Barack Obama’s campaign quickly blasted John McCain for putting “the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency.”

Some McCain supporters worry that McCain can no longer question Obama’s lack of experience.

He doesn’t have to, and he really hasn’t. Experience and accomplishments are not the same. Compare Palin’s accomplishments with Obama’s. Obama has accomplished…nothing of consequence. (They would have played them up during the convention if he had.)  As for Palin, we’ll all be familiar with her accomplishments in short order.

Right now, Barry Obama just criticized Dr. Phil Gramm for his “nation of whiners” comment.

Then he launched into a litany of whines.

Obama passed over as VP candidate one who earned 18 million votes for one who earned 8,000 votes.

The MSM kept saying that Obama-Clinton would have been the Dream Ticket. Not exactly. Though Obama-Clinton could easily beat McCain-Anybody, the real Dream Ticket would have been Clinton-Obama. The only voters they would have lost would have been the Clinton-haters, and they’re almost all Republicans anyway. Democrats who suffer from Clinton fatigue would have voted for the ticket anyhow. No one would have cared about Obama’s inexperience as a VP candidate.

But the pick of Biden shows how dysfunctional the Democrats are. Of course, the Democrats know their party is dysfunctional, that’s why they started out so enthusiasic about Obama. They thought he would lead them out of the wilderness. Instead, he’s revealed himself to be a product of the same old political machines. His personal image may be new and fresh, but his political image is as stale as a piece of wax fruit.

Two recent heartening developments while Congress is is recess:

Jimmy Carter endorses free trade pact with Colombia

FDA allows limited food irradiation

I know, it’s small but I’ll take it.

People who will believe anything will believe that a candidate’s refusal to be straightforward about a position is an indication of that candidate’s pragmatism and thoughtfulness.

But when a candidate’s specific actions belie his spoken ambiguities, then the thoughtfulness excuse quickly evaporates, and credibility may be discounted.

The main mission of government is to protect the natural rights of its people. Thus, it’s not too much to ask of a candidate to define what constitutes a person. From a governing point of view, the “theological” or “scientific” definition of personhood are not as practical as the “legal” definition, which is what the government must use.

Unfortunately, a Supreme Court ruling in 1973 decided that the unborn person is not really a person (else she would have to have the same rights as her mother), cutting the legal definition adrift from its moorings in the written law. Subsequent rulings have further complicated the matter, leaving us in the situation we are today, with a “law of the land” being established by judges rather than, well, lawmakers. 

Courageous lawmakers have tried to wrestle with this problem, but the non-courageous ones continue to throw up obstacles. Somebody has to define what a person is in order for the government to do its job. But too many would prefer to leave the question unanswered.

So when a candidate for president says that such “specificity” is “above my paygrade” then he has no business in politics, and should go back to doing whatever he was doing as a “community organizer” and let real leaders do their jobs.

Obama said that he would not have nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court because “I don’t think he was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker.”

Ooooo-kay. But while he did have kind words to say about the intellects of the other conservatives on the court, he cited no reason why he considered Thomas less capable than the others. Nor why his own life experiences (compare his autobiography with Thomas’s) equip him to make such a judgment.