All of which suggests that the traditional three categories of policy — economic, foreign and defense — are interconnected and international. Thus, knowing a good deal about the 21st century world, having traveled it and experienced it, is more crucial today for a president than ever before in our nation’s history.
On this scale, Obama-Biden beats Romney-Ryan hands down. President Obama, as the “birthers” dementedly remind us, had an African father and was schooled for a time in Indonesia. Yet he is an American, born in America. Vice-President Biden made foreign policy his focus in the Senate. Like the president, he is comfortable in the widest variety of international arenas. They both know how to relate to and communicate with foreign leaders and peoples.
Their opponents, on the other hand, have only the scantest experience in today’s world. Mr. Romney served in a Mormon mission in France in his youth. Mr. Ryan has yet to share his international experience and outlook, quite possibly because he has spent his public life trying to calculate how to lower taxes and balance the budget without both shredding the social safety net and destroying all the discretionary spending that keeps our food, environment and streets safe, our workers trained and healthy, and virtually every other public service necessary to a civilized society.
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