No Straw MenEnlightened discourse proscribes arguments that are weak or imaginary, like straw, set up only to be confuted summarily.

Double-Talk vs. Straight Talk

If he can fool his pro-choice wife into thinking that he supports Roe v. Wade, should we really be surprised that John McCain can fool his countrymen, too? As Sarah Blustain observed this past summer in the New Republic,

McCain has spent years manipulating the public’s perception of his stance on abortion and reproductive health. He’s been against overturning Roe v. Wade and he’s been for it; he’s embraced the idea of a pro-choice running mate and, more recently, recoiled from it. It’s no wonder the public is confused.

Kudos, then, to Bob Schieffer, who in last night’s debate pressed McCain for clarity. Double kudos to Schieffer for following-up not just once, but twice, resulting in the following exchange:

SCHIEFFER: But even if it was someone—even someone who had a history of being for abortion rights, you would consider them?

MCCAIN: I would consider anyone in their qualifications. I do not believe that someone who has supported Roe v. Wade that would be part of those qualifications. But I certainly would not impose any litmus test.

Translation: Roe is disqualifying, even though I don’t believe in such qualifications in the first place.

Those who have followed McCain’s career recognize this massive contradiction as one of his classic tricks: A little pandering, a little double-talking, and hope that no one notices.

Experience Does Not Predict Success

Many people enjoy pointing out how “inexperienced” Barack Obama and Sarah Palin are. I, myself, hung out in this crowd, and recently argued this point to my friend Jon Henke. Jon responded:

I don’t see how you can say one of those two is experienced and the other inexperienced. You’ve got to think they’re both sufficiently experienced, or neither are, to be intellectually honest about the thing.

Well, at the risk of being intellectually dishonest, consider the following. As a senator, Obama has legislative experience at the national level, of which Palin has none. As a mayor and governor, Palin has executive experience, of which Obama has none. (I’m unconvinced that running a senate office or a presidential campaign qualifies as executive experience.)

The more important question, however, is whether any of this really matters?

We like to think that a president should have both experiences. We scoff at the suggestion that the leader of the free world will need to “learn on the job.” Yet in order to address this all-too-common refrain, we need to step back and question its premise. As Jon puts it, “When has experience been a good predictor of presidential performance?”

In fact, it hasn’t. During the last presidential election, journalist Lawrence Kaplan pointed out the overlooked obvious:

[I]s it really necessary to point out that Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt never saw combat before going on to become America’s greatest wartime strategists? Or that the very men who dispatched Kerry to Vietnam were themselves decorated veterans? To be sure, politicians who have served in war have an essential understanding of the horrors of war. But what does it tell us about their strategic wisdom or their fitness to be commander-in-chief? In truth, very little.

Similarly, what about those who become politicians without any background in politics? Names like Michael Bloomberg, Jon Corzine and Arnold Schwarzenegger come to mind. And what about those without any executive experience? The only political qualification held by the current chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, before arriving in the Senate, was a two-year stint on his county council. His name is Joe Biden. Indeed, the last three presidents to be re-elected—Reagan, Clinton and Bush—all previously were governors without a national, legislative portfolio.

In a nutshell, experience is overrated.

Addendum (11/5/2009): Talk-radio host, Michael Medved, adds a moral (as opposed to practical) dimension to my argument: Judge the person, not the resume. In Medved’s words,

One of the most fundamental American values [is] the notion that each individual deserves to be judged on ability, not background, and evaluated on performance rather than credentials …  [We are] a nation that proudly offers fresh starts and open doors.