One of the most pervasive narratives created by those  opposed to Sen. Obama's candidacy is his supposed lack of experience. Today on Slate's XX Factor, Melinda Henneberger posted excerpts from an e-mail exchange with a "generous" Hillary donor who is considering backing McCain in the fall.

After reading it, I'm more convinced than ever that "inexperience" is, as Henneberger puts it, little more than "a stand-in for race, or maybe something else I'm missing." Take a look at the e-mail:

"I think her years as first lady count for something, but regardless, she has a much better command of the issues. He was a back-bencher in the state senate, not committee chair, etc. ... He improved during the debates, but even at the end he was flubbing basic tax, economic, and foreign policy issues. Maybe I've been dealing with those issues for too long, but honestly, he is constantly struggling for answers and contradicting himself. I think it would help if he gave voters a sense of who he would appoint to his Cabinet. If he is just going to be an inspirational figurehead, I'd like to know who's going to be advising him."

This particular permutation of the inexperience meme boasts neither factual evidence nor sound logic. The back-bencher charge smacks of that old "present" nonsense, and Obama's strong record as a pragmatist and effective lawmaker in the Illinois state senate is well-documented. 

And flubbing basic policy issues? Struggling for answers? Contradicting himself? Huh? Admittedly, I've been in the tank for Obama for as long as I can remember. But are we talking about the same candidate? The senator's speeches are unrivaled in their nuance, a courageous thing to do in our fast-paced, hypersaturated media environment. He was ridiculed by the right for slipping up (before correcting himself in the same breath) on something as small as whether Arabic or Pashtu is spoken in Afghanistan.

Does the author of the above e-mail truly believe John McCain knows what the hell Pashtu is? He can't even tell the difference between Sunni and Shiite, for crying out loud.

Henneberger says her friend is a lifelong Democrat and a Washington lawyer. Why, then, does she seem to be so detached from reality? The cynic in me is convinced that the illusory concept of Obama's inexperience serves only to conceal an individual's true grounds for opposing his candidacy. I can't think of any other reason a politically-engaged, progressive-leaning Washington attorney would suggest a political candidate make cabinet announcements five months before the election is even held, particularly when that candidate is juxtaposed with one who can't even remember what he voted for, or even what he said.