October 4, 2009 at 2:09 am (Media, Politics, faith)
Catholic Vote is such a great organization. I loved their first video about Obama, which came out last fall (but most of the major media outlets refused to air it). It was so positive and so beautifully done.
Now, they have a new video, all about health care reform. It is called “Big Government Health Care PSA.” It is hilarious. Check it out at:
http://www.catholicvoteaction.org/index.php
And, in case you missed the first video, here it is again:
December 6, 2008 at 2:16 am (Politics)
The Freedom of Choice Act, or FOCA, is the most dangerous threat to American Freedom. Barack Obama has promised to sign FOCA into law immediately upon taking office. What is so scary about FOCA?
FOCA eliminates all restrictions against abortion: It allows minors to get an abortion without their parents’ knowledge, it forces states to allow gruesome partial-birth abortions, it eliminates regulations that protect women from unsafe abortion clinics, allows non-physicians to perform abortions, and forces taxpayers to fund abortion. Even worse, FOCA denies doctors, nurses, and hospitals the right to refuse to perform abortions.
Don’t believe me? Have you bought into the hype that Obama is a “centrist”? Here is a video showing in their own words Obama and McCain’s opinions on abortion. In this video, Obama proudly promises to sign FOCA.
And, while we’re on the topic of Obama and abortion, here is a link to a video that demonstrates how Barack Obama wants to kill babies accidentally born alive during an abortion (as described by a nurse who used to work at a Protestant hospital where such babies were left to die in dirty laundry rooms).
Scary? One thing you can do is go to http://www.fightfoca.com/ and sign their petition. Then, go to Obama’s own webpage, http://change.gov/page/s/yourvision, where he asks for the American people’s input as to what he should do as president. Let him know that FOCA should NOT be signed into law. It’s not much, but it is a start.
November 4, 2008 at 12:16 pm (Media, Politics)
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October 27, 2008 at 11:57 pm (Motherhood, Politics, faith)
September 18th, 2008 by Genevieve S. Kineke
For forty years, we have witnessed incalculable energy being spent on the questions surrounding human reproduction, and most of the capital has been used to promote the separation of stable conjugal relations from nurturing subsequent generations. The terrain in these battles encompasses the right to contraception and no-fault divorce, the glorification of sodomy and same-sex marriage, an unprecedented assault on the purity of children, the degradation of traditional family values in the entertainment industry, and the insidious establishment of the mass media as primary communicant with the young which undermines parental authority. The result is moral anarchy and sexual chaos, which have confused so many impressionable souls about the very meaning of family life and sexual intimacy.
Most pro-family advocates over the decades have pointed to the attack on motherhood as an integral weapon in this war. When a mother turns on the child of her womb as a competitor or even enemy, many rightly presume that civilization is in great peril. It is true that Satan approached Eve in order to bring about our fall from grace — and that diabolical strategy has had its successes ever since — but we cannot lose sight of the subsequent means of restoration. Motherhood was key to salvation and always will be, not only because of the life it fosters but because of the bridge it creates.
The motherhood of Mary is instructive for all mothers, in that she received the seed of God and that she restored our relationship with the Creator, thus placing motherhood within a constellation of family of relationships. The enemies of motherhood strategically attack it — not primarily because of its capacity for life but because of the truth it contains: motherhood is the bridge to fatherhood, and fatherhood is the icon of God Himself. The war on motherhood is of a transitive nature: fatherhood is the true enemy.
Many have asked whether Sarah Palin is a feminist. This brings to the forefront the lively debate among women of faith about whether secular feminism, in its ideal sense, can be a vehicle for the beautiful truths about authentic femininity. Sincere and admirable women have taken both sides of the issue, whose primary component seems to be semantics. Some find the word “feminism” so burdened with misunderstandings that it takes too much time to unburden it; others demand the right to use the word in its purest sense out of principle.
The National Organisation for Women (NOW) has tipped its hand in this debate since the success of Sarah Palin in the national arena. Truly, she seems to have embodied their long-standing mission statement, “Our purpose is to take action to bring women into full participation in society-sharing equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities with men, while living free from discrimination” This ripe claim worked as long as Hillary Clinton was in her ascendancy, but the reality of applying it to the Republican vice presidential nominee rankled NOW to its core, and their keyboards must have overheated.
