McCain's "Experience"

All this week I've heard endless garbage from Joe Scarborough and his yes-people insisting John McCain's "experience" factor obliterates Barack Obama's candidacy.

It's garbage and I want it to stop.

When Obama defenders point out that Obama was right about Iraq in 2002 while McCain was wrong, Scarborough says "Americans don't care about the past." McCain echoed Scarborough on the stump:

Of Mr. Obama's criticism that America should never have gone to war against Iraq, Mr. McCain said: "That's history, that's the past. What we should be talking about is what we're going to be doing now."

Well what the hell is "experience" about if it's not precisely about the judgments you've made in the past?

You can't have it both ways. You can't say "McCain has infinitely superior experience" and then say "but we're not going to talk about the past."

If McCain's issue is "experience," then the issue to debate is the past - McCain's past versus Obama's past.

Here's McCain's past in a nutshell:

• Grew up in a prominent rightwing Navy family and was indoctrinated in naval dominance of the globe
• Went to Annapolis and ranked at the very bottom of his class because he resented authority
• Went to Vietnam and crashed several planes
• Spent 6 years as a POW and "broke" under torture
• Came home and dumped the wife who raised his children while he was away and nursed him back to health on his return
• Married a much younger woman who was heir to a mobbed-up Budweiser fortune
• Worked in his in-laws' business traveling across Arizona building a base for his political career
• Used his in-laws' money to get elected to the House as an anti-abortion, "pro-family" candidate
• Worked his way up from the House to the Senate by being a loyal right-wing Republican
• As a Senator, got caught helping Charles Keating deregulate S&L's, which cost taxpayers $200 billion, and was censured by the Senate
• Promised never to do favors for lobbyists again
• Ran for President in 2000 as a reformer and won New Hampshire
• Got crushed in South Carolina after he called Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell "agents of intolerance" and they fired back with a pro-Bush smear campaign that McCain had an "illegitimate black child" - actually a dark-skinned child (Bridget) adopted from impoverished Bangladesh. Nevertheless, McCain enthusiastically supported Bush both in 2000 and 2004.
• In 2001, he opposed Bush's $1.35 trillion tax giveaway to the rich, but changed his position during the 2007 campaign.
• In 2001, he was so opposed to Bush's far-right policies that he considered becoming a Democrat, but ultimately stayed a Republican and supported Bush's far-right policies
• In 2002, he was a leading advocate for the invasion of Iraq, spent far more time on TV than any other Senator, and wrongly predicted "victory" and "success" every step of the way 
• In 2004, he betrayed his friend John Kerry by refusing to defend him against Swift Boat smears
• In 2007, when a supporter asked "How do we beat the bitch," referring to Sen. Hillary Clinton, McCain laughed and called it an "excellent question."
• In 2007, with the U.S. on the brink of attacking Iran, McCain joked by singing "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran."
• In 2008, when caught doing favors for lobbyist Vicki Iseman and her corporate clients, lied about his actions

These are McCain's major "experiences" - all of which suck.

So every time Joe Scarborough or any other Republican hack talks about McCain's experience, we need to demand a full discussion of what McCain's experience actually is.

Update 1: Here's Blue Texan:

Erm, in politics, "the past" is what we typically call "your record." And St. McCain's record includes authorizing and cheerleading for George Bush's totally awesome invasion and occupation of Iraq.  Sorry, St. McCain, you can run but you can't hide.

Update 2: After 30 years of political "experience," McCain still doesn't know the name of the Democratic Party, which is the oldest political party in the world.

Update 3: After 30 years of political "experience," McCain still doesn't know what kind of Republican he is:

I'm a proud conservative liberal Republican 

Maybe after another 30 years of "experience" he'll figure it out...

Update 4: Obama used Hillary's new "red phone" ad to hammer Hillary, McCain, and Bush on Iraq:

"We've had a red-phone moment," Obama said. "It was the decision to invade Iraq. Senator Clinton gave the wrong answer. George Bush gave the wrong answer. John McCain gave the wrong answer."

It's a three-fer!