Donna Kassin: John McCain or Barack Obama? For us, there's only one option

Last weekend's courting of evangelicals by John McCain and Barack Obama at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church Civil Forum makes this photo we received recently of Barack Obama under the header "Photo U Won't See on FOX!!!!" even more relevant. Was this just another “photo-op” in a carefully orchestrated PR campaign to dispel the uneasy qualms of a still-questioning public regarding Obama's Christian credo in light of his Islamic fundamentalist upbringing at an Indonesian school in his formative years? We'll leave you to decide.

However, on so many levels, it is not just Barack Obama that needs our prayers. We need to pray also for John McCain, and for this country. In fact, we ought to be praying that, come November, we do not get the kind of president we truly deserve. Why? Because, as the presidential elections approach and we take a hard look at the sociopolitical and cultural landscape in this country, can we truly say that, as America's Founding Fathers wisely intended, we are still one nation...under God? Hardly. The sad reality is that both presumptive candidates for the presidency of the United States — chosen, ultimately, from a decidedly tainted pack from both sides of the Democratic-Republican divide — constitute a less-than-stellar reflection of our spiritual and moral condition as a nation, and it is delusional to believe that there isn't a leadership crisis in America.

An old proverb reminds us, "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD," which, if applied to the upcoming presidential elections, would imply that whichever candidate prevails has been ordained for this juncture of our history. That said, however, we ought not be fooled into believing that the outcome will necessarily be "good." Sometimes, we are granted what we wish for, only to find that the very thing leads to tragic consequences, which seem destined to teach us wisdom.

At election time, it is "we the people" that decide who our decision makers will be. But, as Daniel Taylor & Mark McCloskey point out in their recent article , How to Pick a President: Why Virtue Trumps Policy, all too often we decide poorly, largely because we ask the wrong questions. Typically, we demand to know details of how political candidates are going to solve our problems. How are they going to stop the continued slide of the United States dollar? How are they going to get the troops home from Iraq? How are they going to fix Social Security, or Healthcare for that matter — essentially, what's in it for me? However, while there is value in hearing a candidate's plans and proposals, this ought to be of secondary or even lesser importance since history and experience bear evidence to the fact that few, if any, of those plans and proposals will survive the political process intact.

Indeed, many crucial political decisions of the future will revolve around unpredictable events and issues. No candidate's "policy" on terrorism, for example, foresaw or was adequate for 9/11. No candidate had a policy or ideology that would have made Hurricane Katrina greatly less painful. In fact, little over a month ago, no one contemplated Russia's invasion of neighboring Georgia and how this could affect US international policy. Therefore, a political leader must have the capacity and the wisdom to respond effectively to ever-changing and unprecedented situations. Ultimately, then, we really should vote for the candidate whom we believe has the qualities — the virtues , both moral and physical, as well as the character and integrity — to decide wisely in situations where policies, positions, and ideologies will be of little help. Taylor and McCloskey remind us that competence alone, without virtue, is poisonous; it simply makes one more effective at doing wrong. Moreover, being virtuous is an expression of competence.

" * We have moved from authority to relativism. We have a government today that’s run by polls—find out what people want and then give it back to them. Can you imagine Moses taking a poll in Egypt or Martin Luther at the reformation? That’s not leadership.

* We have moved from truth to pragmatism. No longer do we ask is it true? We ask does it work? It’s man-centered rather than God-centered.

* We have gone from revelation to feeling. Psychology has been substituted for theology. Sin is no longer the enemy; sorrow and sadness are. Feeling good about yourself is the number one priority.

* We’ve gone from convictions to opinions. Few people really have convictions about anything except their right to be happy.

