You can read books about crime or attend lectures by criminologists, but you have no real experience or expertise about crime unless you have been a criminal or a policeman.
Although I served in the Marine Corps, I have no military experience in any meaningful sense. The closest I ever came to combat was being assigned to photograph the maneuvers of the Second Marine Division at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
That was photographic experience, not military experience. If someone gave me a policy-making job in the Pentagon, I wouldn't have a clue.
The fact that Senator Joe Biden has for years listened to all sorts of people testify on all sorts of foreign policy issues tells us nothing about how well he understood the issues.
Out of the four presidential and vice-presidential candidates this year, only Governor Palin has had to make executive decisions and live with the consequences.
As for Senator Obama, his various pronouncements on foreign policy have been as immature as they have been presumptuous.
He talked publicly about taking military action against Pakistan, one of our few Islamic allies and a nation with nuclear weapons.
Barack Obama's first response to the Russian invasion of Georgia was to urge "all sides" to negotiate a cease-fire and take their issues to the United Nations. That is standard liberal talk, which even Obama had second thoughts about, after Senator John McCain gave a more grown-up response.
We should all have second thoughts about what is, and is not, foreign policy "experience."