When it comes to foreign policy, there are different kinds of ‘experience’

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Obviously, over the last year, the question of foreign-policy experience has played a fairly significant role in the presidential campaign, most notably among Democrats. As the race began to narrow its focus to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the two key buzz words were repeated ad nauseum — Obama had "judgment"; Clinton had "experience."

The other day, Josh Marshall had a really terrific item scrutinizing the latter claim with some big-picture analysis, pointing to two broad categories on presidential candidates and the "commander-in-chief threshold."

One school of thought has it that a potential president needn't be an expert on military affairs or foreign relations any more than he or she needs to be an experts in economics. They need to be informed and knowledgeable. But what's most needed is temperament, maturity and judgment. Detailed expertise can come from advisors.

Others think it's precisely the expertise that's needed. So someone like a Joe Biden is the kind of person you want — someone who's deeply schooled in every aspect of foreign relations and has been at it for literally decades. John McCain has some of that and he was also career military which gives him, at least arguably, some special grasp of the military components of the job. Bill Richardson had at least some cred on that scale based on his time in the Congress, UN Ambassador and general

ad hoc

rogue regime diplomacy.

Hillary Clinton seems to think she's a strong contender in this latter category. But that's a joke. She's starting her

second term

in the US senate, where, yes, she serves on the Armed Services committee. Beside that she's never held elective office and she has little executive experience. I think she can argue that she'd make and would make a strong commander-in-chief. But she's pushing a metric by which she's little distinguishable from Barack Obama. I'm honestly surprised she's not drawing chuckles on this one.

In some ways, I think Obama's early efforts to define himself pushed Clinton in this direction. Recognizing from the outset that his resume on the national stage is thin, he immediately began touting his strengths — temperament, maturity and judgment. Clinton, reluctant to say "Me too!" felt compelled to embrace the "expertise" label, and began pointing to specific moments from her husband's presidency.

What's become somewhat problematic, though, is that those claims begin to buckle under scrutiny.

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