Your Humble Blogger was on the road last night (heading for rehearsal, in fact) and heard General Wesley Clark on All Things Considered. I thought that considering how obvious his point was, he seemed both to have a hard time saying it, and to have a hard time getting it through the head of the interviewer, Michele Norris. It seems very simple to me, so let me see if I can say it in a way that makes sense.
Being an officer in the military can give you two kinds of experience: combat experience, and administrative experience. Nobody questions that John McCain had combat experience, and I (that is, Wesley Clark) say and Barack Obama says and nearly everybody says that his experience getting shot down and his experience as a POW were important, were honorable, and were an important test of his character and his person. When you are thinking about what kind of person John McCain is, you should certainly take into account his brave and honorable record in the military.
However, the job that he wants is an administrative job in the Executive Branch of the United States Government. The head of the Executive Branch. And it would be silly to describe his military career in terms of applicable experience for an administrative job heading the Executive Branch of our government. That’s the sense in which I said that being shot down is not a qualification for the Presidency.
Now I can say that because I was the big brass. Let’s be clear about this: I was the Supreme Allied Commander Europe for the NATO countries. That’s not just a combat post, it’s an administrative post. It meant meeting with heads of state, negotiating with ministers of defense and foreign ministers, making those executive decisions and being accountable for them, and holding together an alliance to achieve a goal. Which, Michelle, I achieved. I can’t see that it in any way disparages Senator McCain’s valiant service to say that that’s a job he simply never held. So when I talk about qualifications, when I talk about the administrative experience, the executive experience, that’s what I’m talking about.
Norris: So what national security qualifications does Sen. Barack Obama have that Sen. John McCain does not, if you were to put them side by side and compare their experiences?
That’s the question we all have to answer for ourselves in the voting booth. But I will tell you this: My experience dealing with allies, negotiating, administering an immense organization, tells me that the first thing to look for is judgment. And on the major issue of the day: should we invade Iraq the way we did, without the UN, with a coalition that lacked the support of much of the Arab world, with the troops that we had available at that moment—well, John McCain said yes, he thought it was a good idea, and Barack Obama advised against it. I think that tells you that Barack Obama has the judgment we need in the Oval Office, combat experience or no.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.