For What It's Worth

Experience. The cornerstone of the McCain campaign (or at least the first part of his campaign until his pollsters reassessed the national mood and decided they would be better off trying to steal "Change.") It seems now that the McCain camp has accepted defeat in the war over the "change" slogan (though for a 72 year old guy with essentially the same policy proposals as his own incumbent party, the fact that he even tried to hijack that slogan is impressive). In the past few weeks McCain seems to have remembered how much he loves experience, and considering how close we are to election day it seems that McCain's game of "musical slogans" may have landed him firmly back where he started.

This seemed to be true in the last debate, when McCain tried to paint Obama as a dangerous unknown, saying that the presidency isn't suited for someone who needs "on the job training." Instead, we need someone who's been there, he says, someone with experience.

It's true, experience is an important quality. No one would disagree with that. But is it the be-all end-all that John McCain asserts it is? I think it is fair to say that the person with the most experience at being president right now is our very own George W. In fact, he's the only one who has any experience in being president in the 21st century. Does that mean we would want him calling the shots for another 4 years?

So how do we know what experience is worth? Is there a formula where we can plug in a candidate's age, years of service, and number of bills introduced, and get something like a credit score before we decide to loan them the country for four years? If so, Palin is certainly sub-prime. But, alas, it's not that easy. It seems we need to look elsewhere if we are to find the worth of a person's experience and how that will translate to their effectiveness in a new position.

I guess the general theory is that experience gives a person a large bank of knowledge to call upon in facing new problems. As the saying goes, "history repeats itself," and the idea seems to be that those who have seen more in their time are in a better position to react to future challenges by recalling effective strategies of the past.

I can agree with this to some extent. But the problem I see with this notion that experience and judgement comes only with age is this: just because someone lived through a certain point in history doesn't mean that they have a sound understanding of the dynamics of a particular situation that took place during that era. This point became incredibly clear to me in Tuesday night's presidential debate.

McCain and Obama were discussing foreign policy, particularly the challenges we face in Afghanistan. I couldn't believe what I was hearing when McCain began "educating" the public with a brief overview on how extremism was allowed to prosper in Afghanistan in the first place:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91ibsDF9Dqs&feature=iv&annotation_id=event_813830 

To see a candidate who has portrayed himself as a foreign policy expert, someone with experience, display such a fundamentally wrong understanding of one of the most important and far-reaching international events of the past century was astounding to me. For someone who just minutes before had declared Ronald Reagan his personal hero, you would think McCain may have payed a bit more attention during Reagan's time in office.

To those who were paying attention (or anyone who has been so bold a to read a history book) McCain's perception of the situation is frighteningly simplistic and plainly false. The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a sort of Vietnam-like conflict for them, in that they spent years trying to gain control over the territory and were eventually forced to withdraw after massive amounts of casualties. Of course, the US saw this war as an opportunity to inflict the Soviets with a huge military defeat, and so we began funneling large sums of money to Afghan "Freedom Fighters" (The name is a matter of perspective. The Soviets called them terrorists. The fact is that they were a band of warriors fighting a jihad against the Soviet Union. They were led by warlords and destroyed infrastructure, launched rocket attacks, planted mines, etc. often at the cost of civilian lives.) Eventually, these "freedom fighters" were successful in driving the Soviets out of Afghanistan.

At this point, McCain seems to think that the freedom-loving warriors we trained and funded just vanished into thin air, while evil terrorists like Al Qaeda and the Taliban moved in to take their place. The obvious point that McCain doesn't seem to understand (to use his common criticism of Obama) is that the many of the warlords responsible for instituting Taliban rule and Islamic extremism were the very same men we had funded to drive out the Soviets. In fact, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar--the warlord who received the most US funding during the conflict (40%)-- is now wanted for war crimes and terrorist acts involving the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Nobody left Afghanistan, and it's not like the extremists appeared overnight. The only shift occurred in their feeling towards us--and it was not a favorable change.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulbuddin_Hekmatyar#Role_in_the_anti-Soviet_resistance

I certainly agree that experience is an important factor in choosing a president. However, it does us no good to elect people who have huge misconceptions about the way the world works, no matter how long they may have been serving the country. Experience is only valuable if it helps you make more informed decisions on the basis of prior knowledge. On Tuesday night John McCain showed us that, at least on Afghanistan, his experience isn't worth much.

Debate Live Blog: Kitchen Sink Edition

Shorter New York Times

Just about everything John McCain said about Obama in today's speech was a lie. Worth reading; it's a shockingly long list. Does McCain think he's going to get away with this? Is he?

Rolling Stone: 1,000,000, Maverick: 0

The latest issue of Rolling Stone published this revealing article about John McCain. It might be long, but it is completely worth reading. A small excerpt:

"On the grounds between the two brick colleges, the chitchat between the scion of four-star admirals and the son of a prizefighter turns to their academic travels; both colleges sponsor a trip abroad for young officers to network with military and political leaders in a distant corner of the globe.

"I'm going to the Middle East," Dramesi says. "Turkey, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iran."

"Why are you going to the Middle East?" McCain asks, dismissively.

"It's a place we're probably going to have some problems," Dramesi says.

"Why? Where are you going to, John?"

