Paper Trail Enters the 21st Century

Presidential Race-2008 (Part II of II)

McCain criticizes Obama as being too young and inexperienced to be the U.S. President and Commander-in-Chief of U.S. armed forces. Obama, on the other hand, touts himself as "Change You Can Believe In." Interestingly, I don't recall him presenting any purported changes in any legislation he has authored, but, I digress.

To an extent, his campaign slogan is reminiscent of candidate James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. who promised to provide America "...a government as good as its people...", but failed to free American hostages when Iranian radicals took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran for more than one year.

Here's the bottom line, in my humble opinion. You don't legitimize madmen. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain learned the folly of that with the infamous Munich Agreement he signed in 1938 with German leader Adolph Hitler.

Rather than attempt to regurgitate verbiage, I quote directly from Wikipedia's account of that fiasco:

"...(t)he phrase "peace for our time" was spoken on 30 September 1938 by British prime minister Neville Chamberlain in his speech concerning the Munich Agreement,[1][2] often misquoted as "peace in our time". It is primarily remembered for its ironic value. The Munich Agreement gave the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Hitler in an attempt to satisfy his desire for Lebensraum or "living space" for Germany. The German occupation of the Sudetenland began on the next day, 1 October.

One year after the agreement, following continued aggression from Germany and its invasion of Poland, Europe was plunged into World War II...".

It appears that the gentleman from Illinois isn't much of a fan of nor a student of history. If he were, he'd perhaps pay a wee bit more attention to the counsel of former U.S. President Harry S. Truman (D-Missouri) who cautioned: "...the only thing new under the sun is the history that is being made today...".

Frankly, had Chamberlain been less naive and gullible, it's just possible that Hitler could have been stopped before he dragged the world into WWII, costing countless lives and financial devastation the USA is still dealing with nearly 65 years later.

Obviously, none of us has a crystal ball that permits us to know precisely how any candidate will function once they are sworn in as U.S. President and thereafter take office. However, from my own perspective, if I'm going to err, I prefer to do so on the side of caution.

I don't need another Jimmy Carter mucking things up and certainly don't want another Neville Chamberlain leading the rest of us over the cliff like a bunch of lemmings. Your thoughts?

Presidential Race-2008 (Part I of II)

Senators John Sidney McCain III (R-Arizona) and Barack Hussein Obama (D-Illinois) have outlasted all their opponents and now must carefully select their vice presidential running mates, hoping against hope that their respective choices will give their presidential campaigns the added fuel needed to successfully complete the journey.

Which of these two U.S. Senate colleagues should American voters trust with their futures? McCain, U.S. Naval Academy graduate and retired U.S. Navy Captain served two terms in Congress from 1982-1986, until he succeeded former U.S. Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater in the Senate where he has served his constituents ever since.

Obama graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, worked as a community organizer and a civil rights lawyer, ran unsuccessfully for a seat in Congress and has been in the U.S. Senate since 2004.

Despite belonging to different political parties, the candidates are remarkably similar on some issues. On other issues, these two are as different as day and night. Obama has never supported the Iraq War and appears to advocate bringing the troops home, if elected. However, his promise on this issue has never been supported by any details.

McCain, on the other hand, although disagreeing at times with how the incumbent President has fought the war, has always advocated bringing the troops home only after the enemy has been defeated. I suspect his intractability is based on his military experiences, including his tour of duty as a prisoner of war.

Obama seems to swim against the tide of conventional wisdom by arguing, without any preconditions, that we engage in direct dialogue with entities such as the governments of North Korea and Iran, as well as other dubious folks such as the terrorist group known as Hamas.

While I readily admit that secret, behind the scenes, discussions have taken place between warring or enemy sovereigns, since the time a certain Middle Eastern carpenter was a proverbial corporal, doing so publicly, and without precondition, is unprecedented and akin to opening floodgates we don't want to mess with.

Why? First of all, doing so would add legitimacy to individuals and governments one shouldn't attempt to legitimize. We are talking about national leaders who allow their own people to starve so they can build nuclear weapons, or others who claim the Holocaust never happened and publicly declare their stated intentions to wipe a particular sovereign nation off the face of the earth. Do such folks deserve credibility?

Your new blogging/online comments feature

Hi U.S. News!

Welcome to the rough and tumble world of online communication. I've been a hard copy faithful reader of your magazine for a long, long time, and all I can say is "...it's about time!...".

However, having said that, I hope you consider taking this to the next logical place it needs to go, a la www.mydesert.com, the online edition of Gannett-published The Desert Sun newspaper, out of Palm Springs, CA.

I'm been writing my own blog for them since the end of September and find it to be a lot of fun. You can find mine under mbrheljr. As a retired prosecutor, author and law enforcement educator, my area of expertise is public safety, but I also write about different issues other than merely crime and punishment.

As we both know, U.S. News has a much broader readership than a local newspaper like The Desert Sun and allowing individual reader-bloggers to write their own blogs like they do would add a dimension that otherwise doesn't exist.

Anyhow, that's my two cents worth on this subject. Thanks for listening. Be well everyone, stay safe and Happy Holidays!