1. It is through our fear of falling prey to the calamity and misadventure from which the media promise faithlessly to protect us –– a fear manufactured and sold by the media themselves –– that we accept without question the media–borne canard (tainted, in my view, by a racism as insidious as any that hides behind the curtains of voting booths) that Barack Obama, a seasoned and successful 46–year–old husband and father of two, a man sweeping into the prime of his life with all his sails and flags unfurled, is too young and inexperienced for a job that demands vitality and flexibility and that, furthermore, has made nonsense of glittering resumes, laughingstocks of practiced old hands and, in a reverse of Popeye‘s old trick, ravenous alligators out of years of accumulated baggage.