"Oh, I'm going to Rio."

"What the hell are you going to Rio for?"

McCain, a married father of three, shrugs.

"I got a better chance of getting laid.""

Oof. That is definitely not the kind of thing you should ever say out loud.

Men for Palin (Version 2)

2008 Issue Briefing: Health Care

"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."
-John McCain, in a September article about his health care plan

If that doesn't tell you all you need to know about why Barack Obama is better for the American health care system than John McCain, check out LegCom's 2008 Issue Briefing on Health Care.

John McCain Cleaned My Bathroom Today!

And now for a brief distraction from the election: I discovered this note in my bathroom today.

As a Fall Clean-Up 2007 alumnae, can I just say that I love Dorm Crew? And that John McCain is such a maverick, he will clean up Washington too, and finally, too, your bathroom also?

VP Debate Liveblog!!

2008 Issue Briefing: Taxes and the Economy

We all know John McCain is out of touch personally - par for the course when you can't remember how many houses you own. But did you know McCain's economic policies are equally out of touch? Actually, you probably did - but we bet you haven't yet seen it presented in shiny PDF form. Well, now all of your dreams have come true!

The Harvard Dems Legislative Committee proudly presents the first in a series of weekly briefings on issues in the 2008 election. Download the fact sheet here.

Debate Liveblog!!

John McCain has gone into the phonebooth changed out of his cape and is quickly flying down to Oxford Mississippi for the debate!

The debate is about to begin!! Go to the comments section and blog away!

McCain Wins pre-debate schmuckery

John McCain's campaign, moments before he announced he would attend the debate he wants no part of, started running this ad:

God, this is the worst week of your life John McCain!

1.) Got the three page Paulson plan on the bailout and didn't read it

2.) Palin looked like a rookie with Katie Couric

3.) Letterman fried you

4.) Your "country first, debate never" strategy was a Hail Mary that was a pick-6 (if you aren't a football fan, it's when you throw an interception and the opponent who caught it returns it all the way back for a touchdown)

5.) You said you were suspending your campaign but still campaigned, sending out surrogates, raised funds, Palin met with voters, and you spent an addition 22 hours in NYC after saying you were going back to DC.

6.) Your attempt to get involved in the bailout negotiations led to the bailout negotiations crashing and burning.

Just go home (you have plenty of choices) and you would be better off just hoping Obama says something really bad.

David Letterman is my new favorite person

Harry Reid Finally Does Something Right

His response to McCain suspending his campaign in order to save the world's economy in under a week:

"This is a critical time for our country," says the Reid statement. "While I appreciate that both candidates have signaled their willingness to help, Congress and the Administration have a process in place to reach a solution to this unprecedented financial crisis. I understand that the candidates are putting together a joint statement at Senator Obama’s suggestion. But it would not be helpful at this time to have them come back during these negotiations and risk injecting presidential politics into this process or distract important talks about the future of our nation’s economy. If that changes, we will call upon them. We need leadership; not a campaign photo op. If there were ever a time for both candidates to hold a debate before the American people about this serious challenge, it is now.”

I approve. But I'd still like to see him replaced by Dodd, Leahy, or Feingold ASAP.

McCain: "Stop the campaign, I want to get off"

"Suspending the campaign," eh? Out of Patriotic Concern? Right when the polls and the electoral map are quickly sliding out of his grasp, and the issue of the week happens to bring out all his vulnerabilities? What utter bullshit. Just like three weeks ago when Patriotic Concern over a semi-serious hurricane conveniently bumped President 24% and Vice President Obviously Evil right out of the prime-time convention schedule. These guys are pathetic.

You know what it reminds me of? I'll tell you a personal story. I was a fat kid -- I'm still a big, portly dude, but when I was a kid I was humongous -- and like all fat kids, I hated gym class. So in 5th grade I concocted a brilliant strategy: whenever it was time to run laps around the yard, by far my least favorite activity, I'd conveniently tell Mrs. Rainford that I "had to go to the bathroom," and return just as the class was finishing up. (It worked, and saved me a lot of anguish; I think Mrs. Rainford, who was a saint, understood, because I did that like every week for a year and she only called me on it once.) This is exactly what McCain is doing right now.

I just hope the Obama campaign (likely) and the media (doubtful) will display slightly less empathy than my Canadian primary-school teacher: they should call McCain on his BS, hold the debate on Friday as planned, and nail the whining sonofabitch to the wall. No bathroom breaks.

When Words Come Back to Haunt You

Paul Krugman yesterday pointed out a major McCain gaffe that will come back to haunt him as the economy becomes the major issue of the election:

Here’s what McCain has to say about the wonders of market-based health reform:

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking , would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

Oops (I added the bold in for emphasis). Sorry to rain on McCain's "blame greedy Wall Street" parade, but I don't think anyone's going to forget that McCain helped promote the regulatory failures that led to these massive bank blowouts. Most people don't understand the moral hazard issues with the current system of mortgage-backed securities and the problems of accounting sheet voodoo and banking mistrust, but one thing's for sure: public sentiment is shifting towards more regulation, and John McCain's on the wrong side of the tracks.

Update: I forgot to add one more important part. Since deregulation worked so well for the financial system, it will work well for health care, right?