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Mumbai: Of Course, It's America's Fault

As the world mourns the barbaric attacks in Mumbai, the political forensics teams are amassing to perform their dark duties of assigning blame.  For the vast majority of Americans, this was yet another example of  radical religious and political elements externalizing their apparently endless list of global grievances against the West, in particular the U.S.

However, if you're part of the victim elitist club, you see this through a dramatically different prism, one which indiscriminately indicts American foreign policy, which is a kind of cabal for the intellectual adolescents among us.  For the best example of this we turn to Deepak Chopra, the enlightened one who is something of a cult hero among the advanced wing of the human race.  Writing in today's Wall Street Journal, Dorothy Rabinowitz provides an entertaining, if manifestly disturbing portrayal of Dr. Chopra's recent appearances on CNN and Larry King.

The reflex to blame America for empirically unprovoked violence is now hard-wired into the liberal sensibility, and the artful ignorance they bring to the challenge never fails to astonish those of us who still cling to a modicum of common sense.  We can only ponder the special loathing the likes of Chopra must have for America, which is most certainly predicated on a faithfully misguided understanding of its history, principles, and, dare we say, its exceptionalism. 

But since idle speculation is not our charge, we are inclined to conclude that his motivation rests on a thoroughly misconstrued theory of both America and the nature of evil.  In the case of the former, Chopra and his ilk must cull from American history both its founding documents and its conduct on the global stage.  Those documents reflect an unprecedented respect for individual and property rights, a tripartite system of government which provides an exquisite balance of power to check hegemonic designs.  As for America's conduct as the world's premier moral exemplar, we need only look to last century's two world wars, in which it selflessly sacrificed thousands of its citizens to aid allies in desperate need.

But now we're faced with a new and unique challenge.  During the past three decades a quiescent lethality called radical Islam began growing, expressing itself in grotesque ways, from the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut to last week's massacre in Mumbai, with numerous examples of savagery in between, including, of course, 9/11.  In any world which featured a nominal consensus concerning good and evil, there would be a universal and unequivocal condemnation of this demonic group, but since distorted notions of imperialism and twisted conceptions about victimhood have been bred in our post-modern culture, a small but vociferous part of the world blames America for these heinous acts.

There are two ignoble legacies that will one day be documented in our the history books, both of which are irrefutable charges against modern liberalism:  The first, abortion, is a profound moral crime, an ethical lapse of monstrous proportions--about 52 million and counting.  The second is its utter failure to recognize evil in our midst, to conflate the perpetrators of unprovoked horrors with those who have legitimate grievances.

It takes a remarkable leap of ignorance to reach the conclusion that America is to blame for the despicable attacks in Mumbai, but liberals such as Chopra seem to excel in this regard, as it requires that special sense of enlightenment which is apparently their birthright.

God's Blessings This Thanksgiving Day

Implicit in the act of giving thanks are two key elements:  First, that there is something for which we are thankful, and second, that there is someone who is nominally responsible for our blessings. 

Delving into the first phenomenon, there's a linear relationship between the depth of our understanding of precisely how our blessings have manifested themselves, which is to say the confluence of our civic, cultural, and personal lineage, working in concert in ways impenetrable to our comprehension.  The second element presupposes the existence of God and is inextricably intertwined with our notions of good and evil.  It's a pleasing reflex to give thanks when life is unfurling before our eyes exactly as we wish, but far more demanding when it seems to be spiraling out of our control.  If we can be assured of little in this life, it's that we'll have ample opportunity to experience both.

Yet, as Christians, our faith tacitly obliges us to take arms against a sea of troubles, not only because it makes us stronger, but because there is spiritual value in suffering, which is the process we bear as we stare down those challenges.  That it's a tedious and annoying affair, one we fancy is unique to us, does nothing to measurably lessen our load.  Indeed, it seems to multiply the angst and ennui that accompanies every attempt to surmount our problems.

Moreover, we seem to instinctively undervalue the presumed benefits of meeting our personal demons on life's battlefields, which typically only latently appear, in large part because we're so reticent to press them into service, convinced as we are, of their evanescence.  But once we begin to appreciate the dovetailed nature of suffering and mortal confidence, both of which are woven deeply into the fabric of our Christian faith, we start, as Wordsworth wrote, to "see into the nature of things."

It's then that the true meaning of thanks rises to the surface of our earthly lives, because we recognize that these travails don't exist in a vacuum, that in ways our circumscribed minds will never grasp, they're an integral part of another life, one where suffering ceases, and whose existence we can only extrapolate from this world, as Plato so astutely observed in his Parable of the Cave.

Therefore, as we gather with family and friends, giving thanks for our many blessings, we might begin with reflections concerning this ingenious Republic whose artful design is predicated on the timeless human strengths and weaknesses that make us such a magnificent work of God.  Ours is a collective privilege, a legacy of civic resilience, justice under the law, and equal opportunity to realize our dreams, the likes of which the world has never known. 

