Palin and the 'Experience' Canard by Bret Stephens

This Wall Street Journal writer had some interesting things to say.. "..when it comes to historical ignorance and political amnesia, our cultural panjandrums are in a class by themselves. ".. When Calvin Coolidge was named to Warren Harding's ticket in 1920, he had been governor of Mass. for less then two years. Aside from a largely powerless stinit as lieutenant governor and other smaller legislative posts, his chief previous govt. experience was as mayor of Northampton, to which he was elected in 1910 by a Wasilla-like margin of 1,597 to 1,409.
"Another year and a half for the governor to be nominated for the VPy: Teddy Roosevelt. It's true that TR as a former asst secretary of the Navy had more foreign policy experience than Mrs. Palin, though one wonders what today we would make of a candidate whose proud boast was that he had killed an enemy soldier "like a jackrabbit."
"Then there is Harry Truman to whom Mrs. Palin compared herself at the Republican convention. 'He had only to open his mouth and his origins were known.' wrote David McCullough in his biography of the 33rd president, in lines that might also have been written about Mrs. Palin. 'It wasn't just that he came from a particular part of the country, geographicall y, but from a specific part of the American Experience, an authentic pioneer background, and a specific place in the American imagination.
"The Truman comparison seems esp to rankle Mrs. Palin's critics, perhaps because in many respects it rings true. Take vetting. John McCain may have met Palin only once before he offered her the job, but FDR admitted: 'I hardly know Truman'. in July 1944, the same month the "Senator from Pedergast" was put on the Democratic ticket.
Or take foreign policy experience. It's fair to say that Palin has none, and the McCain campaign should drop the transparten tpretense that Alaska's proximity to Russia, or her nominal reponsibility for the state's Nat'l Gaurd, gives her some.
Then again, what did Truman know? 'Truman had no experience in relations with Britain or Russia, no firsthand knowledge of Churchill or Stalin,' write Mr. McCullough. " He didn't know his own Secretary of State, more than to say hello.. Roosevel, Truman would tell [ daughter ] Margaret privately, 'never did talk to me confidentially about the war, or about foreign affairs or what he had in mind for peace after war.' He was unprepared, bewildered"
"Truman it's true, served bravely as an army captain in WWI; he knew the nature of war. But his chief recommendation as a U.S. senator was as a good-govt. type who bucked his home state's machine politics (though not so frontally as Mrs. Palin bucked hers) and fought waste, fraud and corruption in the military spending. "

History seems to be on Palin's every side!