Posted on 06/05/2008 7:17:44 AM PDT by Rummyfan
Now that the two parties have finally selected their presidential candidates, it is time for a sober — if not grim — assessment of where we are.
Not since 1972 have we been presented with two such painfully inadequate candidates. When Election Day came that year, I could not bring myself to vote for either George McGovern or Richard Nixon. I stayed home.
This year, none of us has that luxury. While all sorts of gushing is going on in the media, and posturing is going on in politics, the biggest national sponsor of terrorism in the world — Iran — is moving step by step toward building a nuclear bomb.
The point when they get that bomb will be the point of no return. Iran’s nuclear bomb will be the terrorists’ nuclear bomb — and they can make 9/11 look like child’s play.
All the options that are on the table right now will be swept off the table forever. Our choices will be to give in to whatever the terrorists demand — however outrageous those demands might be — or to risk seeing American cities start disappearing in radioactive mushroom clouds.
All the things we are preoccupied with today, from the price of gasoline to health care to global warming, will suddenly no longer matter.
Just as the Nazis did not find it enough to simply kill people in their concentration camps, but had to humiliate and dehumanize them first, so we can expect terrorists with nuclear weapons to both humiliate us and force us to humiliate ourselves, before they finally start killing us.
They have already telegraphed their punches with their sadistic beheadings of innocent civilians, and with the popularity of videotapes of those beheadings in the Middle East.
They have already telegraphed their intention to dictate to us with such things as Osama bin Laden’s threats to target those places in America that did not vote the way he prescribed in the 2004 elections. He could not back up those threats then but he may be able to in a very few years.
The terrorists have given us as clear a picture of what they are all about as Adolf Hitler and the Nazis did during the 1930s — and our “leaders” and intelligentsia have ignored the warning signs as resolutely as the “leaders” and intelligentsia of the 1930s downplayed the dangers of Hitler.
We are much like people drifting down the Niagara River, oblivious to the waterfalls up ahead. Once we go over those falls, we cannot come back up again.
What does this have to do with today’s presidential candidates? It has everything to do with them.
One of these candidates will determine what we are going to do to stop Iran from going nuclear— or whether we are going to do anything other than talk, as Western leaders talked in the 1930s.
There is one big difference between now and the 1930s. Although the West’s lack of military preparedness and its political irresolution led to three solid years of devastating losses to Nazi Germany and imperial Japan, nevertheless when all the West’s industrial and military forces were finally mobilized, the democracies were able to turn the tide and win decisively.
But you cannot lose a nuclear war for three years and then come back. You cannot even sustain the will to resist for three years when you are first broken down morally by threats and then devastated by nuclear bombs.
Our one window of opportunity to prevent this will occur within the term of whoever becomes president of the United States next January.
At a time like this, we do not have the luxury of waiting for our ideal candidate or of indulging our emotions by voting for some third party candidate to show our displeasure — at the cost of putting someone in the White House who is not up to the job.
Senator John McCain has been criticized in this column many times. But, when all is said and done, Senator McCain has not spent decades aiding and abetting people who hate America.
On the contrary, he has paid a huge price for resisting our enemies, even when they held him prisoner and tortured him. The choice between him and Barack Obama should be a no-brainer.
— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution
I never tried to swing your vote. Take that up with Dr. Sowell. But I will say that voting isn’t something I do to make myself feel good about myself.
I'm reminded of the one-line joke, "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"
Sowell's point is that there isn't anything, realistically, except for the war on terror. We can't depend on Israel to solve our Iran problems for us, because they can't do it without resolve, resources, and backup from us. Obama is, for all anyone can tell, a preening coward, and not someone you would trust playing high-stakes poker on your behalf.
A clueless, timorous CIC, surrounded by toadies and anti-American nut-cases from the Chicago Red machine, is not equipped to run a nuclear war. Obama has zero experience getting stuff done, and his "brain trust" is composed only of people who know how to steal votes.
I won't bet money on it, but it occurs to me that if things get tense, or the war with Iran breaks out, McCain's flaccidity about our borders could suddenly go away. The threat of backpack nukes or other bombs from Iran coming across the Rio Grande could inspire a lot of change.
Neither do I.
Whom I cast my vote for is the person, not the party, that I think will represent ME the best while in office.
I can tell you right now, that isn't Obomba OR McCain.
That threat is already there and has been for much longer than Sept 11, 2001.
Doesn't seem to have fazed McCain any at all.
“Where are guys like Teddy Roosevelt, Black Jack Pershing and Patton when you really need them.”
If they were around today, the media would bury them.
He already has. Last week he said we use too much gas, keep our homes too warm, and eat too much.
That threat is already there and has been for much longer than Sept 11, 2001.
You're confusing yourself with logic and principle. We're talking about McCain here. He hasn't responded to the danger of porous borders because it hasn't been politically costly to him. As things ratchet up in the Middle East, the political cost-benefit equation will change, and may even change on the southern border. And the student-visa border.
You're going to need to be far more specific than that.
That war took place 50 years before Hiroshima and was a disaster for China that led to further problems and the eventual collapse of the country's government.
They achieved none of their war aims and were weakened and humiliated.
In a post-Hiroshima age, why would China be motivated to emulate an abject failure from their past?
Neither do I. Whom I cast my vote for is the person, not the party, that I think will represent ME the best while in office. I can tell you right now, that isn't Obomba OR McCain.
Well having children I have to say it's more than about ME. I'm on the cusp of retirement with a few years to go. If it were just about me, Obama would be my guy. Obma promises more candy to seniors and higher taxes for everyone else to pay for that. McCain promises something else entirely with respect to Social Security (raising retirement age, reduction in benefits, etc.)
The reality for me and everyone else is that McCain or Obama will be President. I can vote for who I think will be better (or yes the lesser of two evils) for the country as well as myself and my children or I can stay home, vote for someone who won't get elected and put a "Don't blame me" bumper sticker on my car. No matter, either McCain or Obama will be president and I do feel a responsibility to take that vote beyond just me.
Yeah, I laughed out loud. That statement was so...Carter-esque. I imagined Barry in his sweater telling us about malaise.
I did vote in 1972 because George McGovern was almost as unacceptable as Hussein Obama or The Hilabeast.
He hasn't responded because he doesn't CARE what other people think.
When he tried the shamnesty he found out what the average American thought about it.
He already KNOWS that the average American wants our southern border secured.
He doesn't CARE what others think or want.
HE knows best what is right for America and that's all that matters to him.
In 1972 I was a confirmed Dem, and it was my first opportunity to vote in prez election. After watching leftist nutcase after leftist nutcase give speeches at the Dem convention, I knew I couldn’t vote for McGovern. I don’t know who I voted for (it wasn’t Nixon either). I just knew that putting McGovern in the reins of power would have been irresponsible.
Needless to say, I disagree. What reason does China have to go to war with us?
Good luck with John McCain as POTUS. I believe you will need more luck with him as POTUS than with Obamba as POTUS.
Rather to Ted Kennedy, Joe Lieberman, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John Keating... He has enough skeletons in his own background to put him in Obama's league.
Re: “Thomas Sowell for President!!”
I would take him over McCain, Romney, or Huckabee.
He has since recanted his recanting of the immigration policy, for one. He is in “promise anything with no intention of following through” mode.
I agree with everything you posted too : ( The idea of terrorists with nukes terrifies me. And I agree that number one priority of the CIC and Government is to protect us from that kind of threat.
McCain’s policies would effectively open our borders to those kinds of threats and toss in biological and run of the mill truck bombers and we would have a real problem.
We are so screwed.
Yeah...you’re right. Jeeez
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