Mature Presidents Outperform Young Presidents

Of all our presidents since World War II, the three who ranked highest among all American presidents in a 2005 survey of scholars by the Wall Street Journal were:

• Ronald Reagan: No. 6 of 43 presidents, inaugurated within weeks of his 70th birthday.  
• Harry Truman: No. 7, inaugurated at age 60.  
• Dwight Eisenhower: No. 8, inaugurated at 62.

The three youngest presidents since WWII were:

 Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were both elected president at relatively young ages, and both made grave mistakes that directly led to the deep foreign policy problems we have today. The next president will face serious issues, from al-Qaida to Iran to Russia to the economy, which will require a maturity achievable only through age and experience.

• John Kennedy: ranked No. 15, inaugurated at 43.

• Bill Clinton: No. 22, inaugurated at 46.

• Jimmy Carter: No. 34, inaugurated at 52.

In a 2000 survey by the Federalist Society and the Journal, 78 scholars in history, politics and law were asked to name the most overrated president. A shocking 43 of the 78 picked Kennedy.

"Kennedy brought the Cold War to dangerous heights," political scientist Bruce Miroff said.

First came the failed Cuban Bay of Pigs episode. Six weeks later, the Soviet Union's 67-year-old Nikita Khrushchev sized up the then 44-year-old Kennedy in Vienna and two months later quickly built the Berlin Wall, which lasted for 28 years. Only two months after it was built, U.S. and Soviet tanks faced off for 16 hours at the Wall. Kennedy next dramatically escalated our involvement in Vietnam. And after that, Khrushchev nearly started World War III when he armed Cuba with nuclear missiles.

One month after President Clinton took office in 1993, the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history up to that date occurred with the bombing of New York's World Trade Center twin towers. During Clinton's eight years in office, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida bombed U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, killing 250 and injuring 6,000; bombed U.S.-Saudi facilities in 1995 and 1996, killing Americans; and in 2000 bombed the USS Cole.

Through all this, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, the Clinton administration had 10 different chances to get bin Laden. Intelligence knew just where he was, but was never able to make the final decisions or take effective action.

Riding the peace dividend created when Reagan won the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the late 1990s Clinton years were an "anything goes" wild bubble period that finally broke apart from early 2000 to January 2001, with the Nasdaq declining 56%, the sharpest market drop since 1929.

But that's not all. In addition to being ineffective against al-Qaida and being a part of the bubble stock-market crash in 2000, the Clinton administration and Democrats were the major cause behind the frenzied real estate subprime-mortgage bubble that blew up and caused the most recent stock-market panic, sent companies into bankruptcy, wrecked 401(k)s and forced the government to rescue our collapsing financial system.

Clinton and Democrats mandated through quotas and ratings that banks significantly increase their loans to lower-income people in the inner city who otherwise would have never qualified. It was well-intended, but incompetent, resulting in enormous numbers of loans made with little or no down payments or no checking of standard credit ratings. These are many of the loans that have resulted in rampant home foreclosures. It was another gigantic mismanaged government program that was a colossal failure, not a failure of the free market system.

When attempts were made to enact some control and limits over the enormous leverage of up to 50-1 being used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, congressional Democrats continually defeated efforts to put in sound controls and loan ratios.

ACORN, possibly involved in voter registration irregularities, was also able to collect substantial commissions for its part in marketing these risky subprime loans.

President Carter lost one country after another to the expansionist Soviet Union. He withdrew U.S. contracts for defense supplies intended for the Shah of Iran because he didn't like the Shah's human rights treatment of jailed Soviet agents who for years tried to undermine Iran's government. Because we stopped supporting our strongest ally in a volatile area of the world, Iran was overthrown, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the ruling mullahs are now well on their way to having nuclear weapons.

Tehran has promised to wipe Israel off of the map in one blow. The regime also created and financed the terrorist group Hezbollah.

When Carter, who had been a one-term governor, first met the older Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, the USSR quickly invaded Afghanistan. Carter, the naive appeaser, said: "I can't believe the Russians lied to me." The Soviets ran wild on Carter and also took over Ethiopia, South Yemen, Angola, Cambodia, Mozambique, Grenada and Nicaragua.

