My column this week, which will be posted on Thursday, will focus on the relentless noise that has been obscuring real debate this presidential season. Here are four topics of discussion that have served to do little more than distract us:
1. The experience question:
While Sen. McCain has been touting his resume — former Navy pilot and prisoner of war who has served in Congress for 26 years, the last 22 in the Senate – implying that his opponent’s is a bit thin, there is nothing about his experience that would suggest that he is better qualified for the nation’s top office than Sen. Obama.
After all, we are not talking about some novice who woke up one day after owning a baseball team and decided to seek office. Sen. Obama has served in government for 11 years four in the U.S. Senate and seven in the state legislature in Illinois, and has worked as a community organizer, civil rights attorney and constitutional law professor.
The simple fact is that there is no experience that can prepare someone to be president. After all, President Ronald Reagan, by way of comparison, served eight years as governor of California and was an actor and corporate pitchman before that. And conservatives didn’t seem at all concerned that the experience of their candidate in 2000 — the current president — paled in comparison to his opponent, a sitting vice president who had served more than two decades in Congress.
Experience is a convenient argument to trot out when you have little else to talk about. The question, in the end, is not experience but vision and how the candidates’ pasts might shape their work in the White House. So let’s talk about vision and leave the resumes for the human resource people to peruse.
2. Flips and flops:
In 2004, Republicans tagged U.S. Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, as a flip-flopper because of his vote on the funding of the Iraq War. Sen. Kerry voted against an $87 billion funding bill for the Iraq War in 2003, while proposing an alternative bill that would have provided the money but tied it to a repeal of some of the Bush tax cuts.
It was a standard legislative maneuver, but one that was easily painted as trying to have it both ways. And, thanks to a masterful advertising campaign by the GOP — along with attacks from outside groups — Kerry looked weak and ineffectual.
Fast forward to the 2008 race and it difficult to see how either candidate can benefit from raising the specter of the flip-flop. Both candidates have taken what charitably can be called “nuanced positions”: McCain on the Bush tax cuts, the torture ban, public financing, Jerry Falwell and the Religious Right; Obama on the FISA vote and public financing.
This is to be expected, however, given that both have spent the bulk of their public lives as legislators whose primary job is to compromise to get things done. Compromise, however, doesn’t play well in the current, 24-7 cable/blog culture.
3. Religion and the preacher question:
Both candidates have used religious affiliations to enhance their political viability – Obama proclaiming his faith publicly and endorsing faith-based public programs, McCain by reaching out to rightwing preachers after calling them “agents of intolerance.” They’ve also both experienced blow-back because of their connections to pastors (the Revs. Jeremiah Wright and Michael Pfleger for Obama; the Revs. John Hagee and Rod Parsley for McCain) that should offer enough incentive to leave religion out of the debate.
4. Patriotism:
Arguments over patriotism in a presidential contest are about as useful as arguing over which sports teams the candidates support. Both candidates are patriotic Americans and this little pissing contest demeans both and the concept of patriotism in general.
Enough of these issues. Let’s talk about the economy, the environment, health care and the war.
Hank Kalet 
Well, I\’m not so sure \’experience\’ is not a good question to be asking. At least a GUV, any guv, would have the executive experience to ask the right questions. As far as that criteria is concerned both candidates are lacking — McCain is just lacking and Obama is woefully lacking. As far as \’patriotism\’, there is no doubt that McCain put his tush on the line as his gooferment asked him to do. What exactly Obama has done, I\’m not sure.No, I dislike both of them as Presidential candidates. McC a little less.And Obama on taxes? He can single handedly put us in a depression.Hummm!
Bush\’s massive borrowing and spending and allowing giant multi-national corporations to rape and pillage is what is pushing us towards a depression. McCain is more of the same. Just give big business free rein to do whatever they want and all will be fine (sarcasm).