The result was a hot new mission statement, parading down the feminist runway: “NOW works to end discrimination and harassment in the workplace, schools, the justice system, and all other sectors of society, secure abortion, birth control and reproductive rights for all women.” This new creation — wobbling on shaky syntax and wrapped in a hasty cobbling of goals — nevertheless reveals the feminist view of men, who discriminate, impregnate and otherwise harass women as a matter of course. The veil is dropped, revealing more clearly their Marxist dialectic: the new oppressors are men (who make motherhood possible); therefore women must control the means of reproduction as a weapon to free themselves.
Feminists don’t hate motherhood — as long as it’s on their own terms and disengaged from fatherhood. Sperm banks, in vitro fertilization and lesbian adoptions are touted as hip and brave choices, and cloning is the Promised Land on the horizon. Their true hatred is reserved for fatherhood — for the Todd Palin’s of the world — who love and support the women in their lives and collaborate for the good of their shared offspring.
Sarah Palin has forced their hand for two reasons: she allows her children to live and she collaborates with men. While neither is conducive to the NOW worldview, the first is an irritant, the second is the real outrage. As the nation struggles to understand how feminists could possibly not appreciate this example of hard work, courage, balance and brains, we are invited to look beyond feminism into the back rooms of strange bedfellows.
Why are feminists silent about radical Islam, which habitually oppresses and demeans women around the world? Why do homosexuals collaborate with environmentalists, whose appreciation for pristine beauty would seem to exclude bathhouse orgies laced with unnatural substances? Why do Wiccans and New Agers turn a blind eye to fascistic atheists whose material world view would crush their spiritual longings in a heartbeat? Why does every radical parade host this hodge-podge of elements of the most unlikely diaspora?
The answer is found in their shared hatred of all manifestations of fatherhood. The widespread contempt for legitimate authority thus devolves into a collective tantrum ultimately pointed at the Father-God of all. Behind every raging feminist is a wounded heart that blames the patriarchy. Hence the giddy embrace of queer-eyed metrosexuals; the love affair with Gaia and perverted theology; the scornful interpretation of patriotic gestures as shallow jingoism, the drive to castrate the military through social experiments that distract the soldiers from their mission; and the ramped-up government programs that undermine the principle of subsidiarity which is the very source of fatherly strength and oversight within the family.
The goal of feminism is to destroy fatherhood by destroying the links inherent in traditional family life. This scheme allows only two options for men: either excessive brutality to remind the world of the dangers of too much testosterone or the abdication of responsibility through feckless self-interest. Any deviation from these models is discouraged or ridiculed.
Women wield an extraordinary influence in this realm because fathers can only know their children when the mothers cooperate, and male authority finds its legitimate voice only when women bring themselves and their children to submit to it. Given the widespread contempt for masculine strength and legitimate authority among the youth of the West, we would have to conclude that the diaspora has had tremendous success thus far.
Pope Benedict has alluded to this state of affairs in his recent address at Lourdes: “My greatest concern is for young people. Some of them are struggling to find the right direction or are suffering from a loss of connection to family life.” The disintegration of the family, he notes, is alarming. “Sometimes on the margins and often left to themselves, they are vulnerable and must come to terms on their own with a reality that often overwhelms them.”
How is it that reality itself is incomprehensible to these young people? It is because the enemies of God have collaborated to make motherhood and fatherhood themselves alien notions. While this is the end of feminism, it is most assuredly not the end of the family, and women are key to the resurgence of truth. The family is not subject to redefinition, nor a playground for innovation. Strong, well-grounded women are critical because they are the essential bridge to fatherhood, they are the guiding lights for these children struggling to know reality.
Any environmentalist can explain the dynamic interactions among living creatures, and the family is the most important eco-system of all. When the Vatican organized a congress earlier this year to honour the Church’s finest document about women, Mulieris Dignitatem, it called the event: “Man and Women: Humanity in its Entirety,” highlighting the need for collaboration between the sexes. Even the survivors of Lost know that we “live together or die alone.” The problem with feminists is their zero-sum game, in which “grrl power” must be achieved at the expense of boys and men — and babies.
While we fight to defend motherhood, let us always remember that it is the link to something greater — the Father from Whom all fathers take their name. The strategic deconstruction of fatherhood makes it increasingly difficult for children to understand the natural order and to find God — indeed, to find their way to their ultimate home. Motherhood is not an abstract but the solution. Just as Mary’s fiat “magnified the Lord,” authentic femininity is a pole star pointing to the One who makes all life possible, primarily by loving and supporting masculinity in all its richness. Defend motherhood — for the sake of fatherhood. That’s the ultimate target in these turbulent times.