Our next president will face a resurgent Russia run by Vladimir Putin and his KGB friends, Iran and its nuclear program, and al-Qaida and other terrorists who want an atomic weapon. Do we want to elect another young president, possibly a Carter or a Neville Chamberlain type, who will get fooled by our dangerous enemies who are masters of deceit?

If we are to learn anything from history… the clear mandate here is a vote for experience and age, especially at a time like now is what we need and equates to a

Vote for McCain... not Obama!!

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, October 31, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Sorry, But Obama Scares Me!!

The prospect of a Barack Obama presidency makes me very nervous.

Obama's entire campaign has been based on the need for radical, transformational change, which implies there is something very wrong with America.

It's hardly surprising, then, that he has painted the bleakest picture of America instead of acknowledging, as a starting point, that we are still the greatest nation in the world.

For the past eight years, Democrats have slandered America as an imperialistic country that always prefers force to diplomacy; that attacks nations without provocation to enrich itself and to project its power; that intentionally targets civilian lives; that encourages sadistic torture of enemy prisoners, as opposed to tough interrogation techniques to extract information to save the lives of its people; that eavesdrops on private conversations among its citizens rather than monitoring terrorist communications into its borders; and that abuses rather than goes out of its way to accommodate the savages in Guantanamo's prison. None of it is true.

For eight years, Democrats have poor-mouthed the mostly growing economy. They've lied that Bush's tax cuts for all income groups were only for the wealthy and that the cuts reduced revenues. They pretend to be deficit hawks, when Obama's new spending plans alone will make Bush look like Scrooge. They said Bush wanted to destroy Social Security, when he's the only one in the past 20 years who had the courage to try to reform it. All lies.

They've preached bipartisanship while exhibiting the nastiest partisanship in my lifetime, calling Bush "King George III," "Hitler," a "murderer," a "war criminal," a "reckless cowboy," a "moron" and a "Christian throwback." They've caricatured Bush as an unbending partisan who wouldn't reach across the aisle, in the face of his countless and mostly rebuffed bipartisan overtures and legislation. More disinformation.

They've deliberately divided this nation on the basis of race, class, gender and religion while telling us, falsely, that conservatives are racists, greedy, sexists, homophobes and religious bigots.

The propaganda triumvirate -- Democrats, the liberal media and leftist bloggers -- have portrayed President Bush, Vice President Cheney and America as dark and evil forces and have whipped the country into a frenzy of desperation, setting the table for a charismatic leader to deliver us from the despair they've manufactured with relentless precision.

Barack Obama, with his mysterious past and messianic aura, then burst upon the scene with the focused purpose of capitalizing on the public's perceived woes by offering dramatic change and unspecified hope. As if the script had been written just for him, he stepped right into his role, expanding on this theme of despair. He stressed how bleak conditions are, how unfair America is to the less fortunate and middle class, how ugly America is in foreign affairs, how the values of average Americans are warped (bitter clingers), how hardworking producers who oppose confiscatory tax rates but who contribute more to charity than Obama and his running mate even contemplate are selfish, and how America is a global environmental menace.

With all respect, almost everything about Obama's campaign is fraudulent. He masquerades as a uniter while dividing, polarizing and alienating us. He denies he's liberal, when objective sources score him as the most liberal senator. He says he barely knows militants and radicals with whom he has spent his lifetime cavorting and whose worldviews -- horrifyingly -- he shares. He brazenly disguises welfare redistributions as tax cuts. He and his surrogates keep changing his tax plan.

With his ideas about spreading the wealth, entrepreneurial selfishness, the ongoing "original sin" in our Constitution, the inherent evil of corporations, nationalized health care, and the civil rights movement not doing enough to bring about "economic justice" -- a euphemism for "Marxism" used by radicals, such as Bill Ayers, who still hate America -- are you not concerned at just how far Obama might go if he's got a nearly veto-proof Democratic majority at his back?

