Do you want Dick Cheney answering the phone in the White House at 3AM when there's an international crisis?
Why not? He has more "experience" than just about anyone.
How about John McCain? Should the Iraq war's biggest booster, someone who jokes about wanting to "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" and who has a legendary quick temper be the one to answer that fateful call?
Again, he is virtually unrivalled in Washington "experience."
How about Hillary Clinton? Surely she's not as bellicose as those Republicans. But she is obsessed with appearing "tough." Might the same instincts that led her to vote for the Iraq war resolution without reading the NIE, and vote for the Kyle-Lieberman bill to grease the skids for war with Iran make her unlikley to resist bad advice from a hawkish foreign policy advisor (of which she has many)?
If the last 8 years have taught us ANYTHING, it's that the constant personal need to act tough is a sign of weakness and insecurity that our enemies can exploit, NOT a sign of strength.
The problem with any of these people answering that 3AM call is not their experience, but the mindset through which they view the evidence (if they even bother to consider the evidence at all).
What makes Barack Obama so special is his unparalleled ability to see issues from all points of view because of his LIFE experience. This leads him to make far more well considered judgments. He is not captive to "the mindset that got us into this war" (as he so eloquently put it). This is why I want HIM to be the one answering that phone at 3AM.
Recent Supreme Court nomination battles provide a good analogy. Many Senators gave John Roberts and Sam Alito a free pass because they had "experience": went to prestigious law schools, served as lower court judges, etc. But all that experience doesn't matter when they see EVERYTHING through rigid right-wing frames that lead them to make horrible, and horribly predictable decisions.
So, again, who do you want answering that phone at 3AM? The man with the itchy trigger finger? The woman who makes what she thinks is the politically convenient choice without reading all the evidence and without regard to the horrendous human consequences? Or the man who has the wisdom to think through the consequences and call it exactly right -- he didn't just oppose the Iraq war in his 2002 speech: he predicted correctly exactly how it would pan out.
So "experience" is not only a false choice, but one that will have disasterous consequences for either Hillary or Barack going up against McCain in the fall. That is NOT the basis on which we should contest the 2008 election!
It's not your experience, it's what you do with it. When Barack got to the Senate, he used his to work with Richard Lugar to reduce the threat of loose nukes getting into the wrong hands. I'd be hard pressed to think of ANYTHING more important to our security than that. (As an aside, I would also note that Barack already has more foreign policy experience than Bill Clinton did when he entered the White House -- does Hillary think Bill was not prepared to take those 3AM calls?)
I hope Obama is planning to deliver a major speech where he addresses these points SOON! If anyone reading this has connections to his campaign, please consider passing this along.