Hiding Out in the Senate and Alaska

One of the more astonishing features of the presidential race is that McCain supporters keep making the case for the Senator's foreign-policy expertise. Equally disconcerting are the efforts to inflate Governor Palin's credentials to a point where she becomes a credible vice presidential candidate. Both gambits involve a series of misleading or at the very least non-evidentiary proclamations.

What the rhetoric actually proves is that long-serving politicians and newcomers alike often coast on dubious accomplishments and false premises. That McCain has served in Congress for twenty-six years traveling hither and yon doesn't prove he is capable of governing or comprehends what he has seen. Name dropping during the debate about having been to Wiziristan probably didn't impress most listeners except for an occasional ‘gee whiz'. And he wasn't likely to have lingered there for long since that is an area of Pakistan quite beyond either its military or political control and said to harbor Bin Laden.

And calling Georgia's president by his nickname, Misha, wasn't so much an indication of a McCain connection as it was confirmation of the fact that Randy Scheunemann, one of McCain's top advisors, is a paid lobbyist for that country. Scheunemann is also a member of "The Project for The New American Century", an organization that promoted the invasion of Iraq for years and supported the return of shadowy Iraqi ex pat, Chalaby. Some may find such relationships helpful in the decision-making process; others may regard them as problematic if not downright dangerous.

During the debate McCain kept describing Obama as inexperienced and naïve, but in what way does McCain exhibit the judgment and skill needed to perform effectively as president? He has repeatedly confused the two major religious-political factions in Iraq and tried to connect Shiite Iran with Sunni-led Al Qaeda. And he talks about the surge as if it were the raison d'etre for our entire Iraq experience.

The fact that he seemed not to have realized that Czechoslovakia became the Czech Republic more than fifteen years ago isn't reassuring either. And recently when he was interviewed by a Spanish journalist and asked if he would invite President Zapetero to the White House, he said he was always ready to engage with friends of the United States and Latin American neighbors. Embarrassingly, he had to be informed by the interviewer that Zapetero is the president of Spain, a NATO ally. If Foreign Affairs is McCain's strength, his weaknesses could be terrifying.

In Sarah Palin's case McCain has cynically tried to sell a candidate so under-qualified as to be beyond parody - - almost. At the beginning of the debate he described her briefly as a "maverick" like himself, a term that has been over-used in both cases and has begun to engender a so-what, who-cares, just-shut-up response from many people. This is a woman who, whatever attributes she may possess, won the governorship of Alaska with just 114,697 votes or 48.33% of the total in a state with a population of 626,932 people, of whom 482,045 are registered voters. In addition to her down-home appeal she carries some baggage with respect to the kinds of people she has hired as well as the Trooper-Gate affair and her pursuit of earmarks. And it hasn't been taken kindly in Alaska that McCain people seem to have commandeered the Governor's office.

During the debate McCain criticized Obama saying he didn't seem to understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy. It wasn't all that clear that McCain understood that difference either; he was so involved in trying to make Obama look foolish the substance of his argument got lost in the process.

But apparently neither Bush nor McCain understands the far more important distinction between military strategies and the business of formulating policy. That relationship seems to have been turned upside down, with the current administration assigning leaders in the field the responsibility for committing troops and treasure according to "conditions on the ground" rather than establishing clear-cut political goals that would define our ultimate objectives and determine what policy objectives to pursue.

The Senate and the state of Alaska have provided cover for two candidates whose lofty claims of experience and competence are open to question - - in effect hiding them from a proper vetting process and allowing them to manufacture their own public image.