WONK is a Great Word!
By MBolack and SusanUnPC on April 20, 2008 at 8:32 PM in Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Qualifications
You know, I love policy wonks. Maybe because I’m a little bit wonky myself. I love understanding how stuff works, its history, its potential. I just love figuring things out.
What is a policy wonk? According to Wikipedia, it’s “an expert in the field of public policy and government.” That doesn’t sound so bad to me!
How do you fix what’s broken if you don’t thoroughly understand it? How do you begin a new program or modify an old one if your understanding is superficial? How do you discontinue one that just isn’t working?
Maybe that’s why Senator Clinton’s address to the Newspaper Association of America’s Annual Conference in Washington DC had such a profound effect on me. I saw a Hillary Clinton that I always knew was there, but had never had the opportunity to really view. Sound bytes, tv ads and 90 second debate answers just can’t to that.
I only ran across this by happenstance, channel surfing in desperation to find something with actual valuable content on any of the little block of news channels available to me in my satellite tv’s guide. So I didn’t catch the entire thing the first time. But I caught more than enough to make me immediately go search it out online, and I found the entire thing at CSPAN.ORG. Am I ever glad!
We saw the HRC philosophy of government, but in practical terms. What she would do. When she would do it. Why she would do it. Then a few good, fairly long, answers to good audience questions. It was thorough, but it contained none of the rambling, self-important rhetoric that we have too often seen in this election cycle. It made me realize that I could sit down with this person and have an intelligent two-way, practical conversation about our state of affairs. I’m certain I couldn’t keep up with her knowledge in many areas, of course. But I am now certain she could keep up with me. And to borrow my favorite phrase from Rosalind Russell, “I’m nobody’s old radiator cap.”
Though this speech was largely ignored by the mainstream media, I was happy to see that it didn’t go totally unnoticed. From a review published by the American Society of Newspaper Editors:
”Clinton’s speech appeared to be well received by newspaper editors.
’I thought Sen. Clinton was terrific,’ said Maryanne McNellis, the former editor of the Financial Post, of Canada. ‘She was the first of the three candidates who addressed issues directly.’
Ken Dowdell, publisher of the Kenosha News, Wisconsin, also appreciated the Clinton’s detailed speech. ’She showed a very good grasp of the audience today,’ he said, calling her address ‘one of the best and most concise summaries of her vision of where she’d like to take the country’ that he ever heard.”
So, please, if you want to know the real Hillary Clinton, and what an HRC presidency would really entail, fix yourself a tall drink of something, put your feet up, and watch this speech. If you’re a reasonable, open-minded person out there who thinks Barack Obama is the only presidential candidate capable of inspiring voters and leading this country, this address might just change your mind.
You can read the prepared text to this speech at hillaryclinton.com. But please don’t. Go visit NAA Speech Video at CSPAN and watch it instead. It is definitely worth the time.
Then tell me if I’m wrong (nicely, please) to want a policy wonk in the White House. A real, multi-tasking policy wonk. Why doesn’t everyone else want the same thing?
by Ronald Scott
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