Not Experience But Prudence?

David Brooks adds to the conservative oeuvre of Sarah Palin doubt this morning:

If the Bush administration was anything, it was the anti-establishment attitude put into executive practice.

And the problem with this attitude is that, especially in his first term, it made Bush inept at governance. It turns out that governance, the creation and execution of policy, is hard. It requires acquired skills. Most of all, it requires prudence.

What is prudence? It is the ability to grasp the unique pattern of a specific situation. It is the ability to absorb the vast flow of information and still discern the essential current of events - the things that go together and the things that will never go together. It is the ability to engage in complex deliberations and feel which arguments have the most weight.

How is prudence acquired? Through experience. The prudent leader possesses a repertoire of events, through personal involvement or the study of history, and can apply those models to current circumstances to judge what is important and what is not, who can be persuaded and who can't, what has worked and what hasn't.

Since the left will imminently exalt this column as supreme wisdom, I guess we can conclude that we are all experience advocates now. Bad news for Obama, no? Even though Brooks offers the semi-ludicrous fig-leaf for Obama that one can gain experience not just by doing things but also by studying history, that favor still doesn't help Obama very much. Let's recall that the Democratic nominee thought America liberated Auschwitz and JFK and Khrushchev sat down for a confab at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. If Obama has made a study of history, his efforts there have met with even less success than his community organizing endeavors.

But what of Brooks' elevation of "prudence" to such a pedestal? This is an obviously friendly formulation for a guy like Obama, who evidences a supremely cautious nature with nearly every move. And every non-move. Obama is a guy who prefers dithering to action. Remember, it took him over a year to address the Jeremiah Wright issue that threatened to derail his campaign.

But is prudence the mark that distinguishes great leaders? Virtually every conservative would agree that Ronald Reagan was the best president of the past 50 years. "Prudence" is not the word that leaps to mind to describe the Gipper. Barack Obama's defenders have enjoyed pointing to Abraham Lincoln's thin background as a defense for their own hero's lack of portfolio. But is "prudence" really the best word (or even a good word) for the man who boldly fought one of history's most destructive wars to save the Union?

What Reagan and Lincoln and all other great leaders had in common were the proper convictions and the courage to stand by those convictions. Reagan by the standards of his time was in fact legendarily imprudent. The ever-prudent foreign policy establishment of Reagan's era wanted to make nice with the Soviet Union. Reagan's philosophy was simpler and more direct - "We win, they lose." Similarly, Lincoln chose the bold course that his convictions dictated. The course he chose cost hundreds of thousands of lives, and no one today says he was wrong. The Copperheads, however, took a much more "prudent" view of things.

Again comparing Palin to Obama since they're the two parties most relevant to this conversation, do we know what their convictions are and whether they'll have the courage to stick to them? Obama's convictions have been a moving target to date. I'm hardly the first to notice that many of his purported convictions, be they in regards to FISA reform or accepting public financing for his campaign or negotiating with Ahmadenijad without preconditions, seem to expire when they become inconvenient. As far as Palin is concerned, her instincts for small and responsible government seem sound and have a track record. But the public is curious about Palin's convictions on a wide range of subjects including foreign policy matters. The McCain campaign should allow the vice presidential nominee to satisfy this curiosity.

Of course, it almost goes without saying that the top of the Republican ticket, John McCain, has made his convictions well known over the past four decades. No need for guesswork there.