What Presidents Are For

It might take Bush some time to catch up to Gore's command of all three--time that could be costly if a crisis erupts. But if he did, Bush's personal skills might give him more rapport with foreign leaders than Gore has.

Projecting forward, it's clear from the debate that Gore would be more interventionist than Bush. For instance, Bush agrees with the administration's hands-off policy toward genocide in Rwanda--a policy that both Clinton and Gore see as one of their biggest mistakes. Bush might also be more backward-looking. His foreign-policy advisers are more experienced than Gore's, but their experience is mostly from the cold war. Rice argues that the Bush team's years in the private sector are actually more relevant to today's globalization issues than Washington experience would be. But Gore priorities like environmental protection, nonproliferation and what Bush disparagingly calls "nation building" are all major 21st-century foreign-policy challenges.

Ultimately, it's impossible to know how well a commander in chief will fare in a foreign crisis until he's in the thick of one, and most presidents, like John F. Kennedy, grow in the job. But foreign policy is the one area that tests every attribute a president brings to the office: intelligence, temperament, courage, empathy and judgment. In case we were tempted to reduce this campaign to a choice of smirks vs. sighs, last week was a sad but useful reminder of how much more is on the line.

© 2000