October 23, 2008 at 12:24 am (Politics)
‘Smears’ About Obama Largely True |
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| The Obama campaign says its candidate is a victim of “smears” — and has even created a Web site to fight such attacks.But a Newsmax investigation finds many of the so-called smears are largely based in truth — and the Obama campaign uses half-truths, clever language, and ad hominem attacks to spin the facts.
Obama’s www.FightTheSmears.com focuses mainly on anti-Obama messages being repeated on the Internet and talk radio, the only media where Obama’s ideological allies are not dominant. These “smears” and the Obama rebuttals are often framed in lawyerly language that leaves much wiggle room in the candidate’s answers. FightTheSmears.com also makes no attempt at objectivity, describing Obama’s critics as “pushing misleading research and distorted claims” because they are “ideologues” busy “spreading a ‘pack of lies’ about Barack.” In a section of the site titled, “Who’s Behind the Smears?” visitors can see a chart naming seven groups and six individuals with lines that suggest multiple, sinister connections between them. The people and groups named are real and are members of Washington’s small but conservative sphere of power and influence. The Obama conspiracy chart links all of these conservative individuals and groups back to the critics who dogged the “Clinton 1992 Campaign.” This may come as something as a surprise to Hillary Clinton, as many of the “smears” against Obama first surfaced during her heated primary contest with him. Newsmax reviewed 10 random claims and related rebuttals posted on Obama’s ever-changing FightTheSmears.com to gauge their veracity. Here’s what we found:
Claim No. 1: Obama’s campaign is funded by the rich, big corporations and foreigners. “Barack Obama was the only major presidential candidate this year to completely reject contributions from The Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs that have dominated our politics for years,” the Obama site says of the persistent online criticisms of its fundraising. “Instead, this campaign has been owned by the more than 3.1 million everyday Americans who have donated in small amounts.” Not so, according to campaign finance records. Nearly half of the $600 million raised by Obama to date has come from wealthy donors and special interests. Obama’s allies months ago dropped their ad linking Republican rival “Exxon John” McCain to Big Oil after it came to light that Obama had taken far more money from Exxon-Mobil than McCain. “The Obama campaign has complied fully with federal election law,” claims the Obama site, “including donor eligibility and contribution disclosure requirements.” However, one giant loophole the politicians wrote into the law allows contributions in amounts of $200 or less with no donor identification. Obama claims that $300 million in campaign funds was given by these small donors, and he won’t release their names and addresses. McCain has released his whole donor database, including those who have contributed less than $200. Critics argue that the other half of Obama’s campaign haul — the part not raised from big corporate donors and special interests — came in a small flood of anonymous donations that might be foreign or corrupt, or both.
Claim No. 2: Obama has had a close, ongoing relationship with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. The Obama site acknowledges that its candidate and Ayers ”served on the board of an education-reform organization in the mid-1990s,” but maintains most stories about the links between Obama and Ayers are phony or exaggerated. It does not mention that Obama and Ayers worked together on the board distributing millions of dollars with the aim of radicalizing Chicago schoolchildren. Nor does the site acknowledge that Obama kicked off his first political campaign in the living room of Ayers, the former Weather Underground leader. (Obama is currently saying it was not the first event. There is no dispute that one of Obama’s first political events in his first run for public office was held in Ayers’ home.) There is also no dispute the Weather Underground bombed the Pentagon the Capitol, the home of a New York Supreme Court justice, and a police station, among other targets. FBI agent Larry Grathwohl, who infiltrated the group, has recounted Ayers teaching him how to make bombs and saying, “In the revolution, some innocent people need to die.” “Smear groups and now a desperate McCain campaign are trying to connect Barack to William Ayers using age-old guilt by association techniques . . .” says the Obama Web site. Actually, McCain and Obama critics are questioning why Obama would continue to associate with a man who, as recently as 2001, said he did not do enough and wished he had bombed more. Conservatives also note that if Ayers had bombed abortion clinics, the liberal media would brand him a pariah forever. What does it tell us about the liberal media’s and Obama’s judgment and values that they see nothing wrong with embracing unrepentant terrorist Ayers today?