With his known discomfort with American exceptionalism, his naive mindset about good and evil in the world, his reckless underestimation of threats to America, his stated intention to disarm our nuclear weapons unilaterally, his open-borders extremism, his willingness to relax our intelligence monitoring, and his misguided concern for terrorists' rights, how can America be as secure under his watch?

With his sordid background in "community organizing" and his symbiotic relationship with an organization that is engaged in a systematic effort to steal this election, his thug tactics to investigate and silence his critics, and his Democratic colleagues' willingness to use government to shut down conservative talk radio, are you not worried about our liberties under an Obama administration?

Before our very eyes, America stands poised to elect as president the most radical man ever to run for this office credibly. Don't say you weren't warned.  And If you haven't voted... Give you choice clear thought and then get out and vote!

By: Jonah Goldberg @ Townhall.com; Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online

Sources:  Daily Thought Pad & TownHall

For Other Related Articles Checkout:  Dr. Slogan's Prescriptions 

America 2012

NOV 4: Your Country... Your Call

On November 4th it all really boils down a very simple thing: the Future of our country. And here is why.
 
When I started this blog about a month ago I wasn’t thrilled about Sen. Obama’s presidency, but it was hardly a grave concern. I didn’t like his track record, I didn’t like his lack of meaningful experience, I thought he had been flip-flopping too much on key issues, I was annoyed by open bias of mass media. Worst case, I thought, it’d be 4 years of a demagogue with strong left views. We can live through that. Countries swing from right to left and back — it’s a cycle. This is how democracies work. You can easily see this on my blog – just four weeks ago I wanted to keep it light and funny, pointing out things like the fact that the “change” VP pick had been a Senator for 35 years. But as I looked more and more into Sen. Obama’s past and his recent actions, I started to realize that we’ve been dealing with something entirely different — something that America has never seen, at least not on such scale.

It’s been almost like unclogging a sink — you open it, you take something out, then you take out more, and what starts coming out after that makes you wish you never opened that thing in the first place. Forget “change” VPs with decades of Senate history. How about close relationships with people involved in international terror? Or laser sharp focus on indoctrinating children? Or a laundry list of every modern-day tyrant openly expressing support? Or persistent suppression of free speech? Or going for twenty years (and bringing children) into a church that openly promotes hate of white people, just as openly supports Hamas and condemns our country on regular basis? Or campaigning for a radical with Islamic ties who threw a stable country into a bloody mess? Or close ties with people who led an organizaiton that unapologetically bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon and a police station and who were on the FBI Ten Most Wanted List? Or vote fraud of monstrous proportions? Or accepting a flow of donations from unidentified foreign sources? All of above — and more – is on Sen. Obama’s resume. It’s not in some classified files, it’s not locked in some FBI closet, it out in the open. I’m not talking about GOP sponsored books, I’m talking about media — the same media that’s been so curiously and unapologetically supporting him. Sen. Obama’s own actions and sentiments (especially those he made before running for President) speak louder than any Republican paid advertisement. A resume like this would’ve been a road block for someone running for a seat on a city council. Here we’re talking about the most powerful post in the world – and people choose to ignore all of this, lulled by the promise of change.

Facts are stubborn things. You can choose to ignore them, but you can’t make them go away. And all the facts point to the same simple conclusion: if elected, Sen. Obama and the people he represents would completely change the country. They WILL change it. In four year it won’t be the country we know. It will be something quite different. Call that state socialist or communist or obamunist, apply any label you want, but the change that’s coming is the most dangerous change our country has faced in its modern history. And all you need to see it coming is just read what’s out there and think.

I’m just a regular guy with moderate views who has bothered to read enough. I’m by no means a hard core right and I would’ve been ok with another four—or even eight—years of a Democratic president. Again, this is how democracies work. But now I’m informed and I can see what anyone with unbiased mind can see after getting the facts: this election is no longer about choosing between Republicans and Democrats. It’s about choosing between our democratic system as we know it and a totally different state. In that state — which Sen. Obama and people behind him have been working hard to create, free speech will be not so free. In that state, tolerance will not be so tolerant. And in that state many things you’ve been taking for granted will slowly but steadily cease to exist. Many — too many people – don’t realize this. They will vote for Sen. Obama, believing they vote for a bright shiny future. But it’s just a matter of time. In a year or two many of them will say “This is not Barack Obama I thought I knew”. Today it takes a few facts and some knowledge of history to start seeing things the way they really are. In two years it would take way less than that.

