It looks like the presidential battle will be about one overarching theme:
judgment versus experience. And Exhibit A will be the Iraq war.
Barack Obama insists that judgment is more important than experience. Truth
be told, he's right. A wise leader with no experience is preferable to a
moron with plenty. But that's not really our choice.
John McCain argues that experience yields good judgment. The battle-scarred
soldier, the trial-tested lawyer, the accomplished surgeon: They make the
right calls because they've clocked field time. McCain contends he's walked
through the fire and learned valuable lessons as a result.
Obama's people frame things differently. Obama campaign strategist David
Axelrod recently told the Huffington Post: "It is not a question of
longevity in government. It is a question of judgment, it is a question of a
willingness to challenge policies that have failed. And (McCain) seems just
dug in."
On the surface, this all sounds like a perfectly reasonable disagreement -
indeed, it sounds like precisely the sort of debate we should be having
during a presidential election.
The problem is that it doesn't reflect reality. Obama, who was a young state
senator from a very liberal district in Chicago and a star parishioner of
the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ when the country
was debating invading Iraq, would have voters believe that he carefully
weighed the pros and cons and concluded it would be a bad idea.
You may be willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt. I am not. A far
more plausible explanation is that Obama took the position you would expect
him to take. Just as it never occurred to him that his pastor would be an
albatross in a national election, it never dawned on him that he should take
a stance other than the one expected of anyone on the far left of the
Democratic Party, never mind on the far left of the Chicago Democratic
machine. This doesn't necessarily obviate Obama's bragging rights, but the
idea that in 2002 he would have taken any other stance strikes me as
unlikely as Michael Moore siding with the pro-Bush camp.
Even if you want to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, it's hard to give
him the benefit of the facts.
As a candidate for U.S. Senate in 2003, Obama said he would "unequivocally"
oppose President Bush on the war. But once in office, he voted for every
war-funding bill - until he decided to run for president.