Well yeah and just to be explicit, the point of the cartoon is NOT "Bush has been such a disastrous loser that we might as well elect some inexperienced schmuck like Barack Obama".

The point of the cartoon is about the disingenousness of the "inexperienced" argument being tossed around so often at all. No one was asking this question about others (Kennedy, Clinton, Bush, all equally or less "experienced") plus it's complete nonsense anyway, since George W Bush has more experience in the actual job itself than anyone alive except for Bill Clinton, and no one would want Bush near the job again even if he were eligible. Yes, even with all that "experience".

It's pumping up something that's both invented (he's got eight years as a Senator in Illinois, for pete's sake, an actual elected office, far more than Hillary could say) and as the cartoon points out, not anything that was raised as an objection to other candidates.

Mainly it's just saying look, you've HAD a disastrous catastrophic President and you're sitting around acting like someone who opposes everything he stands for and articulates it all well, might be WORSE?

But I mean, sheesh. If you have to explain a cartoon, sigh.

This place is definitely infested. There's nothing liberal or progressive about it anymore.

Don't worry, you're not alone. As John Elliott so eloquently put it, these people are either PAID or need to change their prescriptions. Or they're stupid beyond belief, which explains a lot of things.

Well yes but there's another factor, one that I think is more central. Maybe a lot of them are drawn here by the continuued concern trolling of the editorial staff here. Salon was one of the worst Obama-bashing sites during the primary and this clearly drew in a huge contingent of Hillary fanatics, and a lot of them remain. By "a lot" I mean that they're far overrepresented here compared to the general population, where they're actually a tiny blip statistically.

This is then mixed with all the right wingers who would sling Obama insults and smears no matter what, maybe encouraged by all the bashing going on to think that this is a friendly place for that.

Whatever the reason, it's an utterly troll-filled environment now, from a liberal or even Democratic perspective, at least in the letters. I can only hope that those who don't post are different, as I hoped above.

I mean fine, have a site that's a mix of right wing and PUMAs, but that's not what some of us had hoped for Salon.

So leaving aside for a moment that, as others have pointed out above, this actually isn't what the article says, even if he were "returning" in the way you imply--

-- who cares?

Why does it matter what some preacher thinks, yes, even if he's one that preached at a church that the Obama family attended? If you don't make a big deal out of it, why would it matter?

Oh right. YOU don't care, but THEY will. The disengenous dodge of Salon.

So the fact that Salon was, and will be, the first to trumpet this non-stop (getting a head start, trumpeting when it's not even true, by all appearances), along with the rest of the tabloid bloviators, is just maybe why it becomes such a big deal?

The right wing-biased media says, ad nauseam:

Barack Obama can't win because he's black.
Barack Obama is only the nominee because he's black.
Barack Obama can't win because the preacher of a church he attended has distasteful opinions.
Barack Obama can't connect with "the common person".
Barack Obama comes across as too elitist.
Barack Obama can't win because he's inexperienced
Barack Obama can't win because he makes nothing but stupid campaign decisions

The fact that Salon.com adds "I'm concerned that..." in front of each of those before publishing the same thing doesn't, I'm sorry, make this an "alternative" to the right wing noise machine. It makes it part of it.

There's your present-day Salon commenter, screen name "bucks4mcain"

They've probably just automated it, give the bots some offensive language to call everyone to make it look like a real person.

I think experience wasn't the point of the cartoon. Not entirely.

That's why I say having to explain cartoons, I mean it's doomed from the start. If we could explain them easily in words then we wouldn't need the cartoon.

I think a better way of putting it however is just saying hey look, you didn't worry this much about electing a frat boy who had basically failed at everything he tried, including substance abuse, so please spare me all the disingenuous hand wringing about being afraid of what Barack Obama could do once in office because you don't know enough about him.

After all, he's only a highly accomplished self-made constitutional law professor who rose from poverty to become a Senator from Illinois elected to two four-year terms, then rose to being elected US Senator.

But hey, the last guy we elected seemed like he'd be fun to have a beer with, despite all that right wing stuff he spouted sometimes.

I mean, who knew, from that, that he'd be an incompetent ideologue once in office!

I thought it was pretty brilliant, myself. I often do with Tom Tomorrow, I admit.