Many people also don’t realize another simple thing – electing Sen. Obama would give him unprecedented power, delivering him keys to all three branches of the U.S. Government. In addition to the White House and his party being already in control of both chambers of Congress, he will have an unparalleled influence on shaping the judicial branch, since would need to appoint a large number of Supreme Court judges. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you really have to find out more before you vote, since it’s one of the least highlighted yet of the most fundamental aspects of this election.

Again, electing a Democratic president is not bad. But it has nothing to do with giving ultimate power to a smooth talker with a mile-long list of radical, racist, socialist and terrorist ties and proven record of supporting most radical changes in our society. This is not how democracies work. This is how they fail.

This year, on November 4th it’s not just another presidency that is at stake. It’s the future of our nation.

Read. Think. Vote. It’s our country we’re talking about.

Source:  Dr. Slogan's Prescriptions  

Video: Your Country. Your Call.

I squeezed up front, but Obama was moving quickly and just passed me by. Then, in a moment of divine intervention, he saw me, clad in my red stop-sign of a dress, back-tracked ever so slightly in his procession, grabbed my hand, and gave that brilliant smile of his. I literally said out loud to the woman next to me who witnessed my good fate, “I’ll never wash this hand again.”

This is not how presidents are elected. The President is a leader. The President is a Commander-in-chief. The President is a decision maker with with enormous authority. But the President is first of all, an elected official. He is not a messiah. He’s not a savior. He’s not a supreme being. Countless number of times nations have chosen to worship their leaders. And nothing but harm came out of it. This year, on November 4 we need to elect a president. And not to give the keys to power to someone who call himself a symbol of America and says that a decision to vote him involves experiencing an epiphany.

If you think that this 1-min video can change a single vote, please send it to others. I’ve tried to put into it many things I’ve been warning about on my blog for the last month. There are hours left before we all will cast out votes. But some of these votes can still be changed once people realize the danger we all are facing.

For 20 Years Obama Has Never Complained... About Reverend Wright

McCain Vows to Shift From Bush's Economic Policies

By MIKE GLOVER

Republican John McCain promised to pivot from President Bush's economic policies and impose strict controls on government spending that would spur investor confidence and the stock market's recovery. "I will protect your savings and retirement accounts and get this stock market rising again," said McCain, after huddling with economic advisers and pledging a break with Bush administration policies.

Aides said that McCain's call for cuts in the capital gains tax and tax breaks for seniors who invest would help the market rebound, a nod to the top issue on voters' minds little more than a week out from Election Day.

"A stronger economy with greater investor confidence would help turn the stock market around," said Tucker Bounds, a McCain spokesman. "That would help drive up stock prices and the market recover."

In his closing argument of the marathon election, McCain tread a thin line between bashing Democratic rival Barack Obama and making clear that he would steer a different course than the current GOP administration.

"We both disagree with President Bush on economic policies," McCain said. "My approach is to get spending under control. The difference between us is he thinks taxes have been too low, and I think that spending has been too high."

His most dramatic claim was a pledge to turn around a plunging stock market. Most of the progress he promised would come from the economic stimulus sparked by big tax cuts he's pushing, McCain said.

"I will create millions of jobs through tax cuts that spur economic growth," McCain said. The capital gains tax cut he's proposing would encourage investors, Bounds said.

Before he spoke, McCain met with economic advisers including former rival Mitt Romney and former Housing Secretary Jack Kemp. The event was designed to focus his message on the economic meltdown that has dominated the campaign and left him on the defensive. The downturn has helped boost Obama to a lead in the polls, both nationally and in key battleground states like Ohio.