Edmond Burke made a classic statement: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” A nation in crisis is susceptible to evil leadership, and all that is necessary for that to happen is that we stand by and let it happen. The first parable in God’s Word, found in Judges 9:8-15, illustrates this. It tells of a prophet named Jotham who told of the trees looking for a king. They went to the olive tree, but he was happy in his fatness. They went to the fig tree, but he was too busy producing figs with his sweetness. They went to the vine, but he was producing wine. They were all busy doing good things, so they went to the bramble [thorn bush]. They asked the bramble, “Will you rule over us?” He said, “I’ll be glad to.” He said, “As a matter of fact, you can rest in my shade. I’ll be a shadow for you.” A bramble has no fruit, shade, or lumber. It rips, shreds, chokes, clings, and grows and is very hard to root out, but all of these people fled their responsibilities and let the bramble rule..."

We could go on ad infinitum citing examples to substantiate the argument that, already in America, it is the "bramble" that rules. We need only look at the decisions handed down by the highest courts within the United States, Texas, Massachusetts, and California, which have given legitimacy to abortion, homosexuality, and same-sex marriage, to know that we have already arrived at that place.

In recent times, our country has been deceived into believing that there is no place for Judeo-Christian principles — grounded largely in the existence of absolute truths, in which God is the source of moral values and therefore what is moral and immoral transcends personal or societal opinion — in the governing of our nation. In our new culture of "diversity" and "tolerance" we are moving progressively towards stripping the mere mention of God from every facet of public life to accommodate all that might be offended. But as Rogers exhorts us, while the First Amendment does say, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion. As a nation, we were conceived in faith, founded on faith, and prospered through faith — the Judeo-Christian faith. Therefore, it is imperative that those who still subscribe to these values stand up for the "free exercise thereof" in America and look closely at the voting records of both John McCain and Barack Obama on the contemporary watershed issues to discern their true character, not listen to election promises and rabble-rousing rhetoric for "change." Eighteenth-century Enlightenment philosopher, Helvetius said, "When I speak I put on a mask. When I act, I am forced to take it off." And, sadly, too many voters still have not learned that lesson.

With respect to the issues surrounding marriage and abortion — areas of special interest to our publication — we find that it is Barack Obama that continues to display a hypocrite's masquerade of virtue. At the Saddleback Church Civil Forum, when Warren asked him candidly for his opinion on when life begins and the unborn should have its God given rights protected, Obama balked, claiming that "knowing when something" that is obviously living, "begins to live" was, "above his pay grade." Above his pay grade? Conservative columnist Kevin McCullough points out that, as a father, having gone through at least two pregnancies with his wife Michelle, Obama already knew that to be a lie. More likely, his response was calculated to deflect attention from the fact that he is radically "pro-choice," so much so, in fact, that he is the only elected official on record to vote in favor of denying life-saving medical care to babies that have survived an abortion attempt but are struggling for life.

Obama has also continued to spout belief in the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman, knowing fully well that he has promised homosexual lobby groups that, as President, he will support a complete repeal of both sections of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Essentially, the DOMA defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman for purposes of all federal laws, and provides that states need not recognize a marriage from another state if it is between persons of the same sex. So, he doesn’t want federal law to limit marriage to a man and a woman, and he doesn’t want federal law to protect the right of the states to decide for themselves. Is this the position of a man, especially one trained in Constitutional law at Harvard, who believes that marriage is “sanctified?”

Further, it is Obama that is being hypocritical when he stands before a black church on Father's Day admonishing black fathers for absconding their financial and parental responsibilities to children they have fathered, and extolling the virtues of intact families and the critical role that fathers play in maintaining the foundation of the family while, at the same time, giving support to lesbians that want to adopt children and create families, which by their very nature remove a father from the equation. At least, John McCain can articulate, albeit not very eloquently , that he respectfully disagrees with the homosexual lobby — Ellen DeGeneres included — that marriage is between one man and one woman, that he does not support adoptions by gays and lesbians, and has voted accordingly...consistently over the years. Obama's voting record, on the other hand, has been consistently against the Federal Marriage Amendment and laws that support the traditional family as the bedrock of society.

