Bill Clinton puts it this way:
“When is the last time we elected a president based on one year of service in the Senate before he started running?” Mr. Clinton said. At another point, he appeared to compare Mr. Obama to a “gifted television commentator” running for president. “They’d have only one year less experience in national politics” than Mr. Obama, he said.To answer this question, I advocate a look at some of history's presidents and their relative amounts of experience. Back in 1999, when W was in the running, a journalist noted that one of the greatest presidents of America's history, if not the greatest, had very little experience on the national stage -- Abe Lincoln -- in order to argue that W had enough experience:
...Abraham Lincoln, who is usually at the top of every list of great presidents. Yet he was the only president with no experience as a governor, senator, Cabinet member, general or vice president. Lincoln’s previous experience in public office consisted of one term in the U.S. House, several terms in the Illinois Legislature and a brief tenure as postmaster of New Salem, Ill. He was also an unsuccessful merchant, a successful lawyer and twice an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Senate.It is important to keep in mind that Honest Abe saw our nation through the greatest challenge it has ever faced, while two of the top three worst presidents of all time -- Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan -- had impressive experience and a long list of political credentials. It should also be noted that some of the greatest presidents lacked military experience. It seems obvious to me, but apparently not to others, that a person's character and raw intellectual talent is much more indicative of their success in any venture than just how long they've been around certain circles.
Lincoln’s immediate predecessor, James Buchanan, served 10 years in the U.S. House, 10 in the U.S. Senate, 4 as secretary of state and represented the United States in Britain and Russia before winning the White House in 1856. Yet historians are almost unanimous in portraying him as a president who dithered ineffectively while the country raced toward the precipice of civil war.
As Obama has pointed out before, there are plentiful examples of terrible politicians with long and impressive resumes:
"There are a couple guys named Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld who had two of the longest resumes in Washington and led us into the biggest foreign policy disaster of a generation," Obama said at a campaign stop in Alton, New Hampshire. "So a long resume doesn't guarantee good judgment. A long resume says nothing about your character."Bingo.
When the Boston Globe endorsed Obama, it stated:
Obama's critics, and even many who want to support him, worry about his relative lack of experience. It is true that other Democratic contenders have more conventional resumes and have spent more time in Washington. But that exposure has tended to give them a sense of government's constraints. Obama is more animated by its possibilities.And I think this reflects, as Andrew Sullivan made a point of, a significant difference between Hillary and Barack: the 60s-era culture wars mentality that conjures up only visions of sexual freedom, gun rights and religious conservatism, while shrouded in the same sort of secrecy and embedded political machine as ever -- versus a new kind of politics focused on transparency and honesty.
On another note: Some people would watch this and come away convinced Mormonism is bad, making their own faith look better. Some would start to get the real point hidden inside O'Donnell's tirade and get uncomfortable: all religions have not only disparate scandals, but a unifying theme of regressive policies and dogmas -- from slavery to discrimination against women to torture to ...
*cross-posted to:
1) my Obama blog
2) Educators for Obama blog
