When confronted with Russia’s Caucasian adventurism, President George W. Bush responded by cheering harder for Misty May-Traenor. Surely this has not gone unnoticed by our once and future adversaries around the world. If Bush can’t muster the resolve to counter the Russians, they must think, what can they expect from his successor, Barack H. Obama? Obama, after all, is the embodiment of those who excoriate the incumbent as a cowboy, a unilateralist, a warmonger. Those who wish us ill must be licking their lips in gleeful anticipation of the ascension of the junior Senator from Illinois.

While we don’t know the source of the first great challenge he will face, we know for certain that he will be tested, early and severely. How he responds to these tests will go a long way toward determining the future of American power and influence in the world.

One likely scenario involves China. Fresh from the airbrushed, lip-synched success of the Olympics, China’s leaders will no doubt test Obama’s resolve to preserve America’s commitment to the security of Taiwan. Soon after his inauguration, China will instigate a series of diplomatic disputes with the island nation. How Obama responds will help determine how far China is willing to go. A firm, forthright reiteration of our support for Taiwan would no doubt temper China’s aggressiveness. A timid, retiring deferral of the matter to the judgement of "the international community" will have the opposite effect. It doesn’t take too much imagination to figure out which option Obama will choose.

Once China presents the world with the fait accompli of its Taiwanese conquest, Obama will feel forced to act. Though preferring the photogeneity of JFK bravado, he will be more likely to follow the lead of the man whose second term he was elected to fill. He won’t know what to do, but he will know he has to do something. After an exhaustive analysis of his options, Obama will no doubt ask WWJD, or What Would Jimmy Do?

The answer will come quickly and clearly. We should boycott the Beijing Olympics! A great idea, flawed only by the fact that they will already have included. This is where his otherworldly grasp of nuance will come to the rescue. In a perfect melding of Carteresque resolve with the moral suasion of that other, more compatible JFK, Obama will announce that a retroactive boycott. Assembling all the American medal winners to Washington, he will personally lead them in a march to the Chinese Embassy, where they will all throw their medals over the fence onto the embassy grounds.

Having concluded that deification alone is not sufficient to keep the infantile left on board the Obama juggernaut, his acolytes in the mainstream media have upped the ante with frequent fawning comparisons of the junior Senator from Illinois to John F. Kennedy, the once-junior Senator from Massachusetts.

The similarities are uncanny, and uncannily legion. Both rose to prominence on the strength of their awesome oratorical powers. Kennedy was married to Jackie, a beautiful, classy dame wearing pearls. Obama is married to Michelle, a beautiful, classy dame wearing pearls. Kennedy had two photogenic children willing to ham it up for the cameras. Obama has two cute little girls, one of whom, according an article in "The San Francisco Chronicle," said she thought it would be "cool" to live in the White House. Both project a substantial change to politics-as-usual. Kennedy surrounded himself with intellectuals like Andre Malraux and Arthur M. Schlesinger. Obama surrounds himself with intellectuals like Chris Matthews, Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers.

Both men went to Harvard. Both men wrote books describing formative periods in their life. Both had to run against major precedent-breaking obstacles: Kennedy’s Catholicism, Obama’s African-Americanism. Kennedy gave a speech in Berlin during which he called himself a jelly doughnut. Obama wants to give a speech in Berlin, though given our more health-conscious era, insiders suggest he is more likely to compare himself to a whole wheat bagel or, in a bid for Hispanic votes, a tortilla.

Given these remarkable similarities, it is possible to project Obama’s Presidential achievements by studying Kennedy’s. Early in Obama’s Presidency, he will sign off on a CIA plan to train Iranian dissidents. He will promise them air support when they launch an attempt to overthrow the oppressive theocratic regime. Once the invasion is underway, he will renege, and the rebel forces will be slaughtered at the Bay of Unclean Flesh.

JFK fulfilled his promise to meet face-to-face with Nikita Krushchev with no preconditions. The Russian Premier was so impressed with his interlocutor’s sincerity and grasp of geopolitics that he immediately embarked on the importation of nuclear-tipped missiles to Cuba. Obama has promised to meet face-to-face with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with no preconditions. Given his own sincerity and grasp of geopolitics, it seems reasonable to assume that the Iranian President will promptly invade Iraq.

Marilyn Monroe once figuratively prostrated herself before the President while singing "Happy Birthday" to him. Since she is no longer with us, Britney Spears will have to assume the duties during a future Obama birthday celebration. Elton John will write a song for her after she dies.

After the filibuster-proof Democratic Senate majority approves Obama’s proposal to raise the corporate income tax rate to 65%, the President responds to wholesale immigration of most of the Fortune 500 companies to Ireland by saying, "My minister always said all businessmen were S.O.B.’s, but I never believed it until now."

Yes, the similarities are myriad, and ultimately frightening. Given the way Kennedy’s Presidency ended, one would think Obama would shy away from such comparisons. This subject is far too distasteful to pursue, so we will leave it up to "The New Yorker" to cast any other roles.

