In Death of Satan, Andrew Delbanco argues that America started its colonized history with a system of beliefs in which its inhabitants had a clearly defined conception of evil - materialized in the figure of Satan – and has then proceeded in a relentless advance towards secular rationality. Since Delbanco’s book was published in 1995, however, the direction of this change has been effectively reversed. The current situation in the United States following the change in presidential administration from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush and –most significantly - the attacks of September 11th 2001, have reinforced the psychological need in Americans for clear boundaries between ‘good’ and ‘evil’, and that is exactly what their current president and his administration are providing them with – a working concept of absolute evil, materialized and concentrated in the now almost iconic figure of Osama Bin Laden.

 President Bush’s initial reaction to those attacks, Richard Kearney comments, was to divide the world into good and evil. In the days immediately following the terror, he declared a ‘crusade’ against the evil scourge of terrorism’ (2003: 111). This move towards a dyadic philosophy where all issues are starkly contrasted in black and white and all moral choices – and consequently all people – are either classed as good or evil, is quite remarkable and significantly worrying. The unwillingness of the American government – and of a very significant portion of its population – to engage in informed debates over the complex issues surrounding the emergence of terrorism, simply defining it as an evil instead, has already resulted in two wars in the short space of four years.

Delbanco does provide an insight into the current situation, hinting at the deeply ingrained reasons for this willingness to accept absolute evil as a self-evident fact. He says that ‘Americans have always wanted Satan back’ and quotes Walter Lipman, who at the outset of World War 1 said that ‘that there is a war between good and bad men’ (1995: 229), a quote that could easily be attributed to president George W. Bush today. Kearney concurs, saying that after September 11th ‘war had been declared and everyone, as Bush made plain, had to “take sides”. For the “civilized” or the “barbarians”; for the innocent or the damned; for the courageous or the “cowards”’ (2003:112). When the moral clarities of this war become blurred, Delbanco argues, Americans tend to lose their bearings. ‘Sometimes’, he continues, ‘this war is openly declared […] (such as) during the seventeenth-century witch-hunts, when, according to the historian John Demos, to discover the Devil – in a sense both literal and metaphoric (involved) the naming, the locating, the making tangible, of what had hitherto seemed obscure’ (1995: 229). The danger in making evil tangible, Delbanco argues, is what Augustine described as Manichean heresy. ‘among the worst works of the devil’ – he continues quoting Augustine -  ‘is his ability to convince human beings that they have found in him the source of all evil, and that this discovery exonerates themselves’ (2002: 229)

At other times, Delbanco argues, this ‘war between good and bad’ remains a covert war […] when it is no longer reputable publicly to demonize outsiders or minorities, even as resentment against them patently grows’ (1995: 229).

This ‘covert war’ against outsiders in America is nowadays becoming less concealed as the demonizing of these minorities is increasingly endorsed by government attitudes and policy. Sardar and Davies comment that ‘as the noted Palestinian writer Edward Said, for many years a resident of New York and teacher at Columbia University, commented in an article for Al Ahram Weekly: ‘I do not know a single Arab or Muslim American who does not now feel that he or she belongs to the enemy camp, and that being in the United States at this moment provides us with an especially unpleasant experience of alienation and widespread, quite specifically targeted hostility. (2002: 49)

The fact that attacks had been successfully carried out in American soil had a cataclysmic impact in American consciousness because it blurred the borders between America and the outside world. The war between America and ‘evil’ was now being fought inside American borders and this – according to Kearney – meant that ‘The Minotaur, the horror, evil itself, was now within ‘US’ […] as well as ‘somewhere out there’, in THEM’ (2003: 114). The consequence of this effective collapsing of previously inviolable physical boundaries was that new distinctions had to be found in order to distinguish Americans from ‘others’. This has resulted in the scapegoating of Muslim minorities within America as well as of Islamic countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran. Richard Kearney argues that ‘aliens proliferate where anxieties loom as to who we are and how we demarcate ourselves from others (who are not us)’ (2000: 102/103). This is a crucial factor in understanding the appeal of scapegoating a particular group of people, especially for a nation that is made up of so many different cultural influences such as America.

