Obama's Experience

I went to one of my favorite "Hillary Supporters For John McCain" websites to see what that particular Breed of Bastard was saying about Hill's DNC speech last night. Not surprisingly, the F' Obama message boards all saw the speech as a secret code telling them to vote for McCain so Hill can run again in 2012. I sort of agree with them. Hillary essentially said what this country needed but didn't really say that Obama was the person to bring it. It was a clever bit of double talk that I think was missed by a large chunk of pundits. The online Obama-spiters were all harping on something we've been hearing since day one and the something that was implied with Hillary's speech - Obama's not ready to lead.

Nails on a chalkboard.

I'm not going to delve into my usual grievances with the "Obama's not ready" talk. I think there's plenty of qualitative evidence out there that Obama is ready to lead. I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that running a grass-roots campaign for the Democratic nomination and now the presidency makes him a leader. If the issue is whether or not he can get things done...that's more a matter of surrounding yourself with the right cabinet and, you know, being a leader. We already established he has the latter covered and as for the former, Obama's beholden to no-one. That makes him well-equipped to make the right appointments.

But that's just a qualitative analysis and it allows for a lot of people who steal opinions from paid pundits to go, "Nuh-uh." So how about a quantitative analysis? Let's look at the pre-Presidential experience of our five greatest Presidents and see how they stack up to Barack Obama, since pre-Presidential political experience seems to be the primary qualification of the presidency.

George Washington
Commander in Chief of the Army

Thomas Jefferson
Virginia Delegate in Continental Congress
Two years Governor of Virginia
Virginia Delegate to the Congress of the Confederation
Four years US Ambassador to France
Four years Secretary of State
Four years Vice President

Alright, it's hard to put down the past experience of Washington and Jefferson. Especially if you throw in the whole "patriot" thing. No-one's pre-Presidential experience will ever measure up to these two so let's move on...

Abraham Lincoln
Four terms Illinois House of Rep.
Two years in Congress

I think now is a good time to remind everyone what Obama's pre-Presidential experience would be. Three terms in the Illinois House of Rep. and four years in the US Senate. Both Obama and Lincoln had a total of 10-years of pre-Presidential public office but Obama would have two more years of experience on a national level. Oh, and they were both lawyers, while we're at it. Oh, and senators trump congressmen. Oh, and the twelve years between Lincolns House of Rep. and Congress stint were spent losing various elections.

Just saying.

I also want to point out that Lincoln was viewed as an inexperienced, inept, dreamer. He swayed people to believe in his vision, however, and assembled one of the greatest cabinets this country has ever seen. Lincoln was also beholden to very few people and, as a result, he stacked his cabinet with the right people - even his greatest political enemies. Great Vision. Great Cabinet. That's what makes a great president.

Theodore Roosevelt
One year Assistant Secretary of the Navy
One year Governor of New York
Six months Vice President

I love Teddy's resume. If you just look at the positions Teddy looks like he has a ton of experience. When you look deeper and realize that he spent two-and-a-half years job whoring before coming President (via assassination) you start to wonder if Teddy was just in the right place at the right time all of the time. Teddy's one of my favorite presidents based solely on the fact that he delivered a 90-minute speech immediately after being shot on the chest, I like to think he spent two-and-a-half years threatening to kill people if they don't move him up the political chain. Anyway, his political experience falls seven-and-a-half years shy of Obama's. And it's important to remind everyone that working a year at a job doesn't really count as experience, you're lucky if you even know what your job entails after a year.

FDR
Two years New York Senate
Seven years as Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Four years as Governor of New York

Ok, it's impossible to put down FDR's pre-Presidential experience. And there was that whole polio thing, too (well, Guillain-Barré syndrome, but it's not my place to chip-away at a man's legend). I do find it funny that he took the same route as Teddy except, you know, actually stayed at his job for longer than a year.

So if I had to rank them on experience, it'd look something like this:
1 - Thomas Jefferson
2 - George Washington
3 - FDR
4 - Barack Obama
5 - Theodore Roosevelt
6 - Abraham Lincoln

I don't think we can use experience as a metric for predicting great presidents. I think you all should simply be honest with yourselves and admit that you hate Obama because he's black. Fuck it, if you all can throw shit around with nothing to back it up, so can I.

Labels: editorial, politics

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