That many Americans seem only dimly aware of the sacrifices our forebears made to sustain it in no manner diminishes them.  As we glance around our tables, looking into the faces we love and cherish, let's not forget the background narrative that made it possible, which includes our Founding Fathers and the lives of untold millions who gave their all in defense of this shining city on a hill.

May God's blessings be with you and yours this Thanksgiving day.

Our Post-Modern Legacy Comes to Fruition

One would have to be culturally blind not to see the dramatic, if incremental degradation of traditional values and principles in America today.  However, the problem is compounded when sufficient time elapses and the new generation has no conception of the dimensions and import of the loss.  It's arguable that we've reached that point in our slow slide into the cosseted world of post-modern ignorance, and Victor Davis Hanson makes that exact argument.

Prof. Hanson provides a caustic itemization of our collective failings, from the pathetic state of our educational institutions to the trash Hollywood produces to the transparently biased and intellectually under-resourced media we're burdened with.  In the mix are observations concerning the emasculation of our society in favor of the feminized metro-male, which is consonant with the judgment-free world we now inhabit.

He also documents the arch double standard concerning Barack Obama's list of fringe associations, noting, as no major media outlet had the temerity to do during the campaign, that no conservative would dare have an association with a David Duke or Timothy McVeigh.  But Obama's two-decade association with Rev. Wright, an avowed racist and Bill Ayers, an unrepentant domestic terrorist, was met by the media with a collective yawn.

What's happening here?  Well, when you eviscerate principle and values from a Republic, when traditions are tarnished and devalued, something must replace them, and that something is the secular humanist agenda.  At its core, it represents the view that the history of Western civilization generally, and American history specifically, provide convincing testimony that economic hegemony encourages imperialism, and that male aggression is its driving force.  That, in turn, so they argue, is abetted by the kind of religious fervor that justifies empire building and interminable war. 

Lost among this exegesis of excess is any understanding concerning the lessons that two thousand years of history have provided us.  Indeed, the predicate of our post-modern age is that by casting off those lessons and using the left's tabula rasa, sans any encumbrances from values or absolutes, we can achieve heaven on earth.  Redistribute the wealth in the process, nationalize health care, strangle the free market, stifle free trade, allow unfettered access to abortion--then euthanasia--and begin the process of confiscating guns, and you're on your way to that state of nirvana.

Among other institutions that are hostile to the common good, our public school system has been a primary cause of the decimation of our traditions, replacing them with a culturally sanitized version that's an obvious proxy for liberalism.  That it's an intellectual cul de sac bereft of the values that once grounded our Republic is of no concern to our educrats, because the expansion of political power is their only goal.

This civic course was obtusely charted in the 60s and, with a few notable exceptions, has insidiously made its way into every corner of our culture.  It's abiding, if shrill, defense of every sub-human animal, in tandem with its barbaric support for abortion and its thoroughly misinformed belief that war is never an option, make it a heartless polity that provides exceptionally cold comfort in an age that so desperately craves a strong foundation informed by traditional values.

The Left's Brave New World

Even casual observers of American politics are aware of how adept the left has been at eschewing the term 'liberal' in favor of 'progressive.'  Writing in Salon, Michael Lind provides a lucid historical analysis of the American left, or, as he euphemistically calls it, the 'center-left,' but concludes with a construction of liberalism that is entirely out of sync with its modern incarnation:

Liberalism is a theory of a social order based on individual civil liberties, private property, popular sovereignty and democratic republican government.

What's most fascinating, which is to say, illuminating, about his characterization is that liberalism is not a system of governance, but rather a "theory of social order."  In contrast, conservatives believe that social order tacitly follows economic freedom and adherence to the timeless principles enshrined in the American Constitution, its Bill of Rights, and as articulated in the Federalist Papers.  Note the deliberative avoidance in Lind's definition, or, for that matter, in his entire exegesis, of the founding documents of this Republic.

Ironically, he quotes Jack Kennedy's speech to the New York Liberal Party, which, in part asserts that,

...if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties...then I'm proud to say I'm a 'Liberal.'

We can stipulate a consensual concern about our fellow Americans who, through no fault of their own, struggle with the challenges of providing for their families.  In fact, as Arthur Brooks persuasively argued in his book, "Who Really Cares," conservatives are far more likely to make contributions of their time and money than are liberals.  Therein lies the crux of the matter:  Kennedy was a tax cutter, whereas the modern liberal--or progressive, the name matters very little--believes in redistributing income.

Underlying that civic construction is a denial of the economic realities that govern success over time:   To wit, those in the lower income quintiles invariably find their way into the middle and even upper income levels with time and effort, but sans the guarantees and multi-tiered safety net the left insists is required to get them there. 