 This clear black-and-white definition of ‘the enemy’ ‘the evil ones’ or ‘the others’ however misguided it might be, therefore serves to reaffirm American identity and make its boundaries safe once more. After the attacks on the Twin Towers, America felt truly vulnerable for probably the first time in its history, and it desperately needed to re-establish its ideological boundaries. Michel Foucault (in Kearney, 2003: 115) argues that ‘civilized’ society could confirm its own sense of unitary consensus by virtue of its contemplation of outcasts. Men were men because they were not monsters’. The other side of this attempt to re-establish safety and control was to find a way to physically fight back, producing some sort of tangible victory over intangible enemies. As Richard Kearney explains, when ‘faced with a threatening outsider, the best mode of defense becomes attack’ (2000: 104) and America needed to find a concrete target.

We must then ask ourselves whether there is a danger that Muslims will become – or have already become - America’s ‘Jews’ in the sense defined by Arthur Miller, who said that ‘Jew is only the name we give to that stranger […] each man has his Jew:  it is the other.’ (1971: 339). How will it then be possible to determine whether this designation of a dominant ‘alien’ group is reaching a critically dangerous stage? We do not have to look far back in history to find a clear example of a nation using the ‘otherness’ of one group to help redefine what being a citizen of that country meant. In The Nazi Years we find a collection of documents from Nazi Germany which define the parameters introduced during that period, stating that ‘only a racial comrade can be a citizen […] No Jew, therefore, can be a racial comrade […] Noncitizens shall be able to live in Germany as guests only, and must be placed under alien legislation.’ (1969: 28). Modern America also seems to be in a process of arbitrarily selecting which people can be considered citizens, with all the rights that this status entails. The criteria seems to adapt itself to government purpose, and it is no longer sufficient to have been born in America:  what seems to be required for a ‘good citizen’ is unquestioning loyalty. This is illustrated by the fact that many American citizens are currently held at Guantanamo Bay without access to due judicial process. It is almost as if these people have been erased off all records, or have been – to use the term Orwell employed in 1984 - ‘vaporized’.

It would therefore seem that the concept of evil as a blameable ‘other’ is once more being brought to the centre-stage of politics. After the fall of communism – termed by Reagan the ‘Evil Empire’ – America rose to an undisputed position of dominance as the world’s only superpower, and there was no replacement for the Soviet Union as the face of evil. Nowadays this lack has been fulfilled with the ‘Axis of Evil’ and the unfathomably daunting threat of terrorism. George W. Bush has indeed ‘called evil by its name’, and by doing so America has found its blameable other, therefore escaping the onus of looking inwards for the causes of its problems. Moreover, because Terrorism does not have a definite shape – in spite of America’s persistent efforts to pin it down to a particular country, creed or person - it means that the ‘threat’ can be shaped to suit the political mood of the moment.

The danger then becomes that government will use this need to protect the country against this evil threat as a justification for the restriction or even elimination of the very same freedoms they are claiming to protect. Fear can be used as an effective and powerful weapon to dominate not only enemies, but even a state’s own citizens. After September 11th, Richard Kearney observes, ‘fear filtered through the nation. Yet the flip side of this was a phenomenal upsurge of patriotic fervor evidenced in the proliferation of star-spangled banners’ (2003: 112). Richard Fried argues that ‘the fall of nationalist china, end of American atom monopoly, Joe McCarthy’s run in the public eye […] produced a sense of alarm to be tapped by civic and patriotic activists. (1998: 157). The threat of communism was used during the McCarthy era as a tool of political bullying, where opposition to government was met with accusations of disloyalty, lack of patriotism or treason, all grouped under the umbrella of ‘communism’.  Senator McCarthy referred to communism as an ‘evil shadow’ (1981: 4) and used this ‘shadow’ to conceal truly relevant issues from voters. As long as people were kept afraid, they were unlikely to question. By substituting the term ‘communism’ with ‘terrorism’ we can see how close that panicked atmosphere resembles that of modern America, where Americans are led to believe that they are being targeted by a spiteful ‘outside world’ simply because they are ‘good’ and ‘free’.

