is more useful to them than actually addressing your arguments on the merits.

If this issue (the source of the email) is the subject of the dispute, it is more to their advantage than if they were forced to argue your actual point, that the military is becoming increasingly politicized.

It also make you available (yet again) as a subject of the latest "two minutes hate" as you mentioned yesterday.

Especially coming from liberals. Focusing on experience feeds into an irrelevant narrative that can only benefit McCain.

I would love it if anytime someone said "Experience", an Obama supporter would say "Competence".

Who has had more experience than Bush's administration? Look where that got us.

Obama and his supporters need to be hitting McCain's lack of competence just as hard as McCain is hitting Obama's experience.

Who was it that admitted that he didn't understand economics as well as he should?

Who was it that didn't understand the difference between Sunni and Shiite?

Who picked the least experienced running mate in recent times (for political advantage) knowing that he would be the oldest first-term President ever? (putting America first?)

The cause of the current decline in our economic prosperity, security, and prestige, the attribute that the current administration is lacking, is not experience. It is competence

Palin on the bridge:

Palin, 2006: "People across the nation struggle with the idea of building a bridge because they’ve been under these misperceptions about the bridge and the purpose,” said Palin, who described the link as the Ketchikan area’s potential for expansion and growth. … Palin said Alaska’s congressional delegation worked hard to obtain funding for the bridge as part of a package deal and that she “would not stand in the way of the progress toward that bridge.” - Ketchikan Daily News

"Would you continue state funding for the proposed Knik Arm and Gravina Island bridges?

Yes. I would like to see Alaska's infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now - while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist." - Anchorage Daily News

"The bridge reversal is not the only matter throwing doubt on Palin’s credentials as a government waste reformer. Watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense has reported that the small town of Wasilla, Alaska, which had not previously received significant federal funds, hauled in almost $27 million in earmarks while Palin was mayor. (McCain has explicitly criticized several of the Wasilla earmarks in recent years.) To help obtain these earmarks, Palin had hired Steven Silver, the former chief of staff for recently indicted Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, as Wasilla’s lobbyist.

And Palin continued to solicit federal funds as governor. A request form on Stevens’ Web site shows that she requested $160.5 million in earmarks for the state in 2008, and almost $198 million for 2009. " - Factcheck.org

"As Alaska governor, she sought and obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks for the state, and as mayor of Wasilla, she hired lobbyist and former Stevens staffer Steve Silver to steer federal money to her town. Some of her own earmark projects even landed on McCain's list of questionable congressional pork barrel spending when she served as mayor from 1996 to 2002." - Anchorage Daily News

nc

This, nonstop:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYQAv2HnuCQ

For the trolls who are always mocking the supposed lack of substance in Obama's rhetoric, this serves as a strong example of a true leader displaying COMPETENCE and UNDERSTANDING of the world around him.

As for the people who would rather have a President and VP that they can "relate" to...Give me someone like Obama who exemplifies excellence and intelligence. You wouldn't want a brain surgeon that was an "average joe", so why in the world would you settle for that from your President?

of the slur "elitist" in this context really needs to watch the movie "Idiocracy". Although they usually used the word "fag".

This slur is rooted in the extreme egotism of the people who use it. Unwilling to admit their own mediocrity (or even idiocy), they would rather insult those who strive for or have achieved excellence.

after the riots following the economic collapse that they are engineering?

When he's been trying all week to figger out this economy thingie?

Also, with mccains plan, it is a win-win for wall street. If the investments become worthless, they can cash in their insurance policy. If they go back up in value, the get to hold on to them.

With the Dem plan, the Government gets to buy them at fire sale prices, and can sell them later to recoup or even profit if the value goes back up.

Your partisan attempts to blame this on Democrats are absurd and deserve to be mocked.

In 2004 when John McCain supposedly made his heroic, mavericky attempt to establish some oversight for Fannie and Freddie, Republicans controlled Congress and the White House. Do you expect us to believe that minority dems were so powerful that they cowed "the Hammer" and disrupted passage of the legislation? In fact, as with many bills that would gain public support, but harm the lobbyists that run things, this effort was taken up to allow legislators to say that they "supported" it, and then allowed to die a peaceful death in committee.

The real cause for the financial crisis was Phil Gramm's (you know who that is, right?) Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which prevented any government oversight over credit default swaps.