Experience gained in the last 20yr in the middle east (Afghanistan in particular) indicates that what we traditionally consider "fighter" type aircraft are capable of delivering various guided munitions with sufficient accuracy and that time to location is highly important.
Having dedicated CAS aircraft is nice and it's probably wise to keep something of that nature in service at all time but it's foolish to pretend that a modern multirole fighter can't be shoehorned into that role with reasonable effectiveness.
Edit: You people (you know who you are) seem hellbent on interpreting what I have to say as being a much stronger statement than I am making. I am saying that aircraft like the F35 can do the job and that there are some pros to having those kind of aircraft do the job (namely speed). I am not saying they are better than a purpose built aircraft.