"The difference between myself and Sen. Obama is my plan will create jobs, it's a difference of millions of jobs in America," McCain said. "My approach will lead to rising stock market prices, a stabilized housing market, economic growth and millions of new jobs."

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton responded, "A day after John McCain said that he agreed with George Bush's economic philosophy, he continued to parrot the same failed policies that give billions to billionaires and big corporations while providing no relief at all to more than 100 million middle-class Americans."

McCain's meeting with economic advisers came as polls show him trailing Obama, with most Americans deeply worried about the direction of the economy. For weeks McCain has been seeking to distance himself from Bush and his economic policies and he made that break complete in the nation's industrial heartland. Obama has tried equally hard to tie McCain to Bush, repeatedly citing McCain's 90 percent support for Bush in Senate votes. Yet in reality McCain has gone head to head with Bush and with his party in many instances throughout his career.  He is known within the Senate for reaching across the aisle; that is not just campaign rhetoric on McCain's side and can be verified by his record. And although the Obama campaign has made the ‘fictitious’ Bush-McCain connection their rally cry, Bush and McCain have actually had a frosty relationship ever since competing for the Republican nomination in 2000. The well presented PBS election expose on the two candidates made that very clear.

At a rally in Dayton, McCain continued to criticize Obama and his misleading rhetoric.

"That's what change means for the Obama administration, it means taking your money and giving it to someone else," said McCain. He ridiculed Obama's argument that his tax plan was based on fairness.

"There's nothing fair about driving our economy into the ground and we all suffer when that happens," said McCain. "We'll cut business taxes to help American jobs and keep American business in America."

McCain opposed another economic stimulus package and said he would instead seek to bring spending under control. He made clear the advisers he met with would be part of his administration and it would steer a far different course than Bush.

McCain described an economic stimulus plan under discussion in Congress as "another $300 billion spending spree they are calling a stimulus plan."

"I would rather give the great American middle class additional tax cuts and let you keep the money and invest it in your future," said McCain.

McCain repeated his proposals to cut taxes for those who hold stocks for at least a year, and end requirements that force people to take money out of retirement accounts during the market's downturn.

He also said he would toughen rules governing the financial markets.

"I will demand complete transparency into the accounts and activities at all banks and insurance companies so they cannot take on the kind of risk that brought down the financial system," said McCain. "We will have strict rules of conduct on Wall Street and if they are broken, executives will be severely punished."

While he voted for a $700 billion rescue package for the financial sector, McCain said "the government will get out of the banking business fast" if he's elected.

Related Articles:

John McCain's Weekly Radio Address - Lower Taxes

Bar Stool Economics

McCain Can Win Presidential Race - AP Poll Says It's Neck and Neck

An advertisement for a financial newsletter went out to our readers saying that an Obama win is "inevitable." This view does not represent the editorial viewpoint of Newsmax. We believe that McCain can win this race. The most recent AP polls shows:  Obama at 44 percent and McCain at 43 percent. Battleground polls in all the swing states shows the race extremely tight as well.

Thank you.

