EXPERIENCE MISHANDLED

Experience is a topic that has been mishandled from the beginning in the current political campaigns. From the beginning, McCain was credited on every side with military experience especially relevant to the judgment that he would be called upon to exercise as commander-in-chief. The question has never been raised, "How relevant is experience as a fighter-bomber pilot to that judgment?" Closely looked at, not very relevant, since fighter-bomber pilots are no more called upon to make strategic judgments than prisoners of war are, however honorable either sort of experience is. The absurdity that follows from not questioning claims of experience has lately become more visible and grandiose in the exchanges about Palin’s experience as a small-town mayor in a frontier state and Obama’s experience as a community organizer in urban America. Palin has no experience of urban America, which is where a huge proportion of Americans live. Her sneer against community organizers, besides being gratuitous, reveals her ignorance of the urban problems that they are trying to cope with. But the absurdity with which the topic of experience has been treated has since become even more startlingly visible. When Charlie Gibson asked her what was her response to being asked to take on the vice-presidency Palin answered that she did not pause to blink. Gibson did not follow up the ambiguity between being ready to say "Yes" and being ready to perform in a knowledgeable way. If someone asked Palin was she ready to perform brain surgery, would even she think that being ready to say "Yes" without blinking was a sensible answer?