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Hillary's "Experience" LieIf that's her selling point, put me down for Obama.

By Timothy Noah
Posted Monday, Jan. 14, 2008, at 7:16 PM ET
Hillary Clinton. Click image to expand.

When the 2008 presidential campaign began, I lacked strong feelings for or against Hillary Rodham Clinton. I knew, of course, that many people loathed the former first lady and that many other people adored her. But I'd never felt the large emotions she seemed to stir in others. New York's junior senator wants to be president? Fine, I thought. Let's hear her pitch. Because she was still a relative newcomer to government service, I assumed that, more than most presidential candidates, Clinton would recognize the need to give voters a reason to vote for her. I waited expectantly to discover what that reason might be.

I never dreamed the reason would be "experience." More astonishing still, the public seems to be buying it. According to a new New York Times/CBS News poll, 79 percent of all Democratic primary voters believe that Hillary Clinton has "prepared herself well enough for the job of President," compared with only 40 percent for Obama. "Experience Counts" declared the headline of a Jan. 9 editorial in the Boston Globe about the New Hampshire victories of Hillary Clinton and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. "The results suggest that, at the least, New Hampshire voters put more stock in the length of a candidate's track record than Iowa voters did," the Globe said. But the paper never got around to explaining what, in Hillary's case, that experience consisted of.

Let's be clear. If you're a Democrat, experience isn't on this year's menu. The most experienced among the major candidates seeking the Democratic nomination were Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware and Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut. They have now dropped out. The remaining major candidates—Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C.—all lack lengthy records in government.

Edwards served a single term in the Senate. Obama served eight years in the Illinois state Senate and is halfway through his first term in the U.S. Senate. Clinton is about to begin her eighth year in the U.S. Senate. Going by years spent as an elective official, Obama's 11 years exceeds Clinton's seven, which in turn exceeds Edwards' six. But it's a silly calculus. They all come out about the same, even when you factor in Clinton's youthful work on the House judiciary committee's impeachment inquiry, her membership on the board of the Legal Services Corp., her chairmanship of the Arkansas Educational Standards committee, her crafting of an unsuccessful national health-care bill, and her sharing Bill Clinton's bed most nights while he was Arkansas governor and president of the United States.

In Slate's women's blog, the "XX Factor," various colleagues have argued (see here, here, and here) that Clinton has sufficient experience under her belt to be president. I agree, but that's not the right question. The more urgent question is: Where the hell does she come off claiming superior experience? Here Clinton is in the Jan. 14 Newsweek, comparing herself with Obama:

I wish it didn't have to be a choice. I think a lot of people who are torn between us feel that way. But it is a contest, and the contrasts have to be drawn and the questions have to be asked because, obviously, I wouldn't be in this race and working as hard as I am unless I thought I am uniquely qualified at this moment in our history to be the president we need starting in 2009 … I think it is informed by my deep experience over the last 35 years, my firsthand knowledge of what goes on inside a White House.

Oh, please. Thirty-five years takes you back to 1973, half of which Hillary spent in law school, for crying out loud. I don't mean to denigrate her professional experience. Clinton worked many years in corporate and public-interest law, performed advocacy work for the Children's Defense Fund and other groups, and was a university lecturer. She also devoted herself to raising a seemingly bright and loving daughter, which is no small feat, particularly given the public spotlight and some conspicuously bad behavior on the father's part.

But in government, Clinton's chief role over the years has been that of kibitzer. An important kibitzer, to be sure—what spouse isn't?—but not a direct participant. Clinton emphasizes in particular her profound experience in foreign policy. Here she is on Dec. 20:

It is tempting any time things seem quieter for a minute on the international front to think that we don't need a president who's up to speed on foreign affairs and military matters. Well, that's the kind of logic that got us George Bush in the first place. Experience in foreign affairs is critical for ending the war in Iraq, averting war in Iran, negotiating a Middle East peace and dealing with North Korea.

