Terrorist Sex Offenders 4 Pres!

Obama to announce today at 11:00, supposedly.

UPDATE: Or not. He's just forming an exploratory committee, and will "announce more about his plans in his home state of Illinois on Feb. 10."

As I've probably made fairly clear, I'm not a huge Obama fan (in terms of a potential presidency, anyway), so I'm pretty wev about this. That said, I'd like to note that I don't think his lack of experience on the national stage should be held against him. Experience isn't remotely a perfect indicator of a president's capability. Case in point: Bush was terribly ill-experienced, and Cheney had experience coming out the wazoo. They've both been equally noxious, in the end, for reasons having very little to do with how long, when, or where they served previously.

And, curiously, it always seems to be the folks who have the least faith in the decency and integrity of our federal government (and the people who run it) who also argue that longevity of service is a prerequisite for the presidency—which is, ultimately, counterintuitive. If Congress is a cesspool of crookedness, then the best presidents would be the ones who rise above it earlier rather than later.

I'm also not sure why those who think he's too inexperienced for the presidency suggest he'd be better off as a veep, as if it's a guaranteed 4 to 8 years of ripening. Tell that to John Tyler, who was sworn in after William Harrison keeled 32 days into his presidency. If Obama's too inexperienced for the presidency, he's too inexperienced to be a heartbeat away from it.

All of this is neither here nor there, really. Just some observations about a silly argument made against Obama's candidacy, when there are inarguably more substantive dissensions to be made.