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NEWSFLASH! TIME Magazine argues that experience is not necessary to be president — except that was seven months ago in March when they ran a two-article cover story on Sen. Barack Obama. Check out the following excerpts defending Sen. Obama’s lack of experience. (Where was TIME when people started attacking Gov. Sarah Palin as being light on experience?)

From: Does Experience Matter in a President?

Obama’s relatively light political resume … continues to be the focus of his rivals’ attacks [i.e. Hillary] … Obama’s credentials would be an issue in any election year. He would be sworn in at age 47, making him one of the youngest Presidents in history, and would arrive in the Oval Office with less executive experience than most of his predecessors …

Wouldn’t it be nice if time on the job and tickets punched translated neatly into superior performance? Then finding great Presidents would be a simple matter of weighing résumés … But it has never worked that way, which is why Lincoln’s statue occupies a marble temple on the Mall in Washington, while his far more experienced rival William Seward has a little seat on a pedestal in New York City.

If knowing the system is so useful, then second-term presidencies should be more successful than first-term. Instead, many Presidents lose effectiveness as they go along … To a keen student of human nature, all of life offers lessons in how to lead, inspire and endure. Lincoln’s ability to apply useful lessons from his motley experiences was among his most striking traits.

From: The Science of Experience.

In making the case that she would be a better President than Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton never forgets to summon the argument that she has more experience. But as the Florida State simulations show, experience doesn’t always help. In fact, three decades of research into expert performance has shown that experience itself … can actually hinder your ability to deliver reproducibly superior performance …

Experience is not only insufficient for expert performance; in some cases, it can hurt. Highly experienced people tend to execute routine tasks almost unconsciously … and they retrieve the information they need quickly, rarely pausing to apply rules … Which is not to say that, if elected, Clinton or John McCain would drive the country off a cliff — or that Obama, as a comparative novice, would be more cautious and less burdened by his habits. But the study of experience does indicate that the more seasoned candidates wouldn’t automatically outperform Obama as President.

Do you find TIME’s arguments convincing? Either way, it makes for some interesting reading seven months later and just days away from the election.

Related post: Obama, McCain and Palin TIME Magazine Covers