Barak Obama is the Democratic nominee for President of the United States. This fact is not in dispute. The task of the Obama campaign will be to convince the country to take a chance on a man whose resume is, admittedly, somewhat thin.
Much will be written in the coming months about the value of "experience". Since the election of Franklin Roosevelt, (there are no written records before 1932) America has elected four Senators, five governors, one VP and one general. Jerry Ford was a House Member but not elected. Nixon and Truman were Senators but also VP's.
No discernible pattern has emerged thus far. Among the governors, we appear to be three and two. Roosevelt, Clinton and Reagan get good grades; Carter and GW Bush, not so much. Our Senatorial Presidents are a bit tougher to evaluate. Kennedy died too early and Johnson cannot get past Vietnam. Truman gets the highest marks and Nixon, if you include him, the lowest. (Ike did pretty well but, unless General Petraeus plans a last minute bid, Eisenhower's success is irrelevant to this discord.) George H.W. Bush (hereafter referred to as B-41) is looking better all the time.
What all this proves is...well...not much. B-41 had a dump truck full of experience at every level of government and it didn't get him a second term. It's unfair to reduce four years as president to "no new taxes". Jack Kennedy had almost no experience and yet he appears to have acquitted himself admirably considering the challenges of his time.
Is a career in the Senate of more value to a president than a term or two as the governor of, say, California? Has John McCain accumulated a vast storehouse of valuable knowledge in Washington or just a lot of lobbyist baggage? Is Barak Obama better for having served only a short time in the Senate before deal-making and compromising corrupted his soul? Who can say?
What is clear is that Obama is a man perfect for his time. After eight years of the most cynical, oppressive, mean-spirited, secretive, underhanded (I'm almost done) incompetent, joyless, deceitful government we have seen since Nixon, we are ready for something, anything, else. Ronald Reagan succeeded by reminding America that, in spite of American hostages in Iran and the gas crisis, this was still a great country. When you listen to Obama you get the same sense of hope and promise.
We have spent the last 6 1/2 years being afraid. The current administration has used and amplified that fear to justify a string of questionable and, in some cases, illegal acts. All that is required to sidestep the Constitution is to begin your speech with the hobgoblins of al qaeda, terrorists and evildoers (possibly the stupidest word ever uttered by a president).
America needs something else. Being afraid all the time is tiring; just ask the Israelis. We already know that we are a great country. We don't need lapel pins to remind us. However, what makes us great is us; not our army, not our arrogance, not even our history. American greatness is writ small, in the thousands and thousands of acts of charity and good fellowship that happen every day. Our capacity to love, tolerate and understand will endure long after the Iraq War ends and the towers are rebuilt.
Barak Obama looks like something else: a way forward. The rest doesn't matter. Eisenhower knew nothing about domestic issues. He learned. George W. Bush bought a map so he could see all those other countries out there.
Don't kid yourself. No one is ready to be President on day one; although B-41 was pretty close. Obama will learn like every president learns. It's how well and how fast that will determine the success or failure of his time in office.
2 comments:
Republicans have no real right to require "experience" as a criteria. They all loyally supported George the Least who had barely been outside of the US before he became President and who had shown no signs of intellectual curiosity in his life after he sobered up in his 40's.
Bush had been the Governor of a state where the administrative burden was so heavy that the Legislature only meets in alternate years.Bush was able to spend two hours a day in the gym and take five week long vacations.
In addition, Busdh's national security team has to be among the most experienced in history. Cheney had been White House Chief of Staff and Secretary of Defense as well as CEO of a major, if evil, international corporation. Rumsfeld had previously been Secretary of Defense. Powell had been the National Security advisor as well as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Despite that experience, it's hard to think of anything they got right.
What's more important than "experience" is "judgement" and willingness to listen to all kinds of advice. In the Cuban Missle Crisis, JFK, who was light on high level experience himself, listened to a full spectrum of advice ranging from Adlai Stevenson who was willing to let the Russians keep the missiles to Curtis LeMay who really wanted to start World War III up then and there. JFK managed to pick his way thorugh all that conflicting advice and come up with a solution that avoided us being blown up in 1962 so that we could all get drafted for RVN later.
What troubles me about McCain's judgment on foreign and military affairs (Doemstic is easy. He's just wrong on most issues.) is that he still thinks Iraq was a necessary war even though all the justifications have been shown to be, at best mistaken, and at worst lies.
Glad to see you not engaging in typical Reagan bashing, which seems to be a characteristic of my generation's liberals.
I'm a big fan of Eisenhower.
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