You need to know what you don't know..to know what you do know

Interesting article from Peggy Noonan at WSJ:

'Everyone I know plays the game of 'This election is just like 1932,' or '52, or whatever. 'It's 1960-the youthful charismatic JFK versus the boring and so Republican Nixon.' 'No, it's '92 and the youthful charismatic Clinton versus the tired old Bush.' This election is, in fact, exactly like the 2008 election. But the other day a friend said something I hadn't heard before: 'This is 1948, and Obama is Tom Dewey'-the sleek, well-groomed, inevitable one who lost. I pondered this and said maybe he's Dewey, but Mr. McCain's not Truman, not so far. He is still, on the trail, his scattered self, not 'Give 'Em Hell Harry.' ... 'The daring and exciting European trip was probably a wash, and possibly a mistake in the bridge-too-far sense. ... What Mr. Obama has been doing, and this started before the European trip and continued throughout, is making people see him as president. He's doing this when he ambles back to the back of the plane and leans over the reporters, in his shirtsleeves, speaking affably into their held-up mics and recorders, at the end of the victorious tour. That's what presidents do. He speaks to rapturous crowds in foreign capitals. That's what presidents do. ...'He isn't doing this to show he's inevitable and invincible. He's doing it to give voters the impression that they've already seen President Obama. That he's kind of already been president, he's done and can do all the things presidents do, to the point that by the middle of October a certain portion of the country is going to think he already is president. ... It's not vanity, it's strategy. ...'However. Mr. Obama consistently shows that he doesn't know what he doesn't know. It's a theme with his talented, confident staff. They don't know what they don't know either. Because they're young and they've never been in power and it takes time to know what you don't know. ... They pick the biggest, showiest venue for the Berlin speech, the Brandenburg Gate, just like a president, not realizing people would think: Ya gotta earn that one, kid. Going to Europe was fine, but they should have gone in modestly, with a modest venue, quietly spread word that his speech was open to the public, and then left the watching world awed by the hordes that showed up. For they would have.'