If he can't keep his campaign plane from stinking, what makes anyone think Obama can handle the world's hardest executive job?

The same news network that gave us Rathergate now serves up the news that the Obama campaign plane literally and chronically stinks. Will the MSM reporters next cry out for Barack Obama to call them Edna? My latest guest-post at HughHewitt.com won't help you understand that last techno-punk rock allusion, but it does ask a serious question about Obama's executive competency.

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[Copied here for archival purposes on November 5, 2008, from the post linked above at HughHewitt.com.]

(Guest Post by Bill Dyer a/k/a Beldar):

I'm one of those guys who's observed, but never been able to really understand why, so many women are attracted to "bad boys" and abusive men. I wonder if there's some of the same phenomenon going on with the worshipful reporters whom the Obama campaign nevertheless treats like dirt, according to this report from CBS News' Dean Reynolds:

After most of the previous 12 months covering Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency, it was interesting, instructive and, well, relaxing to follow John McCain for the last few days. The differences between the two are striking....

Obama's campaign schedule is fuller, more hectic and seemingly improvisational. The Obama aides who deal with the national reporters on the campaign plane are often overwhelmed, overworked and un-informed about where, when, why or how the candidate is moving about....

The national headquarters in Chicago airily dismisses complaints from journalists wondering why a schedule cannot be printed up or at least e-mailed in time to make coverage plans....

The McCain folks are more helpful and generally friendly. The schedules are printed on actual books you can hold in your hand, read, and then plan accordingly. The press aides are more knowledgeable and useful to us in the news media. The events are designed with a better eye, and for the simple needs of the press corps. When he is available, John McCain is friendly and loquacious. Obama holds news conferences, but seldom banters with the reporters who've been following him for thousands of miles around the country. Go figure.

The McCain campaign plane is better than Obama's, which is cramped, uncomfortable and smells terrible most of the time. Somehow the McCain folks manage to keep their charter clean, even where the press is seated.

Go figure, indeed. But let us set aside the question of why media people so adore Sen. Obama. What does this report tell us about whether anyone should vote for him?

All politicians sell an image. All voters ought to want to know what's behind the image they're being sold. Part of Obama's image is that he's very smart and, therefore, competent. But what substance backs up that image? Is he actually competent at anything besides projecting an image?

Gentle readers, I respectfully submit that this report is one of those jarring factoids — like Obama's long and carefully airbrushed history as a cigarette smoker who's prevaricated about when and whether he's actually quit smoking — that actually ought to give thoughtful Americans serious pause.

Even with all of the expertise available to him as the now long-settled candidate of the national Democratic Party — with all of its talent and experience and, for all practical purposes, an unlimited budget — less than a month before the election, Barack Obama still hasn't managed to assemble a team who can manage to hand out a timely campaign schedule or keep his campaign airplane from smelling.

So I do not ask this as a rhetorical question, but as a very serious one: What is it, besides sheer blind faith, which leads anyone to believe that he can do better with the whole country than he has with his campaign?

Obama supporters may be tempted to answer, "The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and who cares if his plane stinks or his campaign sucks if his campaign is successful?" Well, I think a lot of people do care, actually. Those would be the people who can distinguish between popularity and competency, and prefer the latter in a president, even if the former is more useful in gaining office.

Maybe you're unimpressed that Sen. Obama listened to Rev. Wright's sermons for years and years without objection, or that Sen. Obama bought his own home with the close financial cooperation of a convicted slumlord and politician-briber, or that Sen. Obama's only previous executive experience was in giving away millions to radical programs run by terrorist Bill Ayers and his revolutionary allies. Maybe that's all old news as far as you're concerned, and maybe even though you find metaphorical RAW sewage of the Rezko, Ayers, and Wright sort to be highly unpleasant, you're willing, metaphorically, to hold your nose and vote for Obama anyway.

But Obama gets on that airplane every day. He got on it today. Did it really stink? Is that something a CBS News reporter would make up, if it really didn't? We're no longer talking about metaphorical holding of noses: If Obama can't perceive that problem on his own campaign plane and see to it that even that problem is solved, why would you ever think he can handle the national economy or world affairs?

— Beldar