We have all heard the same refrain - "Obama is OK, but he doesn't have the experience."  This is a disingenuous remark designed to subvert your perception of Barack Obama.  It is meant to lead you to dismiss this candidate before you have a chance to learn about him.  The lack of experience categorization is designed by the opposition to avert your eyes to a less challenging candidate.

Whether it is the Republicans, or the other Democratic front-runners, the goal of this dispersion is to prevent voters from assessing Senator Obama.

What is so great about experience?  Two of the most experienced people in the current administration are Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.  Both served Presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush 42.  Experience did not prevent war, it did not prevent terrorist attack, and it did not prevent recession.  The experienced ones in Washington seem mired in scandal, excised from government or impotent in the policy arena.  Radical partisanship and media manipulation has set the tone in Washington since the Reagan days.  Is this the experience we require of Barack Obama before we consider him electable?

What we need is a gentleman of reason; one with the wisdom to accept the advice of knowledgeable advisors, work and bargain with legislators, governors and foreign leaders and be forthright with the American people.  A President more like Jefferson or Lincoln and less like W.

Camelot of the Kennedy era did not consist of one man.  JFK brought economists, jurists, diplomats and academics to the table.  The wisdom of President Kennedy was to amass true experience and act accordingly.  Could you imagine his reaction to the current administration and its efforts to quell all dissent?  The parallels with fascism are so disturbing and apparently so blinding that Americans would placidly turn their backs on their own best hope - Senator Obama.

His message of hope is simple and intoxicating.  There is no presidential candidate in the field today who speaks of the promise of America, the potential of America and his pact for America.  Senator Obama speaks directly to us about a progressive agenda in positive tones.  It is about what we can do - not about what we can't do.  What we should dream about - not about what we should fear.

Wisdom trumps experience.  Support Senator Obama for President.

Two quotes related to wisdom that fit this topic:

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

  - George Bernard Shaw

Six essential qualities that are the key to success: Sincerity, personal integrity, humility, courtesy, wisdom, charity.

  - William Menninger

You may know Terry Lierman as Howard Dean's National Finance Chairman back in the day.  For the past two and a half years, Terry has served as Chairman of Maryland's Democratic Party and has been transformed the party from a peripheral organization that hosted fundraising dinners and printed sample ballots to a vibrant channel of the electorates' activism - culminating in the 2006 Coordinated Campaign and the dramatic Democratic election gains seen in every county in Maryland.

Much of the credit goes to Terry Lierman. He provided the Party with unprecedented resources and skilled staff. His commitment to each jurisdiction in Maryland was not only evidenced by the odometer on his car, but the results at the ballot box. Democrats enjoyed victories in Southern Maryland and the Eastern Shore, as well as revitalizing traditional Democratic strongholds. The party's work on precinct organization and resource sharing allowed our candidates to focus on reaching voters. Across Maryland, old deceitful tactics and voter suppression antics of the other side seemed to backfire at every opportunity.

It is hard enough to peruse our progressive agenda and portray our enlightened sensibilities through political discourse these days with such an awful administration controlling government, the media and the minds of the electorate.  The last thing we need is elected Democrats - colleagues we have entrusted in public office subverting our trust and our party.

Two stories this week highlight two Maryland elected Democratic officials - Congressman Albert Wynn and Comptroller William Donald Schaefer.
 

Today, President Bush said that he would not "cut & run" - that he will stay in Iraq until our mission is accomplished.  "...we will stay in the fight until we have achieved the victory our brave troops have fought and bled for."

Well, I remember he said we had to act to stop Sadam's weapons of mass destruction.  (No weapons - mission accomplished.)  Then we had to stop Iraq's support of terrorism.  (Sadam removed - mission accomplished.)  We need to protect the Iraqi people for a evil dictator. (Sadam captured - mission accomplished.)

There can be no victory because the mission keeps changing to match Bush's ever-moving political agenda.  He already declared Mission Accomplished on the deck of an air craft carrier on May 2, 2003. So the mission ended over two years ago.  Over 2,000 American lives ago.

What is going on now can't be described as a failed policy  -  it's no policy.  There is no plan, there is no mission.  Bush/Cheney/Rove simply want to kill American sevicemen and women.

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I want to thank Representatives McKinney, Serrano and Wexler for voting for H. Res 571 - the immediate pullout from Iraq.  These three courageous Democrats were the only three Aye votes recorded.

While this was a stunt by the majority, it was an opportunity to place our party on the record that our mission was accomplished and it is time to begin removing troops from this quagmire.

I wrote to these three representatives acknowledging my satisfaction with their vote.  I asked them to continue voicing their conscious in hope it will demonstrate to my congressman it is acceptable to display the same courage.

There was a time in our history when outrage would follow the shooting of an individual.  The names of shooting victims became a rallying cry for change: Emmitt Till, Medgar Evers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, Malcolm Little, Viola Liuzzo, James Reeb.

So far this year there have been over 120 murders in Prince George's County without any true outrage.  The lawlessness simply continues and sometimes short paragraphs noting the devastating destruction of another family appear in the newspaper.

Nothing in our county will improve until we fix this problem.  No company will invest jobs for fear of crime.  No qualified school teachers will relocate here for fear of crime.  No child can spend a day without worry of crime.

For too long, we have allowed our County Executive Jack Johnson to go without blame.  He may not be the cause of crime, but he has certainly not done anything to address this problem.  He is almost through his term in office and he still uses the excuse that there are not enough police officers in this county.  How long must he be in charge before he fixes it?  How long must Jack Johnson be County Executive before he takes a leadership position?

Our outrage of murders should compel us to demand change.  How many more people will be senselessly killed before Jack Johnson becomes outraged?

I think we could wrap our message around one word - security.

In terms of framing (see George Lakoff), security has a very warm connotation and invokes ease and assuredness.

Democrats offer security. Economic Security. Health Security. Physical Security. Family Security.