You also forgot how McCain excelled in academics (Class Rank of 894 of 899); his extramarital affairs; his bigamy; his involvement in the Keating Five scandal; the four-letter words that begin with “c” and end in “nt” that he uses to describe his wife; and his unwavering support of the dumbest war since the War of Jenkins’ Ear. These are all things a young Barack Obama would look up to.

Unfortunately, just like crashing a Cup Series NASCAR car doesn’t qualify Mike Easley to run Hendrick Motorsports, being shot down and tortured in Viet’nam doesn’t qualify John McCain to lead a country. And if experience were the only factor, Mitt Romney would be running against Bill Richardson and Abraham Lincoln would have lost the presidency to Stephen A. Douglas. Actually, since Douglas was old, sick, and died a year later … it sounds a lot like what would happen with McCain.

I’d stay and chat, but I have to go have sex with this other woman while I’m still married to the wife of mine that got a lot uglier while I was away for a few years. Then I think I’ll take a few bribes, surround myself with lobbyists, and act like I’m taking money out of politics all at the same time. While I’m at it, I’ll hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe, and join the National Guard. I could be elected President.

As Obama turned 7, McCain had survived a burning jet fire on the USS Forrestal and had just flown his 23rd bombing mission over communist North Vietnam.

In 1973, as Obama reached age 12, McCain was finally released from a prisoner-of-war camp in the Hanoi Hilton.

At age 15, when Obama was still in high school, McCain became the commanding officer of a Naval Training Squadron in Florida. He turned a poorly managed military unit into a distinguished, combat-ready team.

When Obama reached the legal age of 21 and was experimenting with pot and cocaine, McCain declined an admiral promotion and ran for and was elected to Congress.

By 1987, Obama was a young man of 25 and McCain had assumed the office of senator from Arizona (after a successful four-year tour in the U.S. House of Representatives).

At age 36, Obama looked on as Sen. McCain was named one of Time magazine’s 25 most influential people in America.

Whom do we choose as our next leader? Do we choose a man with proven military and political achievements, or a man with little experience other than a stint as a community leader and junior senator? Decisions, decisions!