You know you're starting to at least flirt a little with mortality when you make a list of the presidents who have occupied the White House in your lifetime. I was born a couple of months before the 1952 election, which means that 11 men have served in the office since I've been occupying my space here on the third rock from the sun. There has been great variation in that time of the pre-presidency qualifications of those people.

Which is why the punditocracy's endless blathering about the significance of Democrat Barack Obama's foreign travels isn't just starting to look like the beating of a dead horse. It's more like taking horse meat out of the freezer at the dog food factory and forming a Sunday-morning roundtable to criticize it. Give us all a break.

Obama's been overseas because someone who wants to be president and is trying to quell doubts that he has enough experience on foreign policy to occupy the office needs to be seen overseas, shaking hands with troops and meeting the citizenry and looking like he can find his way out of the airport.

Yes, of course, presidential candidates need to see what's happening on the ground in worldwide hotspots. Members of the U.S. Senate and House need to do that, too. And both Obama and his Republican rival, John McCain, are undoubtedly sincere in their efforts to become better-informed about the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the suggestion that this is some sort of "test" of Obama's foreign policy chops is silly. It's not. It's a campaign trip. Likewise with Arizona Sen. McCain. To his credit, McCain, the former Vietnam prisoner of war, has been traveling to such places for a long time, and his years in the Senate give him some insights into foreign policy that Obama couldn't possibly have at this point. But when either is in the White House, he'll rely on a team, presumably a tested team, of experienced foreign policy hands to do the heavy lifting. Republicans and Democrats have plenty of them in reserve.

Consider the last 11 presidents. Harry Truman was a product of old-fashioned political machinery in Missouri when he happened into the presidency with the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He'd been kept pretty much in the dark about foreign policy. But he knew what to do with regard to the ending of World War II. He relied on good people, Gen. George Marshall for one, and he had good personal instincts.

Dwight D. Eisenhower came in with incredible credentials as a WWII commander. He was a good president, but he, too, relied on experienced advice. John F. Kennedy hadn't done much as a Massachusetts senator, but he managed to handle the Cuban missile crisis (and, yes, to set the stage for Vietnam).

Lyndon Johnson had all the experience in the world in the Senate, but he charted the course for catastrophe in Southeast Asia. Richard Nixon, with eight years as vice president and previous years in Congress, still stumbled with Vietnam, even with Henry Kissinger, the president whisperer, at his side. He did open things up with China.

Gerald Ford was a veteran legislator, did OK, and Jimmy Carter was an inexperienced governor but didn't do OK, in some ways because of forces beyond his control (gas and the Iranian hostage crisis). All had good and bad, but veteran, advice.

Ronald Reagan remains popular and is credited with ending the Cold War; he had only been governor of California before taking the White House. George H.W. Bush had all kinds of experience and won the first Gulf War, but he got the boot because of a sour economy. Again, they had old foreign policy hands around them.

Bill Clinton, also a governor, proved a natural at foreign policy and tried until his very last day to work on peace in the Mideast. A heap of experience was in the West Wing corner. George W. Bush also was a governor and rose to the occasion with the right words and leadership in the aftermath of 9/11. Alas, his Iraq War has likely soured his foreign policy record; history will tell.

Some were experienced and didn't have much success in foreign policy; others were short on that experience but did well. The only conclusion is that personal judgment is what counts, whether in talking about national health care or appointing judges to the federal bench or naming a staff that will offer its talents without self-preservation and "getting along" first in mind.

So we need to go vote for the candidate whose judgment we trust, no matter which choice individuals may make. And for goodness sake, let's hope the pundits and the talking heads will return the horse meat to the freezer. It's starting to get a little pungent.