Newsmax.com
Moneynews.com 

AP Poll Says It's Neck and Neck

Wednesday, October 22, 2008 10:01 PM

WASHINGTON – The presidential race tightened after the final debate, with John McCain gaining among whites and people earning less than $50,000, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll that shows McCain and Barack Obama essentially running even among likely voters in the election homestretch. The poll, which found Obama at 44 percent and McCain at 43 percent, supports what some Republicans and Democrats privately have said in recent days: that the race narrowed after the third debate as GOP-leaning voters drifted home to their party and McCain's "Joe the plumber" analogy struck a chord. Three weeks ago, an AP-GfK survey found that Obama had surged to a seven-point lead over McCain, lifted by voters who thought the Democrat was better suited to lead the nation through its sudden economic crisis. The contest is still volatile, and the split among voters is apparent less than two weeks before Election Day. "I trust McCain more, and I do feel that he has more experience in government than Obama. I don't think Obama has been around long enough," said Angela Decker, 44, of La Porte, Ind. But Karen Judd, 58, of Middleton, Wis., said, "Obama certainly has sufficient qualifications." She said any positive feelings about McCain evaporated with "the outright lying" in TV ads and his choice of running mate Sarah Palin, who "doesn't have the correct skills." The new AP-GfK head-to-head result is a departure from some, but not all, recent national polls. Obama and McCain were essentially tied among likely voters in the latest George Washington University Battleground Poll, conducted by Republican strategist Ed Goeas and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. In other surveys focusing on likely voters, a Washington Post-ABC News poll and a Wall Street Journal-NBC News survey have Obama up by 11 points, and a poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center has him leading by 14. Polls are snapshots of highly fluid campaigns. In this case, there is a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points; that means Obama could be ahead by as many as 8 points or down by as many as 6. There are many reasons why polls differ, including methods of estimating likely voters and the wording of questions. Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political science professor and polling authority, said variation between polls occurs, in part, because pollsters interview random samples of people. "If they all agree, somebody would be doing something terribly wrong," he said of polls. But he also said that surveys generally fall within a few points of each other, adding, "When you get much beyond that, there's something to explain." The AP-GfK survey included interviews with a nationally representative random sample totaling 1,101 adults, including 800 deemed likely to vote. For the entire sample, the survey showed Obama ahead 47 percent to 37 percent. He was up by five points among all registered voters, including the likely voters. A significant number of the interviews were conducted by dialing a randomly selected sample of cell phone numbers, and thus this poll had a chance to reach voters who were excluded from some other polls. It was taken over five days from Thursday through Monday, starting the night after the candidates' final debate and ending the day after former Secretary of State Colin Powell broke with the Republican Party to endorse Obama. McCain's strong showing is partly attributable to his strong debate performance; Thursday was his best night of the survey. Obama's best night was Sunday, hours after the Powell announcement, and the full impact of that endorsement may not have been captured in any surveys yet. Future polling could show whether either of those was merely a support "bounce" or something more lasting. During their final debate, a feisty McCain repeatedly forced Obama to defend his record, comments and associations. He also used the story of a voter whom the Democrat had met in Ohio, "Joe the plumber," to argue that Obama's tax plan would be bad for working class voters. "I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody," Obama told the man with the last name of Wurzelbacher, who had asked Obama whether his plan to increase taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year would impede his ability to buy the plumbing company where he works. On Wednesday, McCain's campaign unveiled a new TV ad that features that Obama quote, and shows different people saying: "I'm Joe the plumber." A man asks: "Obama wants my sweat to pay for his trillion dollars in new spending?" Since McCain has seized on that line of argument, he has picked up support among white married people and non-college educated whites, the poll shows, while widening his advantage among white men. Black voters still overwhelmingly support Obama. The Republican also has improved his rating for handling the economy and the financial crisis. Nearly half of likely voters think their taxes will rise under an Obama administration compared with a third who say McCain would raise their taxes. Since the last AP-GfK survey in late September, McCain also has: Posted big gains among likely voters earning under $50,000 a year; he now trails Obama by just 4 percentage points compared with 26 earlier. Surged among rural voters; he has an 18-point advantage, up from 4. Doubled his advantage among whites who haven't finished college and now leads by 20 points. McCain and Obama are running about even among white college graduates, no change from earlier. Made modest gains among whites of both genders, now leading by 22 points among white men and by 7 among white women. Improved slightly among whites who are married, now with a 24-point lead. Narrowed a gap among unmarried whites, though he still trails by 8 points. McCain has cut into Obama's advantage on the questions of whom voters trust to handle the economy and the financial crisis. On both, the Democrat now leads by just 6 points, compared with 15 in the previous survey. Obama still has a larger advantage on other economic measures, with 44 percent saying they think the economy will have improved a year from now if he is elected compared with 34 percent for McCain. Intensity has increased among McCain's supporters. A month ago, Obama had more strong supporters than McCain did. Now, the number of excited supporters is about even. Eight of 10 Democrats are supporting Obama, while nine in 10 Republicans are backing McCain. Independents are about evenly split. Some 24 percent of likely voters were deemed still persuadable, meaning they were either undecided or said they might switch candidates. Those up-for-grabs voters came about equally from the three categories: undecideds, McCain supporters and Obama backers. Said John Ormesher, 67, of Dandridge, Tenn.: "I've got respect for them but that's the extent of it. I don't have a whole lot of affinity toward either one of them. They're both part of the same political mess." Associated Press John McCain can win this race!!  If you are pro-McCain... make sure you vote and help get the vote of everyone you know that is pro - McCain-Palin out.  This is probably the most important election of any of our lives!!

