The commander in chief test

DENVER
FOR ALL the talk of political change, Wednesday's principal speakers at the Democratic National Convention were pursuing something very different: perceptual change.

The Republicans have already aimed a torpedo amidship at Barack Obama: The charge that the Illinois senator, not yet four years into his first term, simply isn't ready to lead America in a dangerous world.

Right now, certainly, the commander in chief test favors John McCain. Which is why John Kerry, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden were intent on refocusing the debate on what matters most in foreign affairs: judgment. If judgment supplants experience as the measure of foreign policy fitness, then the November choice looks very different.

McCain argues, and with considerable merit, that he was right about the need for more forces in Iraq and deserves credit for taking what was then an unpopular stand. And yet, such a tight focus misses the larger foreign-policy forest for the troop-surge trees. McCain was just as clearly wrong in his support for a war that hasn't borne out its principal justifications, while Obama was correct in his opposition.

Campaigning on foreign policy distinctions isn't easy, of course, but Kerry, the party's 2004 nominee, weighed in with a tough and effective address. Once a close friend of McCain, he went after his Republican colleague with a surprising vigor, accusing him of Karl Rove-like politics of "fear and smear."

"When we choose a commander in chief this November, we are electing judgment and character, not years in the Senate or years on this earth," said Kerry said. "Time and again, Barack Obama has seen farther, thought harder, and listened better. And time and again, Barack Obama has been proven right."

Kerry's lead example: McCain's enthusiastic support for war with Iraq and Obama's far-sighted opposition.

"When John McCain stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier just three months after, Barack Obama saw, even then, 'an occupation of undetermined length, undetermined cost, undetermined consequences' that would 'only fan the flames of the Middle East,' " said Kerry, who supported the Iraq war resolution, but has since said he regrets that vote.

The idea that judgment trumps experience was also one of the central themes Joe Biden hit in accepting the vice presidential nomination. Noting that McCain has said Obama isn't ready on national security, Biden argued that Obama had often been right where McCain was wrong.

"Now, let me ask you: Whose judgment should we trust?" Biden asked. "Should we trust John McCain's judgment when he said only three years ago, 'Afghanistan - we don't read about it anymore because it's succeeded'? Or should we trust Barack Obama, who more than a year ago called for sending two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan?"

And despite McCain's rejection of talks with Iran, "Now, after seven years of denial, even the Bush administration recognizes that we should talk to Iran, because that's the best way to advance our security," Biden said.

For his part, Bill Clinton offered a former president's important testimony about Obama's grasp of foreign policy and national security challenges - as well as a pointed reminder: When he himself first ran, "the Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be commander in chief."

Clinton also underscored Biden's role as foreign policy adviser. "With Joe Biden's experience and wisdom supporting Barack Obama's proven understanding . . . and good instincts, America will have the national security leadership we need," he said.

Now, a naive viewer might well ask, if they harbor such deep qualms about McCain's judgment, why Kerry had wanted him as a ticket mate in 2004, and Biden counts him as not just a friend but a foreign traveling partner. But such are the inconvenient crosscurrents that occur where collegiality, ambition, and partisanship converge.

Ultimately, of course, Obama will have to persuade voters he's ready to be commander in chief. Still, Kerry, Biden, and Clinton effectively put the matter in a broader context - and sent this signal: Rather than playing political defense on national security, as they have sometimes done in the past, the Democrats are determined to battle for the high ground.

Scot Lehigh can be reached at lehigh@globe.com.