Working our way deeper into the core of their motivating principles we find an abiding skepticism concerning our capitalist system because it fails to provide universal success.  However, besides its obtuse gloss that discounts success over time, this view fails to appreciate the vital lessons learned by the inevitable failures that befall everyone, save those who fail to try. 

For Lind, a government without an activist blueprint, one designed to infiltrate every capillary of our economic and civic system, is unacceptable because it denies the common man's ability to succeed on his own.  The obvious political corollary is that if everyone, with a few caveats, can achieve a measure of economic success, where does that leave the liberal "theory of social order"?  Indeed, without the left's habitual largess--a la other tax payers' money--without robust union influence and a resilient regulatory apparatus, the very justification for their existence ceases.

It's that almost religious reliance on government that the modern progressive--or, liberal, as the brazen Lind would prefer--that distinguishes him from anyone nominally to the right of center.  That their public policy framework is at fundamental odds with the Founding Fathers' vision for this nation is a quaint observation thoroughly lost on most Americans who have but a veneer thin understanding of what our Founders contemplated for our Republic.

That's why it's likely we'll see a dramatic expansion of the footprint of government in the upcoming Obama administration.  We're effectively ceding control to a cabal who will advance the liberal agenda in the beneficent guise of, as Kennedy said, people who care "about the welfare of the people."

It's the left's Brave New World.  Welcome to it.

In Praise of Partisanship: The Battle of Ideas

With the new Congress taking shape, reports indicate that Republicans are retooling their leadership to install more conservative members in key positions.  Democrats as well are signaling that change is afoot, noting that less liberal and more accommodating members may be replaced with those who hew more closely to hard left principles.

Curiously, that's a message that stands in contrast to the one we repeatedly heard during the campaign, that Americans are tired of partisan politics, that they're looking for politicians to bridge their differences and bring the nation together.  But, we feel compelled to ask, which Americans are saying that?  And, why are we so deeply divided in the first place?

Let's begin by noting that it's only in autocracies and totalitarian regimes where dissent is proscribed and where, their despotic leaders would tell you, the people speak with one voice.  Of course, with the threat of a painful death hanging in the balance, each of us might be willing to compromise our values.  But here in America we're blessed with the right to form out own opinions, regardless of whether they might offend others. 

The reason we have partisan politics is that we have two strikingly different views of how our government should function, of the degree to which individuals and corporations should be permitted to enjoy the fruits of their successes and be held accountable for their failures.  Many on the left find this troublesome, arguing that government knows best how to solve our problems and satisfy our needs.  That's why it's probable that Barack and Michelle Obama will send their children to private--not public--schools, but won't allow inner-city D.C. families to enjoy the same choice by using vouchers.  Republicans, of course, find that abhorrent, citing the Democrats' craven capitulation to special interests, i.e., the teachers' unions. 

By revamping its leadership structure, each side is sending the message that it has confidence its platform will appeal to voters, that their principles and values, if cogently expressed, will win electoral support.  Despite posturing politicians' assertions to the contrary, they only reflect the wishes of their district or state and they shouldn't apologize for it.  There are substantive differences between conservtives and liberals and the fact that neither side is showing any sign of caving to the other is not a symptom of national malaise but rather of the need for each to advance its best arguments for voters to examine.

The challenges for conservatives, as we've argued in several posts, are many because although it was Jack Kennedy who entreated us to not ask what our country can do for us, that's a culturally unwelcome demand, which is to say a politically unwise one as well.  Rather, as Obama has demonstrated many times, you're better off promising a plethora of programs and assistance, purchased by punishing the successful. 

Now that's a winning message today, not the conservative message of individual and corporate responsibility, accountability, and a limited role for government.  Yet, as history will attest, living by  conservative principles not only brings economic success to a greater number of people, it also provides the kind of individual happiness that liberal largess simply can't, regardless of how well its siren song plays in our contemporary culture.

A Cure For The Bailout Blues

Although there are many sound financial reasons to resist calls to rescue our car manufacturers, the more profound reason is the growing concern of a Leviathan government that is legitimizing its expansive influence in clearly unhealthy ways. 

Among its notable successes, history will recognize a serious blight on the Bush years, which is its spendthrift habits and its nearly veto-free eight year ride.  As some political analysts have observed, that set the stage for Barack Obama's plan for a robust role for the federal government, from draconian regulations to excessive tax and spending policies.  It's against that backdrop that this infestation of bailouts has taken root, and what would be seen as wholly inappropriate a year ago--that is, bailing out the likes of General Motors--is now seriously entertained as a legitimate action of government.

