For any voter trying to choose between the two candidates for commander in chief, there is no better test than this: When American strategy in a critical theater was up for grabs, John McCain proposed a highly unpopular and risky path, which he accurately predicted could lead to success. Barack Obama proposed a popular and politically safe route that would have led to an unnecessary and debilitating American defeat at the hands of al Qaeda.
The two men brought different backgrounds to the test, of course. In January 2007, McCain had been a senator for 10 years and had served in the military for 23 years. Obama had been a senator for 2 years and before that was a state legislator, lawyer, and community organizer. But neither presidential candidates nor the commander in chief gets to choose the tests that history brings. Once in office, the one elected must perform.
Indeed.
UPDATE: It’s either a typo or a decade-dropping math error on Kagan’s part, but McCain had been in the Senate for 20 years, not ten at the time. Of course, that simply reinforces Kagan’s point about relative experience.