Look abroad

I resigned myself at the outset of IPE Journal from discussing the political back and forth of the US presidential election. This site is mainly dedicated to the commanding heights of the global economy, plus it is difficult to comment on partisan politics without some degree of bias or emotion.

But this morning I was watching CNN and a discussion on Sarah Palin's international experience/exposure (Palin is the Vice Presidentail nominee of the Republican party). Host Soledad O'Brien asked a panel of commentators whether Palin's complete lack of international exposure was a problem for a person possibly one heartbeat away from the most powerful job in the world. The two Republican analysts naturally bobbed and weaved. O'Brien pushed on relentlessly, asking how someone who didn't have a passport until 2007 (let me repeat that...didn't have a passport until 2007) could be qualified to be the commander in chief.

The Republican analysts finally argued that it didn't matter if she been abroad (beyond a trip to Kuwait to visit Alaskan National Guard troops), the majority of people in Scranton, PA hadn't either. Neither had most in Dayton, OH.

It is one thing to play politics, to cover for a candidate's glaring international ignorance by claiming she has foreign policy experience because...wait for it...Alaska is close to Russia. It's another to applaud that shameful fact as a virtue, a political strength.

David Gergen (advisor to President's Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Clinton, and one of the most respected voices in US politics) looked at his fellow panelists in shock. Gergen, in his typical measured tone, responded that it was completely unnacceptable for a candidate to be so unaware of the rest of the world. That when only 20% of US citizens own a passport, it is a national problem worth solving, not celebrating.

A Roper/National Geographic poll in 2006 found that 63% of Americans aged 18-24 couldn't locate Iraq on a map. 38% thought speaking another language was "not too important". While only 20% of all American's owned a passport, approximately 40% of Canadians and Europeans did.

Many American's are just uninformed. The American media virtually ignores the rest of the world. Many others do not have the financial means to travel abroad. But too many American's believe that what happens outside of the US doesn't matter to their daily lives or interests. Worse, many simply don't care.

In an interconnected and globalized world, America will suffer if its citizens continue to believe that the world ends at the Atlantic and Pacific. An ignorance of international affairs is shameful for the most powerful nation on earth. Such ignorance by the potential President of the United States is nothing short of dangerous.

Gergen won the argument on CNN with one point (and I'm paraphrasing): every President in modern American history had traveled (many lived) extensively abroad before running for the office, except one. George W. Bush. How'd that work out for everyone?