This truly is the silly season when the 90s comedian Sinbad is topping the rec list.
All kidding aside tho, I'd like to make a quick point about this whole issue of "experience" as a prerequisite for commander-in-chief.
Yesterday, during an open thread Kos pointed out an interesting comparison from Votemaster:
How good Are experienced presidents, anyway? Suppose you had to choose between two Presidential candidates, one of whom had spent 20 years in Congress plus had considerable other relevant experience and the other of whom had about half a dozen years in the Illinois state legislature and 2 years in Congress. Which one do you think would make a better President? If you chose #1, congratulations, you picked James Buchanan over Abraham Lincoln. Your pick disagrees with that of most historians, who see Lincoln as the greatest President ever and Buchanan as the second worst ever, better only than Warren "Teapot Dome" Harding. Both served in what was probably the most difficult period in American history, where slavery and secession tore the nation asunder.
There is a Flaming Lips song off their most recent album called "The Yeah, Yeah, Yeah Song."
The lyrics to the song goes as followed:
If you could blow up the world with the flick of a switch
Would you do it?
If you could make everyobody poor just so you could be rich
Would you do it?
If you could watch everybody work while you just lay on your back
Would you do it?
If you could take all the love without fiving any back
Would you do it?
And so we cannot know ourselves or what we'd really do...
With all your power
With all your power
With all your power
What would you do?
As President of the United States, either Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or John McCain will have power that 99.999% of us in this world cannot even comprehend.
It's something that no Senator, Military Leader, Governor or other elected official can possibly understand.
See, the way I see it, the Flaming Lips have it right. It's not what you've done that prepares you for the power of the presidency that dictates whether you'll be a good President, it's what type of person you will be when you assume the power that is the deciding factor.
To me, character and integrity are the two dominant factors in what prepare you to lead.
It's the fact that John McCain now supports torture, even though he was subjected to the atrocity himself, that proves to me he can't lead us. To me it smacks of a depleted, vengeful morality that would rule with an "eye-for-an-eye" mentality - thus putting us right on the same track we've been on for 8 years.
It's Hillary Clinton's all-too-willingness to tell citizens that don't vote for her that, "They don't matter." How can she be the leader of the country when more than half of the nation is irrelevant to her? Trivializing and belittling people's voices is not an effective way to rule.
To me, Barack Obama's campaign style clinches it for me. Obama's character is summed up in his work ethic and his desire to not be the President of blue-state America or red-state America, but the United States of America. His ability to reach out to others demonstrates a modest confidence that he knows what is right and is prepared to make the correct decisions.
So while it's entertaining to hear all our candidates jockey for "experience," as Abraham Lincoln and Sinbad show, it's not what you did to get to power, it's what you do with it when you receive it.
Update: Dougymi nails it in comments:
that the most experienced man in washington right now is dick cheney. A man with no character, integrity or morals. All he has is experience