Obama and The End Of Racism

Who could not be moved at the sight of a major political party naming Barack Obama, an African American, as its presidential candidate? To me, there could not be a better sign that America has left behind its racist past. We are now approaching what may be termed "the end of racism." The End of Racism was the title of my 1995 bestseller, hugely controversial when it was published, but now it seems to have been a decade ahead of its time. If we appreciate the significance of our current moment, we are driven to an ironic but rational conclusion: perhaps the best way to recognize Obama's historic achievement is to vote for John McCain this November.


Consider this: for the past several years we have been hearing liberal Democrats emphasize how racism still defines America, how things haven't really changed all that much, how racism has gone underground and is now more covert and more dangerous than ever. It may seem strange that a racist country would adopt legal policies that discriminate against the majority and in favor of minorities. Even so, liberal activists and civil rights activists continue to browbeat white America in the schools, in the universities, in politics and in the media if there is the slightest dissent from civil rights orthodoxy.


Well, I don't know how many people have been drinking the liberal Kool-Aid, but these people must be utterly shocked at the success of Barack Obama. Here is a guy who could not possibly have made it as far as he has with only black votes. He has attracted not only white votes but the votes of some of the most affluent and successful segments of the white community. Obama, not Hillary, is the pillar of the white establishment.


Moreover, Obama's own campaign is based on the premise that America is no longer racist. Far from making race-based appeals, to blacks on the basis of solidarity, and to whites on the basis of guilt, Obama campaigns on the expectation that whites share his economic values and foreign policy positions and view of America. In other words, Obama's public message is that race doesn't matter and that transracial alliances should be built on shared political and cultural values. It's a good message, and how it must dismay professional civil rights activists to hear it. I wouldn't be surprised if Jesse Jackson is telling family members, "If race relations keep improving like this, I may have to get a real job."


Clearly there are many in the liberal Democratic camp who are made profoundly uncomfortable by the recognition that racism is no more a defining feature of American life or even African American life. Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that racism does not exist. This is a big country, and surely one can find several examples of it. But racism, which used to be systematic, is now only episodic. In fact, when I ask young blacks on the campus today whether America is racist, many say yes. But if I ask them to give me examples of how that racism affects their lives, they are hard pressed to give a single one. The best they can do is to mention "Rodney King" or provide some well-known, recycled horror story.


Recently someone told me that McCain is still winning the white vote by a substantial majority and that shows "we have a long way to go" in overcoming white bigotry. By this logic, blacks are have even longer way to go in overcoming their bigotry since Obama is winning almost 98 percent of the black vote. When your logic leads to an absurd conclusion, go back and re-examine the premise.


Even though Obama's candidacy signals that America is overcoming its racial past, neither Obama nor his wife recognize that. Their personal statements, as seen for example in Obama's books, are suffused with race-consciousness, race-obsession and even racial resentment. The more privileges they have received on the basis of race, the more embittered they seem to become. The source of these pathologies is the very liberalism that the Obamas have embraced: a liberalism that declares them equal while treating them as inferiors who need preferential treatment. (Liberals hate to have this pointed out; hence the irrational invective of the early responses to this post.)


The solutions are obvious. If you want to get rid of racial obsession, stop talking and thinking about race so much. If you want to remove race as the basis of decision-making in America, let's eliminate America's policies that make race the basis of decision-making. And if you want a party that stands for color-blindess and equal opportunity, you might consider voting for the Republicans.

by Dinesh D'Souza, Author of the End of Racism

Townhall.com 9.1.08