The perception of evil as being a concrete external threat has been present in American thinking for quite a long time:  Robertson Davies, a Canadian novelist attributes to America ‘the happy extrovert characteristic of seeing all evil as exterior to itself and resistance to that evil as primary national duty’ (in Delbanco, 1995: 234). This perception that Americans have of their country as a ‘fortress of virtue’ has been enhanced by the attacks of September 11th and – as Baudrillard puts it - ‘the axis of Evil takes hold of America’s unconscious, and realizes by violence what was merely a fantasy and a dream thought. (2002: 62). As George W. Bush said in his 2002 State of the Union Address, ‘we've come to know truths that we will never question: Evil is real, and it must be opposed’. The martyrdom of the victims and the emergence of heroes such as the fire-fighters or policemen in New York, represented a materialization of the virtue and goodness of America, while the unspeakable acts committed by the terrorists materialized the fantasy of external evil, providing a focus for all thoughts of righteous hate and revenge. The logical obstacle to this was that there was no obvious physical enemy which America could target for its revenge, which resulted in Afghanistan being named as the main culprit by virtue of association. This attack on Afghanistan, however, did not accomplish a victory against terrorism, for as Baudrillard points out, ‘terrorism, like viruses, is everywhere […] we can no longer draw a demarcation line around it (2002: 10). War, he concluded, is in this case ‘merely a conventional safety shield’ (2002: 25)

The fact that the Bush administration has grouped the terrorists who perpetrated the attacks on America together with the entire countries of (first) Afghanistan and (later) Iraq seemed unjustifiable for many people, yet interestingly – and worryingly - enough, this policy of defining all your enemies as part of a single homogeneous group, was actively employed by Adolf Hitler, who wrote that ‘It is part of the genius of a great leader to make it appear as though even the most distant enemies belonged in the same category […] Therefore, a great number of basically different enemies must always be described as belonging to the same group, so that as far as the mass of your followers is concerned, the battle is being waged against a single enemy. This strengthens the belief in the rightness of your cause, and increases the bitterness against those who would attack it. (1969: 34). This is precisely the reason why - according to Baudrillard - Islam has been made a focus of this conflict:  to create this delusion of a visible confrontation which therefore implies the possibility of a simple and visible solution, something that does not exist in reality. (2002: 11).

Hitler also stated in a speech delivered on April 13, 1923 that ‘It has ever been the right of the stronger, before God and man, to see his will prevail. History proves that he who lacks strength is not served in the slightest by ‘pure law’. (1969: 32). It is alarming to see quite a similar framework of thought used as justification for the actions of the US President, for it cannot be denied that he also believes that strength is far more important than the ‘pure law’ as referred to by Hitler. In a speech at West Point in June 2002, George W. Bush stated that ‘we must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge. In the world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action. And this nation will act […] America has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge (2004: 178). This stance of pre-emptive hostile action coupled with the sustained growth of the military strengths mentioned above, showing blatant disregard for the authority of the United Nations - which is the representative of international law - shows that the president also believes that the ‘strength’ is paramount and takes precedence over ‘law’.

The actions above demonstrate that George W. Bush favors the pole of thought that is referred to in Theodicy as Dualism, which insists, according to John Hicks, that ‘good and evil are utterly and irreconcilably opposed to one another and that their duality can be overcome only by one destroying the other’ (1966: 15). Baudrillard, on the other hand, takes a distinctively Monist approach by saying that ‘Good and Evil advance together, as part of the same movement. The triumph of the one does not eclipse the other.’ (2002: 13). This view fits in with Hicks’ definition of Monism as ‘the philosophical view that the universe forms an ultimate harmonious unity […] evil is only apparent and would be recognized as good if we could but see it in its full cosmic context’ Michael Moore (2003: 135) asserts the same view in a humorous and popularly accessible format in his book Dude, Where’s my Country where he writes as ‘God’. He says with regards to Bush’s promise to ‘rid the world of evil that ‘Well, you can’t rid the world of ‘evil’ because evil is necessary to define what is good […] Evil is a necessary element for you humans, a way for Me to test you, challenge you, to give you the chance to decide with your free will whether you will choose evil or good. This is obviously not a view that George W. Bush adopts, however, for in his 2002 State of the Union Address he assured the nation that ‘through the gathering momentum of millions of acts of service and decency and kindness, I know: We can overcome evil with greater good’.

