I'm swamped for the next few days with deadlines and such. I keep trying to write something about the whole Sarah Palin situation but I can't keep up with the revelations. (Now it turns out that her husband was a member of that group that wanted their state to secede? Nice vetting, John.) Anyway, I can't keep up with the news, and wiser folks are saying all the things I think to say. There was an interesting column the other day from Michael Kinsley that made some pretty obvious arguments against McCain. In the middle of it, Kinsley wrote the following, which I hadn't really thought of before…
The whole "experience" debate is silly. Under our system of government, there is only one job that gives you both executive and foreign policy experience, and that's the one McCain and Obama are running for. Nevertheless, it's a hardy perennial: If your opponent is a governor, you accuse him of lacking foreign policy experience. If he or she is a member of Congress, you say this person has never run anything. And if, by any chance, your opponent has done both, you say that he or she is a "professional politician." When Republicans aren't complaining about someone's lack of experience, they are calling for term limits.
I think that's all true. "Experience" has become just another topic you twist to justify why your guy is better than their guy. And if you can't find any conceivable way to argue that your guy has more, you argue that his lack of being mired in the old ways is a plus.
Still, I wish Obama had more. I don't think experience is everything but I also don't think it's nothing. Kinsley's right that very few people approach the presidency with all the necessary experience but I do wish Obama was a two or three term Senator, just as folks inclined to vote for McCain must wish he wasn't 72 or didn't have all that past nastiness with divorces and the Keating Five. I also wish Obama had never crossed paths with a couple of past associates, not because I think he did anything wrong or shares any of their views, but because it would be nice if his detractors didn't have that to work with.
Ultimately, you pick your guy in spite of certain shortcomings and you argue that his don't matter and that the other guy's disqualify him from the job. One of the fun things about the Palin nomination is how it's forcing advocates of both tickets to modify or at least rephrase some of their assertions about what's important. I can't wait to see how everyone's position changes a little with the next discovery about Governor Palin and her family. And hey, aren't we about due for Joe Biden to say something really amazing? By Election Day, there may be no Talking Points left standing…