Obama And McCain (Thomas Sowell)

GOPUSA ^ | June 5, 2008 | Thomas Sowell

[jazusamo]

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, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.

[liberty_lvr]

A valid consideration and quite true.

But a nuclear Iran definitely changes the game, Dr. Sowell nails it there, and must be included in the calculus this year.

[rockinqsranch]

“There was dancing and celebration in the streets of Mexico City too, on 9/11. We should never forget that fact either.”

...or the chants of “O-s-a-m-a, O-s-a-m-a, etc. at the soccer games either.

[aquila48]

“Hey jaz! Much as I hate to admit it, Dr. Sowell is right.”

YUP!

[jazusamo]

You’re right and I haven’t forgotten that or the illegals and their antics here in our own country.

[badbass]

Same old story every year. You *have* to vote republican or the world will end as we know it. I can’t believe how many times we all fall for it. sigh.

I understand how you feel, but I can remember not voting for Bob Dole, and regretting it deeply. I won't make the same mistake with McCain. I have to vote for him, and I detest him over the illegal alien issue (among others).

[Empireoftheatom48]

Dr. Sowell for President!!!

[MitchellC]

When McLame stabs America in the back again by appeasing Iran, don’t say I told you so.

Please tell me you're just venting and didn't put any serious thought into that post...

[acapesket]

Welcome to FR.
McQuueg is a well used name in these here parts.
See Humphrey Bogart in the Caine Mutiny.

[jazusamo]

Exactly! He is one of the best if not the best thinker in our country. I wouldn’t argue his points with anyone because if he can’t convince a person, it’s for sure I can’t.

[stevem]

Stopping Iran may require some rough choices. Is McCain up to the challenge?

[Red Steel]

The choice between him (McCain) and Barack Obama should be a no-brainer.

Not always the case here at FR.

[jazusamo]

I believe so and I’m sure Barak is not.

[death2tyrants]

“When McLame stabs America in the back again by appeasing Iran, don’t say I told you so.”

It was Obama who voted against the resolution labeling the IRGC as a terrorist organization. Obama also voted against the surge that left alot of Iranians dead or captured. McCain supported both.

[mrsmel]

Mr. Sowel sees through all the confusion of smoke and mirrors to the salient point like no one else has yet. And the truth he speaks is scary, and highlights the importance of this election. This isn’t just another election about domestic policies-taxes, gasoline prices, etc. Nor is it the usu foreign policy balancing act. This is conceivably life or death.

[2ndDivisionVet]

PING!!

[coincheck]

I had a hard time voting in the primaries this year.(WA State) The men I wanted had no chance of winning (Fred Thompson or Duncan Hunter, not necessarily in that order) and I thought long and hard before I cast my vote.

I did vote for McCain because by that time he was the only one who had a chance to win.

He is the only choice we have now. As much as most conservitives do not want him, they need to get over the shock and VOTE for the only choice we now have. (I feel your pain)

[PhilDragoo]

I had tried to reach McCain over the years but he erected a phone menu wall shunting nonconstituent comment to voicemail.

Today I spent perhaps ten minutes telling Christie at McCain2008 1-703-418-2008 what I wished the senator to know.

That though he thinks he can skip across the airdryed crust the lava beneath is molten.

The we are quite outraged at his open borders and his global warming crap--it indicates he doesn't really give a damn about the country.

That he courts the scumbags at LaRaza but contemptuously snubs we who are conservatives.

That I'd gone door to door for a real conservative Barry Goldwater and seen this America who preferred the sixtrilliondollar waronpoverty to actually earning it--

--and yet the senator even now seeks these people's votes while treating us conservatives in his predictable cavalier fashion.

And so I told her many might not bring themselves to vote for him and we would have the muslim destroying the country.

That I really really wanted the senator to know that

Christie

would you be kind enough to tell him

And if everyone who believes in Tinkerbells ability to penetrate meters of reinforced concrete would go to that focused place in their mind and picture the loadout, the wheels up, the overtarget, the release

[jazusamo]

I was faced with the same dilemma being here in WA and felt the same.

My thanks and prayers to and for your son, coincheck.

[jazusamo]

Well said and the possibility of it being a life or death situation is real.

[freespirited]

I am a liberal, left-wing Democrat

Why? Are you under 30?