In practice, George W. Bush uses violence as opposed to good as his paramount strategy in this ‘conquering of evil’ Baudrillard concludes to that effect that ‘Good does not conquer Evil, nor indeed does the reverse happen: they are at once both irreducible to each other and inextricably interrelated. Ultimately, Good could thwart Evil only by ceasing to be Good since, by seizing for itself a global monopoly of power, it gives rise, by that very act, to a blowback of proportionate violence’ (2002: 13). This ‘seizing for itself a global monopoly of power’ seems to be in line with what Bush is aiming to do in keeping  ‘military strengths beyond challenge’ (2003: 178).

By ceasing to be good and seeking this monopoly, America is realizing the ambitions of the terrorist, who, according to Baudrillard hold the hypothesis that ‘the system itself will commit suicide in response to the multiple challenges posed by deaths and suicides.’ (2002: 17). This symbolic suicide is already occurring in the form of ‘a police-state globalization, a total control, a terror based on ‘law-and-order’ measures. Deregulation ends up in a maximum of constraints and restrictions akin to those of a fundamentalist society.’ (2002: 32). This effectively means that America is incorporating – in a different format but in similar essence - all the main negative characteristics of those it claims to be fighting against. Moreover, - he continues – ‘all the security strategies are merely extensions of terror: and it is the real victory of terrorism that it has plunged the whole of the west into the obsession with security – that is to say, into a veiled form of perpetual terror.’ (2002: 81)

As Orwell described in his insightful book Nineteen Eighty-Four, Americans are in a comparable situation to the citizens of the imaginary nation of Oceania, who possessed a ‘primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations.’ Americans are indeed being required to sacrifice their domestic well being and freedom in favor of ever-demanding ‘security’ and ‘defense’ spending, breeding the idea that America is forever under attack and the survival of its citizens is dependent upon this. Just as in Oceania, Americans are ‘made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening’ (1983: 157).

America continues to steadfastly believe that it constitutes the good and the right. Baudrillard describes their reasoning along these lines:  ‘since we are the Good, it can only be Evil that has struck us.’ (2002: 60). This evil, according to this hypothesis, ‘is done by ‘suicidal madmen, psychopaths, fanatics of a perverted cause, themselves manipulated by some evil power’ (2002: 53). In this case the ‘evil’ is actually this manipulating power – the regimes of Afghanistan, Iraq, or the terrorist organizations led by Bin Laden, which must obviously be presented and dealt with as a single evil. George W Bush has said in his 2002 State of the Union address that ‘None of us would ever wish the evil that was done on September 11th, yet after America was attacked, it was as if our entire country looked into a mirror and saw our better selves.’ I would argue that America is forever looking into a Lacanian mirror, constantly seeing themselves and their nation as a reflection that is far better, more noble and pure than reality. Yet they continue to hold tightly on to the illusion that the reflection is a true representation of reality rather than a manifestation of projected desire. The contrast between the illusion of what America represents to Americans and what it represents to those that look at its actions from an outside perspective is extremely telling of this disparity of perceptions.

