By David Braybrooke
Experience alone cannot be the grounds for entrusting someone with the Presidency. Not in his military service, but in his years as a Senator, McCain has plenty of relevant experience dealing with national and international affairs. However, his early enthusiasm for the Iraq war, and his instantaneous bluster about retaliating against Russian action in Georgia, show that his experience does not keep him from taking very controversial positions. The French generals in command in northern France when the Blitzkrieg struck in 1940 all had plenty of relevant experience, including practice in strategic judgments, expert knowledge, and (no doubt) impressive personal histories of passing one test after another for promotion. When it came to battle with the German army, they failed badly, among other ways, in not making full use of their resources, for example, more tanks than the Germans had, but not concentrated in panzer divisions, as the young DeGaulle had recommended. There is a big problem about experience and knowledge being out of date. The generals’ knowledge was out of date; DeGaulle’s was not. Judgment, backed if possible by a variety of experience. and cumulative up-to-date knowledge is what we want, but we cannot know whether we have someone with the judgment combining experience and knowledge in the right way until after the event. The best we can do meanwhile is ask for the variety of experience and the up-to-date knowledge, in candidates or if not in candidates, in their circles of advisers. Are we getting this information during the campaign? We do not seem to be getting it from either side.
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