Paul Ryan (R-WI), the so-called "serious one," made the eyebrow-raising statement that voting for the Iraq War gave him "more foreign policy experience" than President Obama.
Although the assertion reveals how ignorant Ryan is about what foreign policy is (and, imagine bragging about the most disastrous foreign policy decision since Vietnam), there is a more fundamental point to consider.
When Ryan cast that vote he was in his early 30s. We have been forced-fed more information than we ever cared to know about his fitness.
So, here's the question: If taking our eyes off the ball in Afghanistan to fight the Iraq War was of such overriding national importance, that we would spend a $1 trillion and have more than 4000 Americans killed and more than 30,000 seriously injured, then why did Ryan not leave his job and volunteer to fight it?
It seems that his mission was as much about "Saving Paul Ryan" as it was about the importance of the Iraq War.
Well, you say, he was a Member of Congress. Yes... and, so what? We all have (or had, until the Bushies tanked the economy) jobs, some of much greater importance than being 1 out of 435 Members of Congress, and a very junior one at that. What about the policeman, the firefighter, the teacher, the physician? Many of them felt the mission was so important to the safety of our country that they dropped what they were doing and went to Iraq.
And, did Ryan not have an even greater obligation to put his body on the line because he actually authorized the invasion, and put tens of thousands of "people" as he called them at risk? He thought it was critical enough for them to go... but not himself?
Where is the accountability? Where is the morality?
And, where is the media challenging him with that question?
It is difficult to determine who deserves greater disdain -- Ryan for sending others to war but not volunteering himself, or the media who fear they may not be invited to a party if they ask him about it?
This all leads to what should be a key concern of the American people: Can they risk electing two neocons, neither of whom have a nanosecond of foreign or defense policy experience, and who did not volunteer to fight their own generation's wars, and, in the case of Mr. Ryan, actually voted to send other people to a war for which he did not volunteer himself or, in the case of Mr. Romney, also had not a single one of his five military age sons volunteer for the war he so strongly supported?
That should give us as great pause as anything in considering this duo to lead our country prudently in the next four years.