 According to Peter Singer, ‘George W. Bush is not only America’s president, but also its most prominent moralist. No other president in living memory has spoken so often about good and evil, right and wrong.’ (2003: 1). Bush’s stances on the key ethical issues he addressed during his presidency are frequently defended in terms of right and wrong, yet his ethics are never clearly laid out or kept consistently. While insisting that right and wrong are universal, and providing specific examples of good and evil, he offers no broad ethical principles or framework for thinking about what makes something good or evil. (Singer, 2003: 201). Singer therefore concludes that Bush’s ethics do not fit with libertarian, utilitarian, or even a ‘Christian’ ethic. Instead the ethical inconsistency referred to above stems from the fact that the president favors an intuitive ethic:  ‘Bush’s views do not fit within a coherent ethical framework, because he reacts instinctively to specific situations. He feels that he knows what to do on any given occasion, but because he is not a reflective kind of person, he makes no attempt to put his judgments on specific issues together and see how coherently they fit with each other. (2003: 210)

With regards to the war in Iraq, Singer states that in that point Bush’s tendency to view the world in the stark terms of good and evil becomes most evident. Greg Thielmann, of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, said that ‘the Bush administration had ‘a faith-based intelligence attitude’ meaning that instead of making decisions based on the intelligence provided, decisions were made based on (perhaps ungrounded) beliefs and the intelligence services were asked to provide evidence that specifically backed pre-held theories. Singer concludes from this that the entire policy of going to war with Iraq was based on the idea that Saddam was evil. (2003: 211)

What Bush calls his ‘moral clarity’ is in fact used as a way to – as Singer puts it – ‘divide the world neatly into good and evil, black and white without shades of grey, in a manner that eliminates the need to learn more about those with whom one is dealing’ (2003: 212). Kearney also notices this ‘disturbing tendency to endorse the dualist thesis that divides the world schismatically into West and East […] (yet) such caricature totally ignores the plurality, complexity and interdependence of each civilization’ (2003: 113). Part of the explanation Singer offers for this overly simplistic moral view of the world is the possible arrested moral development of the US president. He explains that – based on Lawrence Kohlberg’s psychological studies of moral judgment in children, adolescents and adults – ‘human beings pass through the same stages of moral growth in the same order.’ Kolhberg explains that young children […] are at the preconventional level, concerned only about doing what is in their own interests and not being punished. The next stage - experienced mostly by people up to the age of 16 – is termed conventional, where individuals obey social conventions for their own sake. The postconventional or principled level […] can see the possibility of altering rules on the basis of larger considerations for oneself, not in an arbitrary manner, but ‘in accord with self-chosen universality, and consistency’. This later stage would seem to be consistent with Kant’s categorical imperative, which states that one should not act except in such a way as to will that their moral maxim should become universal law. This, singer says, ‘suggests that Bush has not progressed beyond Kohlberg’s conventional level of moral reasoning. (2003: 213)

George W. Bush’s Ethics are not only – as Singer puts it – ‘woefully inadequate’ (2003: 225) for the leader of the world’s only superpower at that, but have also proven inconsistent, misguided and often misleading. The political consequences brought on by an administration which insists on dividing the world into ‘good’ and ‘evil’, and effectively meaning them to be ‘with us’ or ‘against us’ are undeniably worrying. We cannot yet know the full implications that this policy will have in the years that remain to the Bush government, but one can only hope that the people of America will realize that forcing the world to take sides along a radical divide cannot be the better or safer alternative in a political world that hangs in a delicate balance. The attacks of September 11th have evidently left scars in the collective psyche of the American people, yet instead of working towards repairing the damage or understanding the source of the problem, the policies and decisions adopted since have done nothing but aggravate resentment - both within the United States and outside it – magnifying and propagating the evil consequences of those original actions.

Already, there are about 750,000 ‘green’ jobs in America, but that number is expected to grow to 4.2 million within 30 years. That number is derived from several factors. First, it’s based off a ten percent annual estimated growth. Second, due to the fact that the U.S. Department of Education is forcing public schools to feed our children more tofu in an effort to make them more ‘tractable’. Third, is that Democrats in high offices are slowly regulating all other industries to relocate outside the U.S.

Presidential hopeful, Barak Obama, had this to say. “We need to change the outlook of the American people to make them susceptible to change. Once this change is achieved, we will change the way they can or can not work to change their outlook of the whole idea of change.”

John McCain had a different view. “I cannot help but consider this an invasion of American values by the socialist forest regime. Trees, because they live in the communal forests, are using some form of mind control to force Americans to do the same. Bomb Them!”