It can hardly be surprising, based on the editorial stance of The Real Proposal magazine, especially on such life issues as same-sex marriage and abortion , that we would be branded "conservative". However, that does not necessarily mean we supported John McCain's bid for the Republican presidential nomination. In recent years, Congressional Republicans in general — and Senator John McCain in particular — have alienated many conservatives and, certainly, we had issues with him even after it became clear that he was the presumptive conservative candidate. But, as Richard Land, head of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, said recently, although many conservatives are lukewarm about Mr. McCain, most will vote for him in November simply because they find Mr. Obama unacceptable. “I’ll take a third-class fireman over a first-class arsonist,” said Mr. Land. Indeed, as Dennis Prager points out in his recent article, Why I Support John McCain, the bottom line for us, ultimately, boils down to this:

"... The gulf between John McCain and conservatives is miniscule compared to the gulf between John McCain and Barack Obama. This is true regarding virtually every issue of significance to America. The America that a President Barack Obama would shape, with the help of a Democratic Congress and a liberal Supreme Court, would be very dissimilar from the America shaped by a President John McCain. Conservatives who will not vote for McCain are well-intentioned utopians. They are comparing McCain to a consistently conservative candidate. The reality, however, is that McCain is not running against a consistently conservative candidate. He is running against a consistently left-wing candidate. And America cannot afford to have its first leftist president ever. It can afford liberal presidents — such as Bill Clinton, or Jimmy Carter (who governed as a liberal but became a leftist after leaving the White House), or John F. Kennedy, or Lyndon Johnson, or Harry Truman — i.e., all the Democrats who have been president since World War II. But the Democratic Party has moved well to the left of liberalism. And Barack Obama is at the left of that left-wing party..."

Perhaps, too, it is because of growing up in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic melting pot like the Caribbean and being accustomed to a black man ruling why we are not impressed at the sheer prospect of an "Obama" as Commander-in-Chief. What interests us is a prospective candidate's character, his ability and beliefs — not color...or gender for that matter. We have long learned that character isn't made in a crisis; it is revealed in a crisis, and that everybody has a worldview that has been shaped by his or her own belief system. What's more, Obama reminds us, too much for comfort actually, of Michael Manley , the Jamaican Prime Minister of the 1970s — same bi-racial ethnic mix (which was significant for a largely black Jamaican population, as is Obama for a largely white American population), same eloquence and charisma, same "change" campaign platform and rhetoric, same leftist leanings (which led to a serious flirtation with Cuban dictator, Fidel Castro, and a strain in diplomatic relations with the United States), same nationalist view of the black man's condition, same arrogance. And, indeed, one would be hard-pressed to find many Jamaicans who would now disagree that, while Manley's views were aspirational and idealistic, ultimately, he had neither the substance nor the experience to back up his election promises. In fact, many still believe it was his policies — and, especially, his arrogance — that led to Jamaica's rapid economic and cultural decline as the middle-class migrated, en masse, upon his now infamous "there are 5 flights to Miami" exhortation to whomever didn't like the direction he believed he had been given the mandate to lead the people. Well, left they did, in droves, taking their money with them, and the financial coffers of the country have never recovered.

It's interesting too, if only to us, that the current economic climate in America, reflected mostly in the declining value of the US dollar and sky-rocketing energy costs, is eerily reminiscent of the dawn of Michael Manley's regime. Most Jamaicans, in their wildest dreams, could not have foreseen or even contemplated that the Jamaican dollar would plummet from a high of US$1: JS$0.50 in the early 1970s to its present non-value (US$1: J$75.00). Largely, they invested too much faith in the mistaken and simplistic notion that this single man (who envisioned himself as a "Joshua" deliverer, as has Obama ) could effect the kind of macro economic change that would alter Jamaica's "Third World" status in the world arena, which, essentially, was determined by inequities in their trade balance with other nations and their debt.

