Who's really ready to be President?

By BJ

A couple of days ago, Joe Biden made the comment that Obama would be tested by an international crisis within six months of taking office.  (What, the economic meltdown and two ongoing wars don’t count?)  Rightwing blogs leapt upon the statement as proof that Obama is in fact a weak-willed Chamberlain appeaser whom America’s enemies will leap to take advantage of.  Daniel Larison did an excellent take-down of such a piece by Ralph Peters, which while worth reading in full, can be most easily summed up with the following line:

Maybe, if everyone in the region is as clueless as Obama’s domestic critics (this would be difficult), but why exactly would that be the case?

Replace region with world and you have the right-wing argument against Obama as a “strong” President in a nutshell.  The right has done its best for quite some time to paint Democrats as being “soft” on national security, that as soon as a Democrat is elected President, all of America’s opponents will feel that they have carte blanche to run roughshod all over the planet and the weak appeaser in the White House will be left stuttering, “C-c-c-can’t we all just be friends?”.

Of course, the caricature doesn’t fit the reality, but they’ve fallen for their own propaganda, and assume that America’s enemies are buying the same lines they’ve peddled to their base.  As Larison points out in his column, there is very little to suggest that Obama is much less hawkish than Bush.  (That McCain is Bush without even the minimal foresight is probably why he gets the coveted al Qaeda endorsement.)

Not that the same problem isn’t going to plague the left, who probably think Obama is actually less hawkish than the evidence would suggest, but while he’ll be metaphorically eviscerated, he’ll probably still get the pass as the lesser of the two evils on that front.

But the question of readiness brings me to another point that Cernig included in his post about the Al Qaeda endorsement of the “impetuous McCain”, the quote from Michael Chertoff noting that the upcoming transition phases between administrations is the most vulnerable time for the United States.

“Any period of transition creates a greater vulnerability, meaning there's more likelihood of distraction,'' Chertoff said in an interview yesterday. ``You have to be concerned it will create an operational opportunity for terrorists.''

You see, whatever the right-wing glee that stemmed from Biden’s remarks that Obama might be tested in the early months of his administration carried with it the assumption that America’s enemies wouldn’t dare to test their man McCain in such a fashion.  But as Chertoff points out, the risk is the same with either man assuming a new presidency, and the question that arises from that is; which of the two candidates is better prepared to make the transition to President?  As it happens, someone has already looked into this, and much like the election itself is beginning to look, it isn’t even close.

As the 2008 campaign nears its conclusion, the presidential transition efforts of the two major candidates have become a study in contrasts: Sen. Barack Obama has organized an elaborate well-staffed network to prepare for his possible ascension to the White House, while Sen. John McCain has all but put off such work until after the election.

The Democratic nominee has enlisted the assistance of dozens of individuals -- divided into working groups for particular federal agencies -- to produce policy agendas and lists of recommended appointees. As evidence of their advanced preparations, officials provided a copy of the strict ethics guidelines that individuals working on the transition effort are required to sign.

John McCain, by contrast, has done little. Campaign spokespersons did not respond to requests for elaboration. But one official with direct knowledge, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, expressed concern with McCain's approach. The Arizona Senator has instructed his team to not spend time on the transition effort, according to the source, both out of a desire to have complete focus on winning the election as well as a superstitious belief that the campaign shouldn't put the cart before the horse.

. . .

Governance scholars consider the process invaluable, particularly as the nation struggles with a major economic crisis, two active wars, and a range of domestic security threats. "Our enemies understand how potentially vulnerable we are in the transition from one administration to the next," Clay Johnson III, former Executive Director of the Bush-Cheney Presidential Transition, said recently at a forum on transition planning. "This is something we need to be very, very seriously prepared for."

. . .

"Government is becoming more complex and the time it is taking to put a leadership team in key departments is taking longer," said P.J. Crowley, who heads the Homeland Security Presidential Transition Initiative at the Center for American Progress. "I think that if a campaign is waiting until November 5 to start the transition process, they are going to be behind. It is not being presumptuous -- it is being prudent to be prepared before the election so that you can at least make the transition process effective as possible and be ready to govern on January 20."

. . .

But [McCain’s] approach could create significant obstacles down the road. For example, as Crowley notes, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had only a fraction of his leadership team in place on 9/11 - roughly eight months after President Bush took office.

Now absorb all of that and then tell me who you think would be better prepared to face a possible terrorist attack on the US, or any other (further) major crisis for that matter, in the early spring of 2009?  Or really anytime thereafter.