One can’t help but wonder; when all the jobs and people are ‘green’ will they still be human? ‘Green’ scientists couldn’t be reached for comment (something about digital signals interfering with the tranquility of the forests).

First, people are furious at George Bush, who ran for president, but couldn't really do a good job. If you see in the news, more and more people are getting to hate George W. Bush.

Also, it would be nice to have a change of country. All this time, the presidents were Americans and not from a different country. If you all put your hearts together for Obama, I'm sure he can win. Obama won Hilary Clinton, what's to say he can't win it again? He can easily win, I believe in him.

George W. Bush made the entire country go into a debt of 482 billion dollars. A lot of peoples who just barely are able to live in a home, have lost them. I know, it is sad, isn't it? But, Barack Obama can easily put past the debts as if they never happened, and make America a better place to live. You also must know that George W. Bush was president when the big stock center crashed, causing more people to go homeless.

I hope you will put all of your efforts together and vote for Obama. Go Obama!

Politics bore me. Hours of men in suits on a stage rambling about the state of the nation and whatnot. What interests me is the reaction of the people to current political issues.

Thankfully, as we near the end of the first decade of the new millennium; people have learned to view politicians and their ramblings with a certain amount of humor.

One politician in particular has been ridiculed by the public, not only in his home country, America, but across the world.

George W. Bush was sworn in as the American president on January 20, 2001. At noon of the 21 January 2009, Bush will be stepping down as president of the USA. His replacement has yet to be determined.

How will the world remember George W. Bush? Did his time in office result in a positive impact on the American economy, on the lives of the American people?

Let's take a look at some photos from protest marches, in the US and around the world, to determine the public opinion of Bush.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…” And Bush will leave them hungry and dying in the gulf coast states.

The famous phrase, engraved on the Statue of Liberty, is from Emma Lazarus's poem "The Colossus", written in 1883. These words greeted early immigrants, welcoming them to the Americas, promising hope, freedom and comfort. The wearer of this shirt obviously feels that George Bush does not live by these words.

The only Bush I trust is my own

“It'll be like "Blam Blam! Pow pow! Blam blam! YaBoooosh! AAAARRRGGHHH! You got me!" ”

This poster depicts Bush playing with children's soldier figurines; expressing that the president didn't fully think through the current war in the East, and that his decisions regarding the war may have been childish, immature and rash.

Empty warhead found in White House

Will somebody please give Bush a blowjob so we can impeach him!

This protest poster uses a former president's infidelity to create a tongue-in-cheek opinion of the current president. Bill Clinton was impeached after having sexual relations with his secretary. Perhaps this woman feels the only way she'd see the back of Bush is if he were to follow suit.

Weapons of mass dysfunction

End Bush

Possibly a statement that many politicians will not understand, this sign cleverly uses HTML code to express the opinion that Bush's term in office must end.

I pee on bushes

Even dogs have a political opinion.

If you think that Congress is doing any better think again. With the Democratic and Republican congressional leaders disapproval rating at 64% and 71% respectively they aren't faring any better. No wonder they were more concerned about campaigning to save their jobs than solving the economic crisis. Here's a thought, maybe you guys should have been doing your jobs in the first place rather than staying in session just long enough to give yourselves a pay raise and then adjourning so you could go get in those rounds of golf with the your defense contractor buddies who are making a bundle off the war in Iraq.

It's no secret that the economy is the number one thing on American's minds right now. Of course the big news is the $700 billion dollar bailout plan and this is what some polls have to say about that brilliant piece of legislation. A CBS news poll on Oct 3-5, 2008 says that 51% disapprove the bill passed by congress. In the same poll, 52% disapprove of the government giving money to financial institutions. In a CNN poll, 76% oppose the government providing more money to financial institutions beyond the $700 billion should that measure fail.

As final food for thought I think it is high time we revive the Bayh-Celler Amendment. This amendment called for an end to the electoral college process for electing the president and a shift to a direct popular vote system (you know, the way a democracy is suppose to be). This amendment passed the Full House of representatives in 1969 with bi-partisan support with a vote of 339-70. Of course it died in a filibuster by some southern senators and some conservatives form small states whining about how they would lose their political power. I don't know about you, but if less people live in a certain state shouldn't they have less influence on politics? After all, isn't democracy about what the majority wants?