A confounding problem is that our lawmakers become adept at packaging these deals in ways that make them seem benign, including a plethora of criteria and qualifying rules, with the inevitable footnote that government will actually "make money" on the deal.  When deals brokered by our congressional leaders-- from either party, but in particular from the Democrats--begin to sound like those low-dollar commercials on television when most of us are asleep, it's time for serious concern.

Unfortunately, quaint notions about the "creative destruction" of capitalism no longer seem to resonate with many Americans, inadvertently leading them to conclude that failure should be subsidized.  Every year businesses die trying to succeed, but they often return in a more resilient incarnation and achieve success--and, it happens without congressional munificence.  When we begin to define a threshold that triggers government intervention we have capitulated to a culture that ignorantly subscribes to the notion that failure is a terminal disease.

Moreover, if businesses approach their charge of achieving profits with the knowledge that a tax payer safety net is beneath them, their tolerance for risk and willingness to innovate is dramatically compromised.  That's not only unhealthy for their bottom line, it also hampers growth and job creation, and, yes, their performance on Wall Street.

Finally, while the motivation to play savior is understandable in an age when it's typically done with other people's money, it's nonetheless an unflattering comment on our unprincipled approach solving life's vexing problems.  Whether it's a bond issue that voters turn down at the municipal level or a tax increase that fails at the state level, those charged with making a budget fiscally sound always find a way.

Why not try a novel idea and let the feds play by the same rules?

American Catholic Bishops: Standing Up To Obama

The conundrum of the Catholic vote in the recent election has prompted some serious soul serarching, and thankfully not exclusively in the metaphorical sense.  A recent article by Phil Lawler in Catholic Culture tries to parse the paradox of voters who supported Barack Obama, a man who has a perfect voting record in his support of unfettered access to abortion.

Although Catholic teaching on this matter is absolutely unambiguous, you might think otherwise given the deft manner in which liberal Catholics have justified their votes for Obama.  Even some priests have gone on record as supporting him, alleging that his social justice agenda trumps his pro-abortion stance.  It's a transparent canard that reflects the thoroughly misguided way in which many Church leaders have obliquely sanctioned this heinous act.

Indeed, deep within this irony are the cultural underpinnings that tacitly legitimize the pro-abortion Catholics, which was driven by the incremental acquiescence of American bishops over the past half-century.  Coupled with our culture, which has developed an intransigent anti-authority gene that's apparently immune to entreaties based on tradition or absolutes, Catholics now see the abortion issue in shades of gray. 

Given the deeply insidious way in which the amoral tentacles of the 60s embedded themselves into the fabric of our nation it's hardly a surprise that so many putative Catholics never gave a second thought to voting for Obama.  Lawler's statistics reveal what devout Catholics intuitively understand, and that is, Catholics who attend weekly Mass overwhelmingly voted for McCain, while those who don't voted with the same margins for Obama.

That takes us to the core of the matter, which is the certainty of our belief in our religion.  For many, their Catholic faith is a matter of convenience, something which reassures them that they're on a glidepath to heaven.  However, as St. Theresa wrote, it's the sinner who is convinced he's a saint, but it's the saint who knows he's a sinner. 

When politics trumps religion, when the inviolable moral precepts of a religion are molded to suit personal preferences, the enduring essence of that religion is degraded.  It's that deterioration of the moral certainty that Catholicism historically provided that is at the heart of liberals who supported Obama, leaving them with a hollowed out set of precepts that more accurately reflect secularist culture than Church teachings.  It's as though a large cohort of Catholics now seem to more closely ally themselves with protestants--who offer a flavor of Christianity for every imaginable taste--than with their fellow Catholics.

What should Church leaders do?  At a meeting on Tuesday in Baltimore, the nation's bishops said they would "forcefully confront" the Obama administration on abortion, laying the groundwork for retaking the moral highground on this crucial matter. 

For Catholics who are faithful to Church teachings, this was long overdue.  In a world where moral relativism is the only absolute, devout Catholics yearn for certainty and pray that by adhering to the precepts of the Catechism of the Catholic Church they may one day attain eternal salvation.  For those more interested in the retention of political power and the solidification of the culture of death, we recommend they find another religion, one more suited to their secular notion of God.

Obama: The Intellectuals' Dream

One of the lectures we're receiving from the Georgetown cocktail circuit and their brethren at the New York Times is that with the election of Barack Obama a new era of intellectualism will return to Washington.  The deftly crafted narrative provides the predictably harsh critique of the Bush years as desiccated, bereft of the intellectual's nuanced touch where infinite gradations are rendered in mellifluous prose, which is music to the ears of--yes, other intellectuals.

Thomas Sowell provides the rich, if ignoble history of the modern American intellectual, the bell jar thinking elite who tried to convince the nation that the Soviet Union was the paradigm America ought to emulate.  Now, about to ascend the intelligentsia pulpit is Obama, the Harvard-educated, mandarin-tongued senator who is convinced that he can succeed in dealing with Iran where nearly three decades of strategic diplomacy has failed.

