Barack Obama, to answer the question about his "experience," has well more than that of our current "President," whose credentials before seeking office consisted of heading up a failed oil company handed to him by his father's cronies, and a losing baseball team. Oh yeah, and serving as Governor of Texas after an election with questionable results, as usual, deposing the great (and highly qualified) Ann Richards. Anyway.

Barack Obama is articulate, and extremely intelligent. He is charismatic (and no, that is not something that can be learned or even developed, as other recent candidates have learned to their sorrow -- but Obama has "it"). More importantly, Obama is obviously intelligent, and as best as we can tell so far and certainly appears to be, of eminently high principles.

One of many things which thrill me personally is his unyielding insistence on not surrendering his faith (and mine) to the current gang of deluded fundamentalists whose divisiveness, and self-righteous, fear-based hate mongering is an outrage to the name, "Christianity" or religion generally - those who engage in practices (and stances) which would literally have made Jesus weep (he who exhorted against judgment (lest we be judged) and turning the other cheek); as well, those of the prophets of other faiths whose messages, Judaic, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist, or whatever, I think pretty universally -- in their pure form -- teach simply a variety of paths toward awareness, tolerance, respect and compassion (which invariably, if practiced, leave one more open to the possibility of enlightenment and/or grace).

Obama is reclaiming religious beliefs and principles (thank God!!) for the rest of us - wresting them (in his speeches) from their highjacking by the Far Right who have attempted to literally lay claim to, then subvert, even the word, "Christianity"; and not just that particular faith but religion in general -- by his patiently (or passionately!!) explaining that faith is (a) not the property of any group but of all Americans and (b) not the point; as he so stirringly reminded us all in his keynote speech at the last Democratic national convention, "We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States... ." Obama made these points not to foment more divisiveness, but to heal it.

Moreover Obama (again, so far anyway) clearly embraces all of the OTHER principles of the Democratic party (and, uh, democracy!) such as a return to a compassionate and response-based (not obscenely profit-based) health care system, a revamped and restored educational system, a break or two for working people instead of fat cats, and thus a federal government which does more than sit around handing out "gimmes" to special interest groups such as pharmaceutical, healthcare and insurance companies (of all kinds), and let's not forget "defense" contractors -- all of whom are literally razing the economic landscape which has been painstakingly built and rebuilt by Democrats (since Franklin Roosevelt) and systematically undermined and handed over to these and others by Republicans (since Nixon -- and the now supposedly sainted Ronald Reagan, who turned the mentally ill into the streets and fired all the air traffic controllers -- remember "Reagononics"?).

It's an endless fight, but Obama brings a hell of a lot more to the table than "experience" -- which again our current so-called President clearly has none of anyway -- as evidenced by his repeated (to put it charitably) "errors" about, and resultant responsibility for, the Iraqi civilians and young men and women in our own military killed and maimed in Iraq by the thousands; his total disregard of the intelligence provided to him by the Clinton administration and others about terrorism in general and Al Quaeda in particular, up to one week before the Sept. 11th attacks; and his and his cronies' atrocious response, as one of many other examples, to the debacle of Hurricane Katrina, where a personal friend of mine still has holes through her roof and the side of her house, both covered with tarps which leak whenever it rains (not to mention the plight of thousands of others, still homeless, displaced, and now apparently being dimissed in the courts by their own homeowners' "insurance" companies).

Anyway. Obama has compassion, imagination and vision; he is also a great speaker, and thus arguably a good leader (as I believe his current constituents would attest); thus, if there is a fair and legal (non-rigged) process, he is highly electable!! I for one dearly hope he does decide to run, and that the American people -- often underestimated in their hunger for those qualities -- will recognize them in him, and respond in such overwhelming numbers as to override any "irregularities" or other shenanigans as have plagued our electoral process in recent years.

Even if Obama doesn't run this time (which I hope he does) he certainly has as much and more "experience" -- and is much more highly qualified -- than many who have already sought, and (to our shame) held, the highest office. I hope he steps up, and I hope the American people respond with a consensus whereby we can move forward together, toward (as Obama would I believe describe it), the America most of us working and caring people, whether Republican, Independent, Democrat or "other," have always dreamed of, and want ourselves to be.