[bpmartyr]

Obama and McCain
Thomas Sowell
Thursday, June 05, 2008

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.

[Reaper329]

Wow, not biased at all

[bpmartyr]

Originally Posted by Reaper329

Wow, not biased at all

Meaning what?

If something has a bias is it de facto false or meaningless? This is an op ed piece, not a news report. Perhaps you could illuminate us with your own "not biased" breakdown of our candidate choices for this election season?

[slow-mun]

Originally Posted by Reaper329

Wow, not biased at all

Its not entirely without merit either.

[Reaper329]

Originally Posted by slow-mun

Its not entirely without merit either.

All I said was it was a tad biased, that is all. The merit is obviously based on your own beliefs about the credentials or lack there of of the candidates.

[Reaper329]

Originally Posted by bpmartyr

Meaning what?

If something has a bias is it de facto false or meaningless? This is an op ed piece, not a news report. Perhaps you could illuminate us with your own "not biased" breakdown of our candidate choices for this election season?

I did not mean to offend in anyway, just giving my opinion. I think that there is merit in a sense, but at the end of the day we are chosing between two less than stellar candidates as was the case in 2004, and we have seen how poorly that has gone.

I do believe that there were some decent candidates out there, but they just couldnt cut it overall.

Regardless, neither of these 2 will bring us to where we need to go, most likely

[bpmartyr]

Originally Posted by Reaper329

I did not mean to offend in anyway, just giving my opinion. I think that there is merit in a sense, but at the end of the day we are chosing between two less than stellar candidates as was the case in 2004, and we have seen how poorly that has gone.

I do believe that there were some decent candidates out there, but they just couldnt cut it overall.

Regardless, neither of these 2 will bring us to where we need to go, most likely

Not offended by any means. Just wanted to point out that op-eds ARE biased. I like listening to varying opinions while extrapolating and gleaning to aid in forming my own.

[Reaper329]

fair enough. As I said, neither are worth much and we will all suffer as a result

[bLacKjAck.]

"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."

This part is so true. And I DON'T like McCain.

[Reaper329]

Originally Posted by bLacKjAck.

"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."

This part is so true. And I DON'T like McCain.

I must be missing something, but was has Obama done for decades? Rev. Wright? I dont know if that qualifies as hating america

[Mo250]

being a war hero is one thing and running a country is another thing. None of the candidates are good enough or smart enough to run the country.

[joecski]

Originally Posted by Mo250

being a war hero is one thing and running a country is another thing. None of the candidates are good enough or smart enough to run the country.

There may be better and smarter, but that is not the issue. The issue is which one of these two men do you want dealing with situations like Iran or North Korea or Syria, etc. That is the only choice on the table, Obama or McCain.

As for their future success, the best barometer of future behavior is past behavior. McCain has shown a willingness to put the needs of this country before his personal needs. Obama has no real track record to speak of except his life spent in prep schools, then Ivy League schools, then politics. As Blackjack said, the choice for me is obvious.