The press needs to stop perpetuating the though that Plain deserves special treatment, Sen. Clinton held her own against Obama. Of course the fundamental difference is Clinton knows what she's talking about. Sen. Clinton not only read the news but she has been the topic of big headlines, she has been out of the country, she is a New York Senator. Palin's recent interview behavior has been nim-witted and embarrassing. Imagine sending her to the Congo or Sudan to chat with the worlds real gangsters. She would break in five minutes, tomorrow's moderator is more prepared and politically equipped than Palin will be after a year o f coaching.

It will be astute if Biden can tie his answers into scrutinizing McCain. Poor judgment will be an easy target considering McCain's VP choice. Sen. Biden, with a smile, has all the right to defeat this auspicious lampoon campaign. However, Palin is tough she deals with the Russians all the time, besides Papa McCain will break it up with his own strepitant gaffe if things get out of hand- like "where is Washington D.C.?"

That other sound you hear is a wheel that came off of Senator McCain's Straight Talk Express (Senator Obama's quote).

With one contest remaining, Senator Obama was the clear victor in this second presidential debate.  [For the record:  In the previous debate I rated Governor Palin the slight victor over Senator Biden.  {See my article Palin Wins Over Biden in Close VP Debate}].

Let's face it, Americans choose their presidents on qualities such as charisma, character, and leadership abilities.  Issues and policy rank as second rate criteria.  We all say how important the issues are, and we do hold to positions that are important to us, but we are more concerned with regal impressions.

I personally am frustrated that issues are never fully debated.  We need a format where we can resolve policy and platform differences.  Only God can truly compare and contrast these candidate's true hidden positions and discern their ultimate intentions.

Senators Obama and McCain are afraid to engage each other down to the nitty gritty detail like we Americans would like to see.  {Oh that we had Tim Russert to candidly force the issue.}  Put the issues on the table and address the specifics with candor, Senators!  Instead they focus on the "he said/she said" scenarios that turn-off voters.  Moderators are caught in a bind between personal and network agendas and the ticking clock, preventing them from fashioning the debate towards the resolution of particular issues. 

In this light, these are the reasons why Senator Obama was the clear debate winner.

• Senator Obama is a smooth talker. His focus Tuesday night was on connecting with clarity. Senator McCain's accusatory attacks largely were ineffective, while his constant emphasis on "my record" and "my friends" was tiring. Mr. McCain's record is longer and better than Mr. Obama's, but Americans are more concerned with allure than they are with how to spell Waziristan.
  
• Senator Obama came off astonishingly more credible on foreign policy than Senator McCain did. In fact, Mr. Obama bested Mr. McCain in the Arizona Senator's recognizable strength. Americans unfortunately gloss over the details of foreign policy striving instead for an image of acuity. Senator Obama has grown in his leadership persona, and he whipped Senator McCain at his own game.
  
• Senator Obama painted a middling picture for himself. Moderation, french (rather than plain) vanilla, mid-American appearance is what wins presidential elections in the USA. Senator Obama's charisma overshadows issues that would normally usher any undecided conservatives to propel Senator McCain to office.
  
  

Both candidates championed their positions, but it doesn't matter.  The Nashville night was overrun by Obama charm.

Obama, who has more skeletons in his closet than does McCain, loses to McCain on character issues.  McCain, the former combat warrior who has a strong leadership persona, wins the "trustability factor."

Nevertheless, Senator McCain will not be moving into the White House for the same reason that I won't. Neither one of us has that charismatic appeal to the masses.  Senator Obama oozes the stuff.

