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Among the Democrats, Hillary Clinton is trying to define herself as the candidate of experience. However, in yesterday’s debate on ABC, Barack Obama made the proper distinction between experience and qualification for public office.

While other Democratic candidates for President talked about their plans for Iraq, Barack Obama had the audacity to point out that many of them had been part of the problem from the start, having voted to authorize the invasion and occupation of Iraq, thus placing the United States in the difficult position of having to choose between the bad options for getting out of Iraq. Obama commented,

“There are only bad options and worse options, and we’re going to have to exercise judgment in terms of how we execute this. But the thing I wish had happened was that all the people on this stage had asked these questions before they authorized us getting in, because earlier on we were talking about the issue of experience. Nobody had more experience than Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and many of the people on this stage that authorized this war, and it indicates how we get into trouble when we engage in the sort of conventional thinking that has become the habit in Washington.”

John Edwards has two strikes against him on this matter, having had only one term in the United States Senate before deciding against running for re-election in 2004. Yet, during that one term in office, Senator Edwards managed to make the tremendous error of voting in favor of letting Bush start the Iraq War.

Senator Joseph Biden, Hillary Clinton and Chris Dodd have the clear edge of experience over John Edwards. Yet, like Edwards, their experience is tainted with profound lack of judgment. They voted, as Edwards did, in favor of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

There are many people in Washington D.C. who have been in power for a long time. What does the quantity of time occupying power prove, other than the ability to persist? Southern racist Strom Thurmond was the longest-serving member of the United States Senate. I don’t think that many Democrats would say that high level of experience made Senator Thurmond well qualified for the presidency.

Thanks to Barack Obama for providing a blunt reminder that qualification for the Presidency, is a matter of quality, not of quantity.

(Source: ABC News, August 19, 2007)