It's that kind of stipulated superiority that led Obama to author a senate resolution to have U.S. troops out of Iraq by March of this year.  Just a few months later, President Bush's much maligned surge began delivering unprecedented successes, yet Obama never conceded his plan was ill-advised, and, of course, no major media outlet held him accountable for his monumentally misguided plan.

On the domestic front, it's a hallmark of the intellectual, who breathe rarefied air, to coyly eschew the mundanities of such contentions issues as abortion.  Perhaps that's why, when asked when human life began, Obama said it was "above his pay grade."  That brand of smug defiance in the face of a question a high school biology student or cab driver could answer, is what we can look forward to for the next four years.

And, if you weren't aware of it, guns cause crime, not criminals.  That's yet another myth, fabricated in the intellectual hot-house of academia, which has never been test-driven off campus for fear it might meet reality.  At the core of that elitist view is that the common man simply can't be trusted with a gun and that a uniformly disarmed populace is the best way to guarantee the safety of all.  They forget to add that criminals thrive in "gun-free zones," not law-abiding citizens.

Let's add to his compendium of ivy-league arrogance Obama's tentative plan to launch the next iteration of the New Deal.  It would be a massive Keynesian infusion of cash, expanding government's footprint and sucking the air out of the free market.  Writing in yesterday's New York Post, Amity Shlaes demonstrates that Roosevelt's efforts to save the economy didn't produce the results that advocates of big government think it did.  Why, we must ask, would someone of Obama's intellectual caliber, want to reanimate those failed policies?

For reasons that defy common sense, Americans were drawn to Obama in droves, convinced as they were, that his record of partisan, liberal politics wasn't real, that, in fact, he's a post-political, transcendental politician fully capable of solving every problem we face.  If history is prologue, this intellectual is no different from the rest.

A Question For Liberals: Is War Ever The Answer?

Taking a brief respite from presidential politics, we'll reprise our post from last spring concerning bumper stickers.  Over the weekend we saw one that bluntly declared, "War Is Not The Answer."  Stipulating that a more cogent message would supplant the word "Not" with "Never," we'll begin by logically inquiring into the question, which can only be implied. 

Of course, there is no question, but rather, a set of circumstances in which war may be invoked as one of several options.  Furthermore, in the view of many Americans, almost all of whom are liberals, and to put it charitably, they are not persuaded that a military response is appropriate--ever.  We must begin the analysis with the criticism that sweeping generalizations such as this have a highly limited applicability in the real world because they pre-emptively dismiss case-specific evidence.  Indeed, if war isn't the answer in Iraq or Afghanistan, was it the answer in World War Two? 

What about the civil war, or the war for American Independence, without which the freedoms the anti-war protesters enjoy might well not have been codified into law?  We can certainly discuss wars that might well have been avoided had more prudent leadership been at the helm, from the Hundred Years War to the War of the Roses, as they were triggered by claims to the throne or charges of their illegitimacy, or specific to dynastic civil wars, respectively.  But what may seem to us to be petty squabbles not worth our blood and treasure were clearly issues deemed crucial to the future of Great Britain and France, on the one hand, and the Houses of York and Lancaster on the other.

But in the case of the second world war, surely our liberal brethren would concede that war was, in fact, the only answer.  Not so fast, dear reader.  In the rarefied universe of the modern liberal, war only begets war, it never creates peace, so aggression itself is anathema, which is to say self-defense is not a justified response to an impending or a verifiably potential attack. 

We could run virtual reality scenarios to try to divine what might have happened had America not intervened in that war, but historians are in agreement that the map of Europe would look rather different today had it not.  Taking the argument one step further, what might have happened had Great Britain and France, interceded in 1936 when Hitler moved his army into the Rhineland, rather than timorously lurking on the sidelines?  We might turn to volume two of William Manchester's seminal biography of Sir Winston Churchill, which quoted Hitler himself as saying that had they seen "one French bayonet" he would have turned tail.

A timeless truism, one of many that seems to have eluded the liberal pacifists, is that weakness always encourages belligerents.  Moreover, whether its revenge for historical defeats, as in Mussolini's attack in Ethiopia in 1935 for its loss at the Battle of Adowa in 1896 or Sparta's fear of Athenian domination, as in the Peloponessian War, aggressors populate every chapter in history, and the only check on their expansionist designs is when a greater power is there to stop them.

This is a fact that each generation seems, to one degree or another, fated to relearn.  One might think that with the aggregation of well over two thousand years of history the need might attenuate, but it's a testimony to each new generation to believe that its age is unique, that it does not.  Coupled with our culturally induced incapacity for stress--much less war--and our obtuse insistence that every problem, from a failed Internet connection to our war with radical Islam, be instantly resolved, it's hardly a wonder that intellectually fatuous bumper stickers such as this one are as prevalent as they are.