Claim No. 3: Obama takes advice from executives of troubled mortgage backer Fannie Mae. “John McCain started smearing Obama about non-existent ties to Fannie Mae in some of his deceptive attack ads,” says FightTheSmears.com. The site downplays connections between Obama and two former heads of the giant mortgage-backing institution — James A. Johnson and Franklin D. Raines — whose corruption played a key role in the current financial crisis. But an editorial in the Aug. 27, 2008, Washington Post described Johnson and Raines, as “members of Mr. Obama’s political circle.” Raines advised the Obama campaign on housing matters. Obama chose Johnson to select his vice presidential running mate. But because neither are advising Obama today, this Web site’s present-tense claim that he “doesn’t [not didn’t] take advice from Fannie Mae execs” is technically, if deceptively, true. Johnson also reportedly helped raise as much as $500,000 for Obama’s campaign. And despite Obama’s lack of seniority in the U.S. Senate, he pocketed more than $105,000 in political contributions, the third-highest amount given to any lawmaker, directly from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Obama’s Web site leaves all this unmentioned.
Claim No. 4: Obama has close ties with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a group suspected of massive voter registration fraud. Obama’s site says the candidate was never an ACORN employee and that ACORN “was not part of Project Vote, the successful voter registration drive [Obama] ran in 1992.” In defending Obama, the site resorts to smearing former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell — calling him a “discredited Republican voter-suppression guru” — for daring to fight the vote fraud so often associated with operatives of ACORN, among the largest radical groups in the United States. As Newsmax has documented in ["Clever Obama Tries To Bury ACORN Past,"] Obama’s Web site is attempting to deceive when it says Obama was never “hired” to work as a trainer for ACORN’s leaders. In fact, he did the work for free from at least 1993 until 2003. ACORN spokesman Lewis Goldberg acknowledges in the Oct. 11, 2008, New York Times that Obama trained ACORN leaders. And Obama worked as a lawyer for ACORN. As to heading up Project Vote in Illinois, Obama said during a speech to ACORN leaders last November, “[When] I ran the Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack-dab in the middle of it.” Veteran journalist Karen Tumulty described Project Vote in the Oct. 18, 2004, issue of Time magazine as “a nonpartisan arm of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now” after interviewing its national director. The co-founder of ACORN, former Students for a Democratic Society official Wade Rathke, described Project Vote as one of ACORN’s “family of organizations.” Over the years, ACORN and its front groups, like the one Obama ran in Illinois, have registered more than 4 million voters. When authorities in Virginia checked ACORN registrations, it found that 83 percent were fraudulent or had problems. This, in theory, could mean ACORN may have created the opportunity for stealing more than 3.3 million votes in this November’s election, a margin far wider than that by which Obama is likely to win.
Claim No. 5: Obama has shown only wavering support for individual gun-ownership rights. “During Barack’s career in the Illinois and United States Senates, he proudly stood to defend the rights of hunters and sportsmen,” says Obama’s Web site, “while doing everything he could to protect children — including his own two daughters — from illegal gun violence.” But the National Rifle Association, it continues, “is distributing a dishonest and cowardly flyer that makes confrontational accusations and runs away from verifying them.” Actually, the NRA does a meticulous job of laying out documentation, as Newsmax reported in September ["NRA to Fight Obama Over Gun Rights Flip-Flops,"] to show that Obama has supported handgun confiscation; the handgun ban in Washington, D.C.; a virtual ban on high-powered rifle ammunition; and many other draconian restrictions on Second Amendment rights. If elected, wrote the NRA, Obama “would be the most anti-gun president in American history.”
Claim No. 6: A fervent supporter of abortion rights, Obama supports late-term and partial-birth abortions. The Obama Web site dismisses such criticism as the work of “radical anti-abortion ideologues running ads against Barack.” But as an Illinois state senator, Obama voted repeatedly against legislation to protect infants who, during a late-term abortion, were “born alive.” Such protection, he has argued, already exists in Illinois; it does, but is subject to the abortionist’s decision whether such an infant has a good likelihood of survival. Nurses have reported instances in which surviving aborted babies were left by abortionists to die without water, food, or warmth. Obama’s Web site notes that even the Republican author of one of these bills, former state Sen. Rick Winkel, has written that “none of those who voted against [his bill] favored infanticide.” True, but Obama’s site does not quote the rest of Winkel’s statement: “[T]heir zeal for pro-choice dogma was clearly the overriding force behind their negative votes rather than concern that my bill would protect babies who are born alive.” Obama has a 100 percent pro-choice voting record according to NARAL Pro-Choice America; his rating from the National Right to Life Committee is zero. How extreme is Obama on this issue? In the U.S. Senate, he has voted against bills that would prohibit minors from crossing state lines for abortion without parental notification. “Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old,” Obama has said. “I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”
Claim No. 7: Obama showed little interest or support for American combat troops during his overseas visits. Doubts about Obama’s true support for the military cropped up during a campaign trip to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Europe. A widely circulated e-mail, penned by Army Capt. Jeffrey S. Porter, described Obama’s visit to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan: “As the Soldiers lined up to shake his hand, he blew them off . . . He again shunned the opportunity to talk to soldiers to thank them for their service . . . I swear we got more thanks from the NBA basketball players or the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders than from [Obama].” Porter later recanted, sending a follow-up e-mail that said, in part: “After checking my sources, information that was put out in my e-mail was wrong.” He did not specify which information was wrong, leading Obama skeptics to suspect that this officer has been disciplined by his superiors. Heading home, Obama touched down in Germany, where he “was scheduled to visit the American hospitals at Ramstein and Landstuhl.” But as The Washington Post reported, Obama “canceled the trips after being told by Pentagon officials that he could only visit in his official capacity as a senator, not as a candidate” and could not have his visits with hospitalized soldiers videotaped by the media. Prominent liberal mainstream media reporters such as NBC’s Andrea Mitchell rushed to defend Obama, saying that the press had never planned to cover his visits to military sickbeds. But Obama canceled both visits and used his free time instead to shoot hoops, with the media recording his best shots.
