Our two presidential candidates have all both been tagged, by some combination of their own campaigns and the media, with some defining characteristic. Barack Obama is the “change” candidate. Hillary Clinton, while she was still around, was the “experience” candidate.
John McCain, of course, with his military service and time spent as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, was prepackaged as the military and foreign policy candidate – which was supposed to be a boon to him, since the United States is, after all, currently at war.
Unfortunately for McCain, it would appear that he doesn’t actually know anything about Iraq, the troops who have been stationed there or how the war is being run.