Without a doubt, there are parallels regarding the present level of external debt currently owed by this country. Does America really own America any more? What's more, the sad reality is that neither Barack Obama nor John McCain, for that matter, will single-handedly be able to turn around a depressed US economy whose strings continue to be pulled by a privately-held, unconstitutional Federal Reserve Bank, which is as "Federal" as Federal Express. Unless it is stopped, this institution, with its elitist (often, unidentifiable) board and private agenda, will continue to manipulate and rape the economy of this country through its prime lending rates and the excess money it prints and pumps into circulation with no real backing in gold or other value.

Some may scoff at the analogy of Jamaica raised in this piece, thinking that such circumstances could never duplicate themselves in the United States by virtue of its sheer economic size and power compared to Jamaica. But George Orwell's political allegory, Animal Farm , ought to remind us that, ultimately, what unfolds even within the context of a tiny "farm" typically has broader global implications. Moreover, philosopher George Santayana once famously wrote, "Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it." Therefore, we would be wise to contemplate the cautions laid out by David R. Stokes in his recent article, The Barack Bubble:

"... It might be constructive, maybe even essential, to think of the whole Barack Obama phenomenon as a gigantic bubble. It has captured pan-cultural attention and transcends the humdrum of mere mortal politics. Expectations are inflated. Rational analysis has been muted. Look, up in the sky – it’s a bird, it’s a plane no, it’s Super Senator above the political fray soaring in his designer soap bubble. The value of Barack Obama’s stock is sky high these days. His most devoted followers assume this upward trend will continue. Happy days are just around the corner. Can’t you just feel the love and unity? Not to mention the change?

And back on earth, those who should be watching more closely, and asking tough questions, seem to have temporarily (we can only hope) suspended their capacity for serious investigation while following the bubble-beacon here, there, and everywhere. What does it say about legacy mainstream media outlets when it is left to the likes of Katie Couric to ask the man from Illinois an actual tough question with a measure of ferocity (at least for her)? Here is the problem, though. No one, not even Barack “The Man Promising Personalized Pieces of Blue Sky” Obama, can possibly sustain the level of near universal affection and acclaim indefinitely. Human glory tends to be a fleeting thing - especially the political variety. In fact, the issue is not if Obama’s bubble will burst, but rather – when. And when it does, there will be a lot of unhappy American campers.

There is a saying: “Motivation without implementation produces frustration.” In the political arena this means that when someone inspires people without eventually following through, the result is significant disenchantment. Barack Obama’s style over substance campaign is very much a bipolar candidacy. We are seeing the manic phase now. Stay tuned for the depressive future..."

The presidential elections are still almost three months away. But, contemporary economist and conservative pundit, Thomas Sowell, perhaps, best explains what already lies at the root of our "Obama fatigue":

"Many years ago, when I was a college student, I took a course from John Kenneth Galbraith . On the first day of class, Professor Galbraith gave a brilliant opening lecture, after which the students gave him a standing ovation. Galbraith kept on giving brilliant opening lectures the whole semester. But, instead of standing ovations, there were now dwindling numbers of students and some of them got up and walked out in the middle of his lectures. Galbraith never got beyond the glittering generalities that marked his first lecture. After a while, the students got tired of not getting any real substance..."

Despite even conservative prognosticators that it will be "President Obama" in 2009, can we really afford his Presidency? If nothing else, the Saddleback Church Civil Forum — video highlights of which are embedded below for your convenience — demonstrated clearly that John McCain has lived a much bigger life than Barack Obama. That’s not necessarily a slam at Obama; John McCain has lived a much bigger life than most people. But, still, McCain's experience made Obama look small in comparison. And at 3:00AM, even as his fellow Democrats have pointed out in their own campaigning, we would much rather it was not Obama who answered the call that could count for America's safety.

When all is said and done, we are no longer impressed with images of how our political leaders worship. Certainly, it is God that judges the heart of a man. But, for far too many politicians, such potential "photo ops" are for sheer political expediency. Too many of them are false prophets disguised in sheep's clothing. What's more, does being a Christian automatically deem one fit for the Presidency? Absolutely not. As Pastor Doug Giles rather irreverently points out, Obama may be on fire for Jesus, but his voting record substantiates it might just be the Jesus of his own imagination.