About Sarah Palin and "experience"

There has been a lot of commentary about whether Sarah Palin is qualified to be President should she and John McCain be elected, and should something then happen to McCain.

Elizabeth I became Queen of England in 1558 when she was 25 years old. She did fairly well by her country.

From what I’ve seen and read of Sarah Palin so far she’s got as good a prospect as any of the four in the running to do okay if she should suddenly become President at 45 years old. Aside from her experience in government, a woman who has successfully juggled a full time job and five kids ranging in age from one year old to late teen age while staying on good terms with a 20 year husband knows quite a bit about delegation, decisionmaking and practical crisis management.

Very few of our presidents have been anywhere close to “qualified” by experience for the job. The good ones have exhibited good judgement. Some of the worst ones have been the best qualified on paper.


Update - Jonah Goldberg at National Review posted a great letter from a reader on this issue:

"Who would you hire?

To borrow from Ross Perot (not always a good idea), would you hire any of these people as a manager at your company?

Palin you'd offer the job to right away, and then you'd sweat until she accepted it.

McCain would seem like a decent choice, but wouldn't make or break you either way.

You'd wonder how Obama possibly thought he was qualified, and you'd leave him to be hired by some other company where they fall for people who say all the right things.

And you'd be telling stories about Biden's interview, and making jokes about it, for years."