"Foreign policy credientials"
 

Every time I hear this term applied to Obama or Palin, it sounds to me like an admissions policy for an all white men's club. Foreign policy is not rocket science. It can be learned like U.S. history can be learned. Truman is a classic example, and he of course was helped by a great cabinet. Either Obama or Palin would have a lot of help. I'm not sold on "lacks foreign policy credentials" as a meaningful critique of Obama or Palin.

Bullshit. How can you look at the disaster that is the GWB presidency and be so dismissive of the importance of foreign policy? Yes, Truman's lack of experience was offset by his good judgment and perhaps the best cabinet in history. But W has demonstrated just how badly things can go when we pick a nice guy and hope for on-the-job training.

Furthermore, this kind of hand-waiving can be applied to all types of experience. Hell, while not just randomly select someone and give them a shot?

You may be right to some degree, but it was like my daughters math teacher said at back to school night (bear with me here): "You could watch Michael Phelps swim all day everyday for a year and, if you didn't get in the water yourself, you still will not know how to swim."

More importantly, perhaps, you can certainly get a sense at how they are likely to interact with and view foreign policy issues based on their background. Obama will absolutely be more outward looking, more empathetic to other cultures and ideals, and more likely to compromise than will a person who had only ever read about foreign cultures and politics in a book and who only obtained a passport after becoming governor of one of these 57 states. OTOH, Palin is more likely to hold fast to American views and outlooks and be less willing to view problems from a foreign perspective in order to solve them. So while you may be right, there can be no question that one's background will strongly influence one's foreign policy directions.

I don't think it was a lack of foreign policy experience on his administration's part. Did Powell, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rice lack foreign policy experience? It was just bad decisions. Frankly, it might have been ideology run amok, but it's probably too early too tell exactly what was the Bush administration's mistake. Regardless, it was an ideologically driven foreign policy coupled with a lack of execution.

It's funny people cite GWB's presidency so often as the quintessential "bad example" of foreign policy gone amok.

Do you have any presidential examples of anything that predates the year 2000, Leb, or is that when your political acumen begins for everything?

Personally, I think Jimmy Carter is the best example of a modern president who was a dunce at foreign policy. Thirty years later his failures still stand out.

Truman predates 2000, dumbass.

I meant in the negative, "dumbass."

WHat did Truman do that stands out as a foregin Policy success, as opposed to a foreign war success?

Exactly. Vote for the known or likely ideology and then hope the experience allows competent execution. Bad ideology AND no experience is a recipe for problems.

At THE time, what would you have
 

done with Iraq? Any idiot can second guess. What would you have done in real-time?