I have lived the life of a liberated woman; I am divorced, re-married and my husband and I have four kids between us. I had a career in the financial industry before I had kids at 28 and I currently have a career in real estate that allows me to juggle my time between work and family and am fortunate that my current husband supports prioritizing my kids as much as possible.
When my first child was born, I learned something very important; I realized that one of the greatest contributions I could make to society would be to nurture my child and teach her all I could about love and commitment myself. I felt that if I could sacrifice and spend as much time with her as possible, especially in her early years, being her primary caregiver would build between us a bond that would make her a better, more secure individual who could then take that sense of connection out into the world without hesitation. I am not saying that caregivers who are not parents cannot offer much love and compassion but there is no role like mother (or father who in some cases is the primary caregiver) that has so much influence over a child's development, character and confidence.

Some parents are unable to stay home with their children. Due to financial responsibility, both parents must work to make ends meet. I know these decisions are difficult and I am sure that all mothers agonize over being unable to care for their small children on their own. What I don't understand are women who choose not to prioritize their children and strive more for power and public recognition than to build a strong and consistent relationship with their own children.

This is how I feel about Sarah Palin. Here is a woman relatively unknown nationally until a few weeks ago who is now in line to be one of the most powerful people in the world. She has talked publicly about her choice to give birth to a special needs child but who will care for that child on a daily basis as she heads to Washington? Am I the only one who has looked at both Presidents and Vice Presidents in years past and noticed how much they age in the four years of constant demands on their time and energy? The schedules are physically grueling and mentally I imagine the pressure of responsibility for a nation might take a daily toll on someone. Add to that someone who at the end of the day has kids that cry out for "mommy" not knowing where she is and why she is unavailable to them consistently.

Don't think that I am against a woman in a position of power in general. I absolutely believe a woman could make a wonderful leader of our nation and the last few months have encouraged me that it is only a matter of time before it happens but give me someone whose kids are grown and self sufficient, who is not abandoning small children at home. Give me someone who is nationally known and recognized; active in both national and international politics for years before they would even consider running for this high an office.

My mom's lesson to me at an early age was absolutely true: a woman can do anything and everything. Just not all at the same time and still do it well. Where will Sarah Palin fall short? At home or in the White House? I think it is a shame either way and if she is such a great politician, she should consider running on her own eight or more years from now.

More about me:

http://snuffy40726.blogspot.com/

Our future lies at the footstool of the leader that we vote in. All our medical, financial, social issues and global issues are at their mercy, so don't assume anything. Do some research and know who you are voting for.

Here are 10 things to look for before you cast your ballot:

1. Uprightness - Since we are trusting that they will govern our country with honesty, truth and justice, we need to know that they rule their own homes with the same virtues. This makes a solid candidate and one who we can rely on to be who they say they are.
2. Morals - We need to know that the morals and personal standards of our candidate are upright, establishing them as a wholesome representative of our country. A strong leader is one who respects the law.
3. Integrity - They need to mean what they say, and say what they mean. Check their records to see if they have ever made political promises before and what the results of those promises have been.
4. Reliability - They need to have a proven record that they are reliable and trustworthy of carrying out their promises. And we need to know that their promises weren't superficial or off the wall just to get our attention.
5. Consistency - We need to know that they have held fast to their viewpoint from the beginning and have not changed it along the way. This tells us that they are bound by what is right and not by what they think we want to hear.
6. Honesty - We need to learn whether their issues are truly their concern or just superficial to get votes? Check their history and their lives to learn how they have felt about these issues before.
7. Dependability - We need to depend on them to be who they say they are, and that they can do what they say they can do. Learn their lifestyle, their political, social and global concerns from several years ago and compare them to what they are saying now.
8. Reality - We need to know that the person we are voting for is realistic and practical and not someone who is jumping on issues just to argue with their opponents. A bit of research will disclose whether they act randomly or from genuine concern.
9. Support - We need to know that the people they have chosen to be with them in office share the same integrity, honesty and reliability. Research into their partners will show whether we can rely on them to be a team or whether there is potential conflict up ahead.
10. Goals - We need to know that their goals for us are for our benefit as a whole and not just for their own fame and glory. Do some research and find out what their political goals have been and what stands they have taken in the past so that you can have a better understanding of what their goals are now.

We have the legal right to thoroughly examine our candidates before we put our lives and futures into their hands. And if they are worth voting for and they have nothing to hide, then they already have their books open and waiting for you to read.