Is Obama Up To The Challenges Ahead?

Anyone paying only cursory attention to the pressing issues facing America knows that President-elect Obama must confront profound challenges when he assumes office in January.  The domestic front includes a flagging economy, rising unemployment, soaring health care costs and more uninsured than ever, as well as the numerous aftershocks from the credit and housing markets crisis. 

On the foreign policy front, just yesterday, Russian President Dimitry Medvedev said he would deploy short-range missiles near Poland, a defiant and combative move that will confront Obama in his first weeks as president.  The complexity of this issue can't be overstated, as it's tied in with NATO expansion, Russia's incursion into Georgia and tacit threats to the other former Soviet satellite countries.  Couple that with our fragile accomplishments in Iraq, instability in Afghanistan, an Iran determined to acquire a nuclear weapon, and the ever-unpredictable Kim Jong Il in North Korea, and you can be sure that Obama's vaunted aptitude for paving a new way with refractory despots will be seriously tested.

As is the case with any new administration, Americans and the world will be closely watching his every move, looking for hints that might foreshadow his plan for dealing with these vexing problems.  Moreover, the first few months are critical, because his fund of political capital is at an all-time high, after which it rapidly begins diminishing.  Misspent capital not only squanders potential it would confirm skeptics' fears that his inexperience is a real liability.

Although it's difficult to predict his course of action, domestically, his dream of a bold agenda must be tempered by fiscal and budgetary realities as well as an economy that's on life support.  Were he to begin with an aggressive tax agenda--which he's promised--it could send markets further south and jeopardize the chance for a recovery.  That will also keep his plans for nationalized health care on the drawing board, ensuring that costs and access problems will continue to plague us.

Dealing with the likes of Medvedev and Putin, not to mention Iran's Ahmadinejad, none of whom has any interest in ceding to American might, will test the Harvard educated lawyer in ways his community organizing never did.  This is deadly serious business and if he starts down a path of strategic impotence, or even indecisiveness, it could dog him his entire time in office.  These steely-eyed demons never blink, and the word 'compromise' simply isn't in their diplomatic vocabulary, so there will be endless opportunities for Obama to stumble on the world stage.

We've heard quite a bit about the allegedly tarnished state of America's reputation among the civilized world.  Well, Obama's central challenge won't be with that polite group of nations, which is why we wish him the very best when he begins the arduous task of dealing with Russia and Iran.  Indeed, whether it's laying the groundwork to rebuild our economy or mapping the game plan for taming the Russian bear, we hope Obama brings a flinty determination to the task, understanding that this is a dangerous world, one which features nations that range from the manifestly hostile to allies of convenience.

If he works from a position of strength, the way Reagan dealt with the Soviet Union, he'll do well.  However, if he gets caught in the web of diplomatic stratagems that unwittingly betray weakness, he'll compromise his ability to advance--or defend--American values, at home and abroad.

Can The Democrats Move Beyond Race?

From our post-racial perspective, this presidential election was never about race.  Rather, it was about ideas, in particular, whether candidate Obama could persuade voters to accept the ideas of modern liberalism, once they had been superficially refurbished by a masterful oratory, ideas which had been so thoroughly discredited here and abroad. 

Time will tell whether Obama will govern as the transformational, bipartisan president he has promised, or as the arch liberal his record strongly suggests.  But any reckoning of this election must include the fact that the eight-year incumbent's approval rating was below twenty-five percent, that despite America's seminal success in Iraq, the electorate wasn't able to recognize, much less credit the current president, that the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 4,000 points, and that a banking and credit crisis blanketed the nation with a collective pall.  Indeed, it's remarkable that McCain won about 48 percent of the popular vote, a much large share of the vote than losers of nearly every modern presidential election achieved. 

But a glaring irony of this election was the left's implied fear that America might not be able to elect a candidate of African ancestry, though Mr. Obama was the product of biracial parents.  It's typical of liberals to mistake electoral reticence for racism when it's the result of deep concerns regarding both the qualifications of their candidate and the integrity of his ideas.  It was that convenient confusion posited as a tacit charge of racism that reflects the shallowness of the liberal sensibility.

For reasons that mystify the casual observer, Democrats seemed to overlook the fact that a minority candidate with solid credentials, be he a Colin Powell or a Julian Bond, would be instantly accepted as legitimate candidate, and that the vast majority of Americans would be drawn to them because of their ideas, not their race.  It's that unflattering preoccupation with race, which the left has masterfully pressed into political service, that's as intellectually effete as it is disturbing.

So, as we embark on the Obama presidency, and while we wish him every success in resolving our intractable problems, it would be a sign of genuine bipartisanship if Democrats recognized that Republican misgivings about this man centered on his inexperience as well as his insistence that, despite the demonstrable failures of liberalism, under his stewardship they'll succeed--not his skin color.

