The "Experience" Critique...Critiqued

When I fly in an airplane I want the pilot with the most experience, not the one who can inspire hope in me that I get to where I am going. When I pay my taxes, I want the person filing them to be experienced, not the new person who inspires hope in me that he can do the job. When I hire someone to fix my washing machine, I want the tried and true experienced person, not the one who inspires me to hope that he can fix it. When I go to the doctor I do not want to get the one who inspires hope in me that s/he can cure what's wrong, but the one who knows what the hell to do the minute I call. It's not really the job of a public servant to inspire, but to get the job that the people demand done. The democrats think that if they have hope and are inspired things will get better, but they actually won't. When Oprah makes her employees sign her fifty page non-disclosure statement, she doesn't "hope" they can't break it, she pays teams of experienced lawyers to MAKE SURE they can't break it, or be sued in an experienced court by an experienced judge.

-- Roseanne on Hillary versus Obama

Not to give Roseanne (nowhere known for being of sound or prescient political mind) too much heed, here is what is wrong with her experience critique-- In all of the examples she gives, she is of course correct; you want the experienced pilot, mechanic, doctor or lawyer because those jobs are, by nature, quite technical. And when it comes to public servants, she would also be correct. If you were voting for who would be the better member of congress or senator, then there is a certain level of technician that is required. Studying the records of both Clinton and Obama, I would not hesitate to say that if I were voting in a senatorial election, I would consider voting for Clinton because she has demonstrated the technical wherewithal of a legislator. (However, this technical wherewithal has not been demonstrably more impressive than Obama's in a much shorter period.)

Roseanne and most others who emphasize the issue of "experience" almost unfailingly, yet fundamentally, misunderstand the role of the presidency. A president is not a technician. The office of the presidency does not come with a manual, there is no federal code to guide the day-to-day operations of the White House. A president is rather, a leader; one who moves, directs and inspires others toward action. In such a role, inspiration is every bit as important, if not more important than experience or technical knowledge and/or ability.

This is why legislators are rarely directly elected to the presidency. It hasn't been since Kennedy in 1960 that a sitting legislator was elected president. It also makes this year's election historically more interesting considering that the presumptive Republican nominee and and the two Democratic frontrunners are all sitting senators. Usually the nation opts for a governor who has run a government. Usually these governors are not exemplaries of legislative technicians (perhaps Jimmy Carter notwithstanding) but rather of leaders who can broadly inspire. This is why people are also drawn to Obama--because of this ability to deal at a level beyond the bureaucratic minutae that most people do not understand and speak at a level of broader abstraction that reaches in and grabs at people.

The role of the president is to set an agenda for the country and to lead towards completion of that agenda. They are wise to leave the technical work to the legislative technicians of congress, which is why Roseanne's point makes a great argument for keeping Clinton in the senate.