The internecine squabble between Team Billary and the Junior Senator from Illinois is fabulous to observe for many reasons, but perhaps for none so much as its resemblance to a tale from Aesop. Aesop, you may recall, was, according to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, one of the three greatest African-Americans in history, ranking just behind Barack Obama and Jesus Christ, in that order. A noted story teller of his day, Aesop immigrated to ancient Greece in order to promulgate his fable-based moral precepts free from the oppressive white power structure in America.

The particular Fable in question is the Hound and the Bone, in which the Hound represents the Democratic party, and the bone is the ascension of that party to supremacy in both Congress and the White House. It was truly a great prize which the hound discovered, and he prowled through the woods and fields proudly displaying his treasure. All was well until he glanced into a pond where he found another dog, with a larger bone. He growled at the dog, and the dog growled back. Thinking "I shall have this bone, too," he barked at the dog, whereupon the bone he had dropped out of his mouth and was lost in the water.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. The Democrat nominating process was supposed to be a coronation, the ceremonial process by which Hillary would accept her birthright. With the Republicans in disarray the path was clear, so clear that it was a small thing to "disenfranchise" voters in Michigan and Florida for having the temerity to vote too early. This wasn’t going to be anything other than a symbolic punishment. Once Hillary had the nomination locked up it would be a mere formality for the Rules Committee to vote to seat the delegations.

Then that upstart had to flourish his silver tongue, and all Hillary’s dreams proved to be just that, a fantasy. Her stumble in Iowa destroyed her myth of inevitability, and her campaign’s inability to right itself shattered the illusion of confidence. Once her claims of experience were exposed as the lies one tells oneself to get to sleep at night, the only thing Hillary had left was a gift for making people hate her. Surprisingly, this hasn’t proved enough to put her over the top.

On the other side of the equation, Obama rose from obscurity on a raft of platitudes to become the hope for a downtrodden nation. With time, the interpolation of hope with change and the future with today began to suggest to some that there was no there there. What does Obama represent? What does he believe? As people started to ask the questions, and as the answers started to appear, some began to suspect perhaps he wasn’t the gentleman they were expecting.

Today the Democrat race looks like a scene from one of those old westerns, where the bad guy points his gun at the innocent farmer or saloon keeper, and says "Dance," while firing his six-gun at his victim’s feet. Hillary and Obama are both dancing to today, but they are firing at their own feet. It makes for good cinema, but bad politics, and already Sheriff McCain is polishing up his badge before riding in to rescue the townspeople.

After a week of watching Barack Obama struggle to come to grips with his Uncle Jeremiah’s endearing tendency to spew racist invective, Team Billary decided it was time to jump back into the fray. First Bill borrowed a page from the conservative talk radio play book by suggesting that the Junior Senator from Illinois hates America. Not to be outdone, Hillary then started reminiscing about her time under fire in Bosnia.

"I remember landing under sniper fire," she coolly recounted. "There was supposed to be some kind of s greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

It was an impressive tale, certainly proof that Hillary, unlike her callow opponent, has what it takes to command troops in time of war. The only problem with it was it wasn’t true. A CBS news report demonstrates a complete lack of danger at the airport, where Hillary, and her high-powered foreign policy team which included the comedian Sinbad, and Global Warming Cassandra Sheryl Crow, exchanges greetings and hugs with Bosnian children.

You can watch the video at http://youtube.com/watch?v=8BfNqhV5hg4

Although this might seem like an embarrassing moment for the scrappy underdog, it’s entirely possible that it may work out to her advantage. Hillary has repeatedly cited her Bosnian vacation as the kind of hands-on experience she will bring to the White House, where she will be ready to lead from Day One, unlike her opponent, who will be too busy reading poetry and composing the sort of flowery speeches which have rendered him unfit for higher office. Even though the junket turns out to have been more of a USO entertainment tour than a significant mission, her memory of how it went down is much more important that the actual circumstances.

Reading her description I was struck by its similarity to a scene from "A Clear and Present Danger." In the film, based on the Tom Clancy novel, Jack Ryan, played by Harrison Ford, risks life, limb and pension to stop an illegal and unsanctioned insertion of American forces into a South American country. Arriving at the airport, Ryan is told by a DEA official to keep moving, and keep his head down. "You don’t want to be a target," he is told.

Later on the motorcade is ambushed by drug lords, and most of the secret service agents and FBI officials are blown to bits by rocket launched grenades. Fortunately, Jack Ryan is on hand to orchestrate their escape. No doubt Hillary will be embellishing her recollections to include this firefight in future speeches.

Rather than being just the latest example of Team Billary’s, shall we say, awkward relationship with veracity, Hillary’s identifying with Jack Ryan might produce dividends. In Clancy’s long-winded, multi-volume biography of the intrepid CIA analyst, Ryan eventually ascends to the White House after a Japanese terrorist flies a hijacked 747 into the Capital Building during a State of the Union address, which manages to kill everyone in the chain of command other than Ryan.

