Obama, Fred Thompson, Anti-Elitism, Anti-Intellectualism, and HLR

In describing and counting his "executive experience," Obama is and has been entirely hamstrung by the ridiculous and embarrassing national trend toward a weird anti-elitism that hates the highly educated but still praises greed and obscene personal wealth. Fred Thompson said recently that Obama is running based only on the experience of running his current campaign. And this is tough, because there is some truth to it--in that, when asked about executive experience, Obama rightly first points to the extraordinary campaign he has managed. Since McCain was tortured in Vietnam, is old, and has been in the Senate for a long time, this is seen to hurt Obama even though McCain has no executive experience whatsoever and is a man to whom you would not readily lend the keys to your boat. If the country weren't so insane right now, Obama would easily be able to point to being the President of Harvard Law Review as also being good executive experience. As the joke about this went when Obama's campaign was only speculation, he's already held the most competitive, politically-charged office in the country.