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The big problem with Barack Obama is his lack of experience. He’s only been in the U.S. Senate for a little more than two years. Does he have what it takes to deal with the tough issues?

Via John Moltz, here’s an interview from 2002, shortly after Congress gave Bush authority to attack Iraq:

Watch this and ask yourself who looks smarter on foreign policy in retrospect: Obama or Dick Cheney? Obama or George Bush? Obama or Colin Powell? Obama or Hillary Clinton?

Supporters of the Bush Administration have often complained that we’re not hearing the good news from Iraq — we’re not hearing about the schools and reconstruction and all the success stories. So, how’s it going?

In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle.

The United States has previously admitted, sometimes under pressure from federal inspectors, that some of its reconstruction projects have been abandoned, delayed or poorly constructed. But this is the first time inspectors have found that projects officially declared a success — in some cases, as little as six months before the latest inspections — were no longer working properly.

The inspections ranged geographically from northern to southern Iraq and covered projects as varied as a maternity hospital, barracks for an Iraqi special forces unit and a power station for Baghdad International Airport.

One of the eight projects is still “operating as designed.” I’m betting the person responsible for that project gets fired.

I’m trying to meet George W. Bush half-way. I don’t expect greatness. I don’t even expect mediocrity. Competence in government is a musty relic of a bygone era. But, please, George — stop making a religion of incompetence.