Claim No. 8: Barack Obama is a Muslim. FightTheSmears.com states bluntly that Obama is a Christian, not a follower of Islam. In fact, Barack Hussein Obama’s Kenyan father was raised Muslim, though he reportedly was not religious. His mother divorced and remarried another man, a Muslim from Indonesia. As a youngster in Indonesia, Barack Obama attended two schools and was registered at both as a Muslim. He received religious instruction in both schools as a Muslim, including studying the Quran. According to a childhood friend, Obama occasionally attended services at a local mosque. Obama’s Muslim upbringing has been detailed in a 2007 Los Angeles Times report (reprinted in The Baltimore Sun) headlined “Islam an Unknown Factor in Obama Bid.” Middle East expert Daniel Pipes has studied the question of Obama’s Muslim faith and says he is “lying” when he says he was never a Muslim. It’s important to note that Obama’s Web site does not say he was never a Muslim. But in the past, Obama’s site and FightTheSmears.com did make the claim Obama was never a Muslim. Since that claim is obviously false, it is no longer used. Obama says he became a Christian in his late 20s. He now describes himself as Christian. Until recently, he spent two decades as a member of a Chicago United Church of Christ congregation that embraces Black Liberation theology. Somewhat like the Roman Catholic liberation theology of Latin America, the Chicago UCC church preaches elements of neo-Marxist class warfare. It combines these radical socialist elements with black racialism.
Claim No. 9: As president, Obama would raise taxes dramatically for most Americans. Millions of Americans recognize that Obama is likely to raise taxes. But like a good conjurer, who tricks you into watching his right hand while doing things with his left, the Obama Web site assures readers with a red herring. The Illinois senator will not tax your water, as claimed in some fringe e-mails, FightTheSmears.com maintains. What Obama will do, however, is tax businesses and capital gains more heavily, even though America already has the world’s second-highest business taxes. “Now our opponents tell you not to worry about their tax increases” said former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson at the 2008 Republican National Convention. “They tell you they are not going to tax your family. No, they’re just going to tax businesses! So unless you buy something from a business, like groceries or clothes or gasoline . . . or unless you get a paycheck from a big or a small business, don’t worry. It’s not going to affect you.” During his campaign, Obama has promised to raise various taxes that will fall on most economic classes, including the dividend tax, the FICA tax cap, the capital gains tax, the estate tax, and new taxes on gasoline. He also called for the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2010, which will automatically raise taxes on most Americans. By letting the Bush cuts expire, Obama would produce a $2 trillion tax increase that some economists predict will rumble through the already weakened economy like an earthquake.
