Presidents have been effective despite a lack of 'experience'

PROVO — The nominating conventions, each dramatic in different ways, are done, and Americans are on the last lap toward the new presidency.

Sen. Obama promises billions for good works but is sketchy about how to pay for them.

Sen. McCain promises to bring the troops home with honor and victory, but nobody knows how this will really leave Iraq.

Obama wants to change Washington by vanquishing the Republicans in office.

McCain wants to change Washington by reforming the Republicans in office.

Obama will continue to dazzle us until Nov. 4 with charismatic eloquence.

McCain, who never met a teleprompter he liked, will continue to exude sincerity in smaller gatherings.

Both sides are seized with the issue of "experience," which probably will weigh heavily with the voters.

But what does "experience" mean? Does it mean academic achievement? Running a big corporation? Many years in governance? Or does it mean, principle, character and common sense?

William F. Buckley, that acerbic but astute observer of our times, once declared: "I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people in the Boston telephone directory than the faculty of Harvard University."

In recent years Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan have come to be considered among America's most effective presidents. Yet the experience of each for presidential office was held in question prior to their respective installations.

Truman never went to college, but his biographer, David McCullough, says he read voraciously. By age 14 he had devoured volumes on Egypt, Greece and Rome. In high school he claimed to have read every one of the 2,000 books, including encyclopedias, in the school library. Except for a stint in Europe as a National Guard officer in World War II, he was not well-traveled.

Despite doubts about his qualifications for office, it was he as president who made the decisions whether or not to use the atomic bomb, commit American force to Korea and help create the United Nations.

Adlai Stevenson III cited him as an "example of the ability of this society to yield up, from the most unremarkable origins, the most remarkable men."

McCullough says Truman "stood for common sense."

Ronald Reagan had been a governor of California, a state bigger than many countries, but still was dismissed as a former B-movie actor with little depth when he came to the presidency.

I remember Secretary of State George Shultz returning from some of his one-on-one meetings with President Reagan. He would give us, his small team of advisers, a debriefing on the president's current ideas about nuclear weaponry, and the Soviet empire, and strategic relations. Some of the foreign-policy traditionalists dismissed them as impractical. Reagan held to his instincts and — lest we forget — played a crucial role in ending the Cold War. Today he is lauded for achievements to which he applied good common sense.

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