is this really the question?

Is this really the question that Mr. Obama wants to be asking?

“where have you been for 26 years?”

I agree with John Podhoretz about the list of things that John McCain gets to point to off the top of his head.

“… McCain can answer, quite easily, “Here’s where I have been. I changed campaign-finance law. I changed telecommunications law. I took on the tobacco companies when other Republicans wouldn’t. I took on the cable companies when they wouldn’t let people choose what channels they might want to watch. I saw a standoff in the Senate on confirming judges and I changed a standoff into a bipartisan agreement. I took on the earmarks and the Bridge to Nowhere and the breaks for oil companies you, Obama, voted for in 2005. And I helped change the war in Iraq from a defeat into what appears to be a victory. Where have you been for 26 years?”

I don’t like any of these things very much (except what he has been doing on earmarks, which has been magnificent). I positively despise the campaign reform bill and the gang of 14, but Obama can’t just pretend they don’t exist. McCain has been a thorn in the side of the Congress and his party for a pretty large percentage of the last 26 years.

He has taken a very public stand ridiculing earmarks inserted by his colleagues. Because of that very public stand, Harry Reid hates him and we all know about the “Bridge to Nowhere.” Like McCain or not, you can’t just act like he has been a go along to get along, don’t rock the boat kind of guy. He has been the opposite of that, in spades.