study your foreign policy.
Is this where I pipe up with the same "There's a reason we tend to elect career politicians" bit? I like Cain. I think he's got some interesting ideas and a willingness to say what he thinks, but he's hitting every single branch of the political-fail tree.
Edited, Nov 15th 2011 3:22pm by gbaji