Experience Is Good

More than two years ago, as Barack Obama was preparing to become president, there was, shall we say, a certain amount of resistance to the idea of bringing people with Washington experience into the incoming administration.

At the time, I wrote that that was absurd. "In order to get people with experience in a Democratic administration that was not led by Bill Clinton," I wrote, "Obama would need to dip into the pool of veterans from the Carter administration. They left office almost 28 years ago."

Now, as Obama nears the midpoint of his term in office, some of those folks whose glittering resumes brought a certain amount of gravitas to a president with little of that particular commodity are moving on to other things — and leaving behind a mixed bag for a record.

Some of Obama's more dedicated supporters may see this as evidence that they were right all along, that the 2008 elections were about taking an entirely new approach to governing and the Obama administration's failings have been the result of not being entirely true to that principle.

It can be so easy to get the wrong idea.

With unemployment about three full percentage points higher than it was when Obama was sworn in, Guantanamo Bay still open for business, a war continuing in Afghanistan and Obama's signature legislative achievement, health care reform, under all–out assault in the decidedly more Republican Congress, it's easy to get the idea that, by golly, they just might have been right about that experience thing.

But they weren't. They just got carried away with the whole "yes we can" campaign.

I guess the left–wing activists believed the hype, that the only way to make a clean break with the past was to replace all the people who had been making the decisions. It was a short–sighted approach, but they used it for leverage to maneuver the administration back to the path they expected it to take.

What they should have learned from the last couple of years is not that experience is a bad thing. As long as the accepted procedures for doing things remain unchanged, experience on the part of those who must work within the system is a very good thing to have — especially for an inexperienced president.

Since there really is no other position that can be said to be adequate preparation for the presidency, I guess most presidents have to learn the job as they go. That may be unavoidable, but, because the opposition is sure to have plenty of experienced folks manipulating the existing system, a president also needs a certain amount of experience working for him — if only in self defense.

In fact, the people surrounding the president really need to have at least some experience because the president will depend heavily on their advice.

Experience isn't foolproof, and the track record of this president is testimony to that because there are almost certainly executive decisions that have been made in the last couple of years that were influenced by the experience of Obama's advisers.

Obama, we are being told, is now on the verge of shaking up his staff by naming a chief of staff and an economic adviser who have quite a bit of Washington experience.

I would like to think that would be good news for staffers who may have walked into the White House blinded by their naivete two years ago but who should have their eyes wide open now. Folks in Washington play for keeps, and they don't like to be challenged on what they believe is their turf.

While experience in Washington cannot be said to be a crime, its absence does seem comparable to a criminal defendant who chooses to defend himself instead of leaving it in the hands of an experienced lawyer.

More than once, criminal defendants have been admonished that those who choose to act as their own attorney have fools for clients.

Virtually the same could be said for presidents who try to function without the benefits of experience.

It is to Obama's credit that, when he has an important decision to make, he is pragmatic enough to seek experience.

Perhaps it is a sign that this president is growing in and learning from his job.

That would be good news for us all. A more mature chief executive can only benefit America.