But a Dec. 26 New York Times story revealed that during her husband's two terms in office, Hillary Clinton did not hold a security clearance, did not attend meetings of the National Security Council, and was not given a copy of the president's daily intelligence briefing. During trips to Bosnia and Kosovo, she "acted as a spokeswoman for American interests rather than as a negotiator." On military affairs, most of her experience derives not from her White House years but from serving on the Senate armed services committee. In this capacity, William Kristol notes gleefully in the Jan. 14 New York Times, Clinton told Gen. David Petraeus this past September that his reports of military progress in Iraq—since shown to be undeniable—required "the willing suspension of disbelief." (What Kristol and Clinton both fail to say is that the surge's laudable military success has created a short-term opportunity that the Iraqi government and Bush himself are doing tragically little to seize. For example, a much-touted move by the Iraqi parliament to open government jobs to former members of the Baath party is, according to a Jan. 14 New York Times story, "riddled with loopholes and caveats to the point that some Sunni and Shiite officials say it could actually exclude more former Baathists than it lets back in.")

Clinton's claim to superior experience isn't merely dishonest. It's also potentially dangerous should she become the nominee. If Clinton continues to build her campaign on the dubious foundation of government experience, it shouldn't be very difficult for her GOP opponent to pull that edifice down. That's especially true if a certain white-haired senator now serving his 25th year in Congress (four in the House and 21 in the Senate) wins the nomination. McCain could easily make Hillary look like an absolute fraud who is no more truthful about her depth of government experience than she is about why her mother named her "Hillary." Dennis Kucinich has more government experience than Clinton. (He also has a better health-care plan, but we'll save that for another day.) If Clinton doesn't find a new theme soon, she won't just be cutting Obama's throat. She'll also be cutting her own.

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Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.
Photograph of Hillary Clinton by Chris Hondros/Getty Images.
E-mail Timothy Noah at .
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Comments from the Fray Editor

View 1:Yes that experience counts. It's not often that Queen Elizabeth II features in the Fray, but she made it today in Richmond's rather fascinating comparison between Her Maj and Clinton. View 2: No that experience doesn't count--Grammagram is firm "I was married to an accountant for 30 years, but that didn't make me a CPA!" The security clearance issue gets a good going-over here. Sadly we have to conclude, with other posters, that Edsahara actually meant 'Laura', but we still liked the post title and the image: "Barbara Bush in 2012!!"

Comments from the Fray

Republicans won't attack experience. I just can't imagine that one working well for them. They want voters to be afraid of what Hillary would do; if they go for the "she's never accomplished anything" line, that will diminish the fear factor. After all, if Hillary managed to "do nothing" while her husband was busy chasing interns in the White House, how would she be able to enact her nefarious plans now?

--Madai

(To reply, click here)

Why should we care about who has the most experience? It's irrelevant. There is no apprenticeship that prepares anyone to be a successful president....not even a first term. Look at the messes that Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton made in their second terms. Abraham Lincoln served one term in the House of Representatives, John Kennedy served a few undistinguished years in Congress, but he handled the Cuban missile crisis with breathtaking skill.

Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are probably the most experienced people in American History. They both served in Congress and each held several cabinet posts while they spent most of their adult lives in Washington. Would anyone in his/her right mind have wanted either of these guys within 100 miles of the Oval Office during the Cuban missile crisis?

Maybe we would be better off going back to the old "smoke-filled room" days when political pros selected the candidates. Sure, they were crooks and scoundrels, but at least they didn't waste time arguing

--Clark Kent

(To reply, click here)

Senator Clinton persistently claims to have 35 years of experience. 35 years of doing what? Breathing? The fact is that we got into trouble in 2000 when we believed the sincere blather of an inexperienced candidate for President who claimed to be a compassionate conservative. We don't need to put an overly ambitious politician whose reach far exceeds her grasp into the White House, only to be flabbergasted when we discover that she's even more of a neophyte than her predecessor.

We all have padded our resumes from time to time in order to get a job. But the consequences for having an inadequately prepared President of the United States are much worse than for selecting an inadequately prepared telemarketer.

--Bolingbrook Democrat

(To reply, click here)

It is clear now that what the candidates said during the [2004] election and what decisions that they would make as individuals once elected do not come close to providing a complete picture of their future presidency. Instead, the people they surround themselves with and will potentially have as members of their administration make a substantial difference as well. A Gore Administration would have looked nothing like the Bush Administration has; no Rumsfeld, no Ashcroft, and no Gonzales or Norton or Whitman or (especially) Michael Brown. Lieberman, for all his unpopularity on the left, is no Dick Cheney.

I would argue that these people have made as much of a difference in the formulation and implementation of government policy (or lack thereof) as Bush himself, and therefore I think that is at least as important to look at the kinds of people each candidate is likely to appoint as members of the larger administration as it is to look at the candidate alone.

--sonofeucrates

(To reply, click here)

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