Canadians might find it offensive, humorous, or a combination of the two, that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama once said he was looking forward to meeting “the President of Canada”. Not surprisingly, he was attacked for this mistake by Senator McCain, the Republican presidential candidate.

Many of us may be wondering, how could Obama possibly be elected to the White House with this less-than-rudimentary understanding of the world? Clearly, this is not an issue with Hillary Clinton, who has travelled to more than a hundred nations, or John McCain, who has decades of experience in politics and the military.

The answer isn’t that he is well-balanced. The answer isn’t that he was less involved in politics prior to his campaign.

The answer is simply that people are disregarding this sort of mistake. They don’t care that a presidential candidate doesn’t know of the political system of the second largest country in the world. They don’t care that this presidential candidate has an unrealistic view of American politics.

What they do see in Obama is:

• youth and energy
• inexperience
• “a [short] history of right choices”
• geek-friendly

He is definitely inexperienced, and that cannot be refuted by anyone on any side. How long has he been in politics? Only since the husband of Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine on Star Trek: Voyager) lost when his divorce records with Jeri Ryan were involuntarily publicized. In other words, Obama’s sole opponent was involved in a scandal. In such a case, how could Obama have lost?

His short history of right choices doesn’t show that he will make more right choices in the future. This is an illogical connection which he is making, and which he is pushing to his supporters. Simply because he has made some right choices in the previous 5 or so years doesn’t mean that he will deal with the stresses of the Presidency, and does not demonstrate that he is qualified to lead the United States. Certainly, he isn’t the sort of person who would ordinarily be elected to the Supreme Official with Veto Powers.

But what appeals to a lot of younger voters is that he’s geek-friendly. He actually understands technology and the Internet, and supports the net neutrality argument. I’m not going to say much more about this.

You should listen to the LSAT Logic in Everyday Life podcast. A recent episode, “No ‘There’ There” includes analysis of the Spitzer scandal, Ferraro’s comments about Obama’s race, and also offensive remarks from Rev. Wright (with whom Obama is associated).