Claim No. 10: Obama was born outside the United States and is ineligible for the presidency. The Obama Web site dismisses the claim that the candidate was born anywhere but in the United States as “completely false” and “groundless.” As proof, the Obama’s campaign has produced a “certificate of live birth” from Hawaii indicating that Barack Hussein Obama II was born Aug. 4, 1961. Critics, however say the document could have easily been forged and is not a substitute for a certified birth certificate. No reporter has been allowed to see the original certificate of live birth or its certificate number, which is blacked out on copies of it on the Obama site. Skeptics note that Obama’s “Father’s Race” is identified on this document as “African,” a geographic and modern politically correct term rather than a 1961 racial designation. The standard term used on American birth certificates until the U.S. Census changed it in 1980 would have been “Negro.” Former deputy attorney general of Pennsylvania, Philip J. Berg, a Democrat with mixed credibility (he has supported conspiracy theories involving 9/11), has filed a lawsuit to force Obama to produce a certified copy of his birth certificate. According to Berg, Obama’s paternal grandmother has said she was present at his birth in Kenya, after which his mother promptly returned with her baby to the United States. If that is true, Obama could be constitutionally ineligible to be president.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved. |
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October 22, 2008 at 1:09 am (Politics)
McCain’s Democratic opponent, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, is a rousing motivational speaker, but his experience and achievements — eight years in the Illinois Legislature and less than four in the U.S. Senate — do not stand comparison with McCain’s.
A resume containing so little evidence of leadership and accomplishment leaves in question Obama’s ability to handle the most responsible and difficult job in the world, especially at a time when the nation faces a combination of problems so large and complex that they would challenge even the most seasoned leader.
Nor does it seem likely that a man who has traveled in the left lane of American politics for his entire adult life really is the bipartisan centrist that he claims to be. And with Democrats already in control of the U.S. House and Senate — and the possibility that they might gain a filibuster-proof majority in the next Senate — there would be little to check the inevitable excesses of one-party rule if a Democrat wins the White House.
This could have a profound effect on the U.S. Supreme Court. A divided Senate acts as a check on presidential nominations to the court by preventing the confirmation of justices with extreme views. But with a filibuster-proof Senate majority ready to do his bidding, Obama would have the unfettered ability to appoint justices likely to be judicial activists, eager to launch a new era of legislating from the bench. Such a Supreme Court could end up as a rubber stamp for, rather than a check on, the White House and Congress.
While neither party can make a credible claim to fiscal responsibility, the dangers of more deficit spending, a growing national debt and uncontrollable entitlement spending are likely greater with an Obama administration. Democrats have not controlled the White House and Congress simultaneously since 1994. A return to majority status is likely to unleash pent-up demand to enact a Democratic wish list of new and expensive social programs when the nation can’t afford the ones it has. Given his party-line voting record in the Senate, there is no indication that Obama is able or willing to stand against such an onslaught.
But many of the policy choices the nation will have to make in the next four years are monumental and should be the result of a bipartisan dialogue, not of unchecked one-party dictate.
Debate and political give and take ensure that decisions have been fully vetted, that all interests and concerns have been weighed and that the resulting decisions enjoy broad public support.
Unlike Obama, McCain has a record of bipartisanship: He was a member of the Gang of 14 Republican and Democratic senators who joined in 2005 to preserve the Senate filibuster rule. Note that this courageous act, which enraged the Republican Senate leadership, preserved the filibuster power for what was then the Democratic minority in the Senate. And that was not the only time that McCain has bucked his party.
At a time when the nation faces serious problems, including international economic turmoil, immigration, health care, war in Afghanistan, nation-building in Iraq and foreign-policy challenges from the Middle East, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela, the president should have an extensive resume and long experience in grappling with tough decisions. Few new presidents have faced an assignment as tough as the one facing the winner of the November election.
From 5 1/2 years as a POW in North Vietnam, where he endured torture, through 25 years in the U.S. House and Senate, McCain has demonstrated the grit, energy and determination that the present challenges demand.
The choice is between a candidate who has been tested to a degree experienced by few and a candidate who is untested. In Obama, Americans are presented with a question mark.
Among the top problems facing the United States is its dire fiscal situation. The nation has a $10 trillion debt and other unfunded obligations to entitlement programs that total $53 trillion. The federal deficit this year is nearly $458 billion and some project the 2009 deficit could hit $700 billion. Despite these staggering numbers, lawmakers and the president just approved a $700 billion Wall Street bailout that they don’t have the money to pay for. In short, the United States is dangerously overextended at a time when a worldwide recession threatens.
For years, The Dispatch has called on the president and Congress to deal with this massive, mounting debt which threatens the prosperity and quality of life of generations to come. But year after year, the nation’s leaders have kicked the problem down the road.
Seriously confronting this problem will require a president able to call on Americans to make sacrifices for the sake of their grandchildren.
The president will have to ask them to accept cuts in popular programs, tax increases and lowered expectations of what government can afford to do.
Because of the personal sacrifices that McCain has made for the nation, he has unmatched moral authority to call on Americans to take their medicine. If elected, that is precisely what he should do.
The Dispatch urges voters to elect John McCain as president.
