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On June 29, former Gen. Wesley Clark made some comments on CBS about John McCain's military experience and its relevance to holding an executive office. Careful not to question McCain's patriotism, Clark nevertheless drew attention to the TYPE of experience involved.

"I certainly honor [McCain's] service as a prisoner of war, but he hasn't held executive responsibility," Clark said.

It's probably not a good idea for Barack Obama's supporters to hang their hats on experience, since no matter what kind is discussed, McCain's got more of it.

But even so, it was dismaying at how unwilling people were to listen to what Clark was saying. Instead, the Taking Umbrage Industry kicked in and Clark's comments became the latest meaningless dispute. Columnist Paul Krugman summed the incident up best:

"The latest fake scandal fit the usual pattern as an awkwardly phrased remark, lifted out of context and willfully misinterpreted, exploded across the airwaves. What General Clark actually said was that Mr. McCain's war service, though heroic, didn't necessarily constitute a qualification for the presidency. It was a blunt but truthful remark, and not at all outrageous -- especially given the fact that General Clark is himself a bona fide war hero."

When it was all over, we'd learned nothing, and that is unfortunate, because type of experience -- as opposed to amount of experience -- is something voters rarely examine. And the costs of failing to do so can be very serious. There is an example very close to home: Nevada's governor. In 2006, most voters probably looked at the fact that Jim Gibbons had served in the state legislature and Congress and figured that was enough experience. They likely didn't look at the specifics of that experience, or of whether legislative experience is relevant to executive office.

Now, Gibbons is in over his head in budget matters. "I don't understand him when he talks about the budget," says one state fiscal expert. "He uses terms I've never heard in relationship to state finance."

This should be no surprise. In his entire career, Gibbons has never handled a budget. His political offices were both legislative. In the Nevada Assembly he never sat on a money committee -- either budget or taxation. The same thing happened in the U.S. House -- Gibbons was on committees like Resources and Armed Services.

In his private careers, he was always employed by others, as a pilot and in some role he has vaguely described as hydrology or geology. No budget experience.

His political campaigns were organized by others, particularly his wife Dawn. The campaign treasury was administered by others. No budget experience.

His "law practice" was mostly imaginary. No budget experience there, either.

(Paradoxically, there was one member of his administration who served on the Assembly budget committee whose expertise he could have tapped. That was his wife Dawn, but he has kind of alienated her.)

So when Gibbons became governor his approach to the budget, according to some of those who dealt with him, was built on slogans and nostrums. He kept talking about essential versus non-essential services but was not well informed of which agencies, after prisons and law enforcement, were or were not essential. In fiscal terms, he kept walking into walls and off cliffs.

Had Nevada voters examined these things during the 2006 campaign -- and had journalists done a better job of informing them of these things -- they might have gone to the polls better informed.

Had voters listened to what Wesley Clark had to say instead of letting themselves be led quickly into the cheapest and shallowest interpretations of his remarks, both Democrats and Republicans might have learned something. McCain and Obama are both senators. Only twice before in its history has the U.S. elected a president directly from the U.S. Senate into the presidency. John Kennedy is an okay example, but the other one -- Franklin Pierce -- is no one's idea of a president.

In the New York Times this week, Patrick Healy wrote, "Given the costs of a with-us-or-against-us presidency that achieved relatively little on Capitol Hill, maybe voters think a split-the-difference senator isn't such a bad idea." More likely, most voters probably haven't really focused on the notion of types of experience, just as they didn't focus on what Clark was trying to say.