'Hope' and Reality: What an Obama Win Might Bring

As the candidates approach the finish line, it's a healthy exercise to review some of the prognostications concerning an Obama victory--which is, after all, what the media saturation is all about.  We turn first to James Fallows, writing in The Atlantic, who frames the issue by itemizing how horrendous the past eight years have been and what an injustice it would be were the voters to elect McCain. 

Not surprising, in his view from the leftist hinterland, "when the diplomatic, fiscal, Constitutional, economic, and other civic consequences are viewed as a whole, this era has, in my view, been a disaster for the United States."  Fallows, in total thrall to the Obama-Messiah complex, gazes to heaven with his observation that "The expectations now projected upon him [Obama] far exceed what any mortal can achieve."  Oh, for a fainting couch.

Next we turn to Eugene Robinson, an editorialist with a reliably pre-King racial predisposition, who, while understandably elated over the possibility of an Obama presidency--since, in his parochial view, it would acquit America of being racist--nonetheless reflexively adduces race if Obama loses:  "I know there's a possibility that white Americans, when push comes to shove, won't be able to bring themselves to elect a black man as president of the United States." 

In a stunning contrast to reality, Robinson calls Obama "a young man with an unassailable resume and a message of post-racial transformation"; he must be talking about his 144 days in the U.S. Senate and his two-decade association with the unalloyed racist, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

For a warning about the fallacies of popular opinion, we turn to Anne Applebaum, writing in today's Washington Post.   She walks us through some excerpts from the presumed wisdom circulating among our punditry, among them that time off the political stage would be good for Republicans, that Democrats will be paragons of restraint and responsibility if they win the White House and gain seats in Congress, and that we'll win the global popularity contest with Obama at the helm, none of which is true.

A theme in today's adulations of Obama is style, which is to say, a deft politician is all that's needed to resolve our inveterate problems, domestic and foreign.  Well, Bill Clinton had style, solid experience, and intellect, and yet he responded to the nascent radical Islamic threat with a deft diffidence, setting the stage for the 9/11 attacks.  Indeed, when we ask our liberal friends exactly how Obama would deal with Iran's Ahmadinejad, or North Korea's Kim Jong Il, or, for that matter, Russia's Putin, all we hear State Department chatter about interminable diplomacy--a new style.

That must be more evidence of the "unassailable resume" Robinson was talking about.

The Obama Voter: Two Parts Ignorance, One Part Naivete

As the final hours before the polls open wane, a growing realization is materializing that, barring a last minute miracle, Senator Obama will win the presidency.  Stunned conservatives are already asking how a man far more liberal than George McGovern would prevail against a moderate such as Senator McCain.  Although discussions concerning the obvious role of our economic travails are certainly relevant, a deeper diagnosis regarding the electorate's fever concerning this callow Illinois senator is indicated.

We begin with Stanley Kurtz' piece in today's National Review On-Line, which provides an exhaustive history of Obama's radical past, in particular, how he uses incremental advances at the local level to mask the development of an infrastructure to effect fundamental changes in our economy.  We'll let you delve into this thicket of information that would be alarming were mainstream Americans to read it, but the deeper question is how millions of people justify voting for such an extremist?

It can't merely be an anti-Bush vote or a visceral reaction to our economic uncertainties, though they've certainly provided a powerful incentive to embrace a post-Republican politics, reactive as that may be.  The answer is more likely found in our nascent pandemic of civic ignorance, which requires, as a prerequisite, an abiding disdain for history, other than the revisionist history taught at humanities departments on our college campuses.

Indeed, when you strip an historical understanding of the intellectual roots of our Republic, the Federalist Papers, our tripartite system of government, and a host of other writings, and wed it to the academically monochromatic paradigm in our public school system, the result is the quintessentially obtuse and willfully misinformed voter in America today.

Obama, combined with eight years of quasi-liberal governance under President Bush, has merely exploited the opportunity with his tacit premise that the vast majority of voters have the attention span of a Mayfly and an understanding of history that's coincidental to their infancy.  That, in itself, is a reliable formula for electoral success, but when combined with our thoroughly biased media, which has expressed its affection for Obama in plaudits typically reserved for teen entertainers, the senator with 144 days of experience under his belt, is all but assured of a victory.  For a dispiriting view of the jaundiced media, see Douglas Mackinnon's piece in yesterday's New York Times, which ought to be required reading at the polling place.

But it's the electorate's low wattage understanding that everything Obama is recommending has been tried and found utterly useless, that's most astonishing.  Indeed, from his pledge to redistribute income and wealth to his consummately ignorant notion that despots can be reasoned with to his dream of nationalizing health care, these are ideas that have been retreaded countless times and are now fully guaranteed to fail.

