He came. He announced. He referenced Abe Lincoln as much as possible. Then he flew to Iowa to campaign.

“[Lincoln's life] tells us that a different future is possible, that there is power in words, that there is power in conviction… that beneath all the differences of race and region, faith and station, we are one people. [His life] tells us that there is power in hope.”

Meantime the press is flogging the first-term senator’s lack of experience, as if that has ever in modern history, for better or for worse, been a deciding concern for American voters, as if anything in the present president’s background, for example, prepared him in the slightest to lead the most powerful military on the planet on a massive nation-building enterprise in the Middle East that has included jolting reinterpretations of U.S. law regarding military engagement, combatant detainment and domestic surveillance.

At very least, Obama has experience as a community organizer, an attorney, a senator and as a fully literate and reflective human being. He has a law degree from Harvard and has authored by himself without help two bestselling books on american life and politics. His colleague Joe Biden has also assured us that Obama has experience speaking correctly in public and washing himself properly on a regular basis. Obama may not make the best president. He may not be the best candidate for president. But can we please, given the standard set over the past eight years, not pretend to worry over any purported lack of experience on the man’s part? Blaaaah!