But since ours is an age where emotions prevail, where rigorous principles that have been tested in the crucible of history are cavalierly discarded, Obama's message achieves a kind of perfect cultural pitch.  The depth of his sincerity and pleas for a new age of transcendental politics resonates perfectly with voters fatigued by the rigors of partisan politics.  That our intractable problems can't be solved by oratorical verve and recycled ideas is something they seem wholly ignorant of, and when that reality becomes apparent it might well be too late.

Colorado's Amendment 48: The Morality of Personhood

Here in Colorado, voters are being tasked with a large number of amendments and referenda, most dealing with fiscal policy, but one, Amendment 48, addresses one of the most fundamental questions of human existence, which is when it begins.  A simple, straightforward question that a high school biology student could answer in a flash, correct?  Would that it were that simple.

As with every issue that even tangentially brushes against the left's sacrosanct right to an abortion, this one has engendered widespread calumny, as well as a thicket of misinformation.  As the link above demonstrates, passing this amendment would merely establish what we all know is true--that human life begins at fertilization.  If it doesn't, when, pray tell, does it?

And, if it does, then isn't that newly formed life--a miracle of cells on it's inevitable way to birth--a "person"?  Well, not so fast.  A phalanx of liberals has mounted an attack, which amounts to a pre-emptive effort to deny person-hood to the unborn human--the "fetus" as they anonymously call it, as though none of them were ever in that state of development. 

Although it's a transparently specious counterargument, it's predictable, because once the pre-born is legally defined as a person, it will accrue the same panoply of rights that we all enjoy, and you know what that means--the liberals may have to stop slaughtering them in the womb.  That, according to the impenetrable coda of the left, is somehow an abridgment of their "rights."

The movement from the left's abstract characterization of the fetus as a mass of undefined cells to breath-taking ultrasound images of preborns sucking their thumbs has completely undermined their obtuse argument that a fetus isn't a human.  Indeed, the breezy way in which liberals de-humanize the preborn, transforming them into disposable medical waste, is nothing short of astonishing.  Since these are the same people who champion the defense of every animal, from the Snail Darter to the Spotted Owl, isn't there at least a hint of irony that they wouldn't extend the same courtesy to their own species?

Yet, in Colorado, and across the nation, the debate rages, with Obama in the vanguard, voting four times against a bill in the Illinois senate that would proscribe the barbarous act called live-birth abortion, and pledging that his first act as president will be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act.  The FCA would abrogate all state laws that limit abortion, allowing unrestricted access to all forms of abortion, including partial-birth abortion.

One day, in a distant future, there may be a new branch of social science called moral anthropology, which studies and catalogs the evolution of human morality.  If there is, it would be charged with the task of parsing the liberals' moral sensibility, in an effort to divine exactly how they felt justified in supporting the decimation of millions of unborn souls.

The Problem With Polls

The primary problem with polls is not that they're inherently flawed--which they are--it's that they provide false confidence to supporters whose candidate is in the lead and they needlessly demoralize those whose candidate is trailing, which itself, can impact outcomes.  Writing in today's Wall Street Journal, political pundit Karl Rove makes the case for keeping our power dry, providing the recent history of prognostications based on skewed data that were gleefully transmitted by biased news announcers and which created serious problems on election day.

But beyond the pitfalls of election day follies is the very real impact of the daily drone of polling data that either elates or suffocates the electorate, depending upon their party affiliation.  When you consider that there are hundreds of polls, each with its unique assumptions and voter profile protocols that sift and filter preferences, it's no wonder they're no better at predicting outcomes than a roll of the dice.  But as Mr. Rove notes, the sheer number of polls this year is staggering and that can only bode poorly for grass roots democracy.

At the core of the problem is the over-hyped science that pollsters use which plays into our fervent desire for certainty during the fragile weeks in the run up to an election, when the candidates' movement in the polls is more fluid--read, unpredictable--than we would like.  The alternative, which makes nearly Herculean demands on our discipline, is to ignore the polls and continue working to elect the candidate of our choice. 

By eschewing the handicapping frenzy, the momentary ebb and flow, you not only avoid the quiet desperation that accompanies that fitful ride, you can more constructively focus your energy on supporting your candidate since you're no longer in the thrall of statistical gamesmanship.  Moreover, at least in public, the wisest candidates remain above the polling fray, refusing to celebrate positive polling data and avoiding despondency when their numbers are down.  That's not only because they don't want supporters in the case of the former to slack off or in the case of the latter, to stay home, it's truly a recognition that calling races that are as close as this one is simply not possible.

So, as we move into the final few days of this election, stay engaged, rally support for McCain, donate your time and money, and remember that the electoral maps we see on news programs or the Web are created based on polling data, and, as they say, there's no such thing as a sure thing.