Given the recent trajectory of her campaign, Hillary might need such a stroke of luck to take possession of her birthright. It’s possible that channeling Jack Ryan is an indication of her thinking on the matter. Still, if she turns into the kind of President Jack Ryan proved to be, American foreign policy, and the entire world will be in very good hands, indeed.

Pundits are claiming that John McCain’s improbable return to front-runner status in the Republican nomination process represents an implosion of the party, and the final dissolution of the Reagan coalition. While this judgement may be more the work of wishful thinking than sober political analysis, McCain’s ascendancy has induced conservative talk radio hosts to throw a collective temper tantrum redolent of Howard Dean and MoveOn.org at their most infantile.

Unwilling to concede the nomination to a man who, in their opinion, is not an adherent to the one true faith, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter embarked on a campaign to demonize the ostensible leader of the Republican Party. The conservative airwaves filled with a litany of McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, McCain-Lieberman, and McCain opposed the Bush Tax Cuts, a chorus of indignation designed to improve the electoral prospects of Mitt Romney, their annointed-by-default savior.

In a profound demonstration of unanticipated consequences, their zeal resulted not in a rebirth of Romney’s prospects, but in the loss of their Messiah. Romney’s surprising abdication from the Rush-tailored throne at the CPAC convention in Washington last week was a shocking example of blowback. It was also an act of Presidential mettle, a demonstration of true statesmanship uncommon in this age of political cynicism.

If it were just about me, Romney announced, I would continue this race. But it isn’t about me. It’s about the security of our nation in a time of war. Romney recognized what his arbitrary disciples failed to, that their assault on the front runner threatened to shred the Republican Party. He realized that this latest in a long string of self-destructive acts heightened the prospects of to the infantile left.

The former Massachusetts governor understands, as Rush, Sean and Ann do not, that there are greater issues than fealty to a social issues agenda. There are matters more grave than the failure to offer obeisance to the self-appointed gatekeepers of conservative rectitude.

Forget about a return to 70% income tax rates. Forget about Hillary’s dream of a national Health Police force. Forget about turning public schools into the exclusive bailiwick of the NEA. Those things don’t matter. Soaking the rich doesn’t matter when Wall Street is polluted by a dirty bomb. The politics of Supreme Court Justices don’t matter when their courthouse is a smouldering pile of rubble. Gay marriage is a nonissue under Sharia law.

Romney understands that the only issue that matters is the war we are fighting against Islamist jihadism. He understands as the infantile left doesn’t, that regardless of the merits of or justification for the liberation of Iraq, it is the primary battlefield against those forces committed to our destruction. He understands that running away from that battlefield constitutes surrender. He understands further that surrender is not an option. Not in our eyes, but in the eyes of our enemies. They don’t seek our surrender, they seek our destruction, and surrendering in Iraq will send the message that the end game has begun.

McCain understands this, too, and will be the strongest force to preserve American interests and security. What is surprising is that Rush, Sean and Ann do not understand this. Though they have seemed to have fought the good fight, and have mouthed the right phrases over the years, in this case, they have borrowed the play book of the left. They have relegated the Long War to the back pages, and have elevated extraneous social issues to the forefront. Though the issues upon which they focus differ in content from those of MoveOn.org, the childish wish that the war would "just go away" is identical.

For Rush and Sean to vow to abstain, and for Ann to threaten to vote for Hillary is absurd. They know better than this. To believe that Hillary is more conservative than McCain, as Coulter claims, is to accept her lies. Hillary, the arguably distaff half of the Billary machine, is a less polished student of triangulation, but an aspiring adept to the philosophy of "tell them what they want to hear." Her entire Senate career has been designed to float the implausible premise that she is a "moderate." Her posturing runs defiant to every word that proceeded from her mouth during her life leading up to her election, and Ann Coulter knows this. She knows that any pretense of moderation is a lie. She knows that she would be the worst, most despised Commander in Chief since her husband. She surely should know that it is suicidal to fight a war when the troops have lost faith in their commanders.

This trio of conservative saboteurs must also know that Barack Obama, Hillary’s opponent, and ever more likely victor in the Democrat race, is untried at best. He brings a playground mentality to international affairs. He believes in the importance of making nice. He believes a battlefield is a place where people go to play. Either option at the helm is unthinkable in a time of war. Romney understands this. It is why he ceded the nomination to the dread McCain. It is high time his self-serving supporters do the same.

Watching last night’s special Martin Luther King Jr. edition of the "Eyes on the Prize" traveling road show, I was struck by two things. One was just how much our electoral process has come to resemble a bizarre and far less entertaining version of "American Idol." The Democrat nominating process began with ten contestants performing before live studio audiences, delivering their interpretations of left wing pop standards, each hoping to hear those four magic words which changed America forever: You’re Going to Washington!

Each week the slate is reduced as the viewing audience votes another shrieking, tone-deaf contestant off the stage, with Wolf Blitzer performing the Ryan Seacrest role of ushering them to the sidelines. Only the best-coiffed and smoothest celebrity wannabes are allowed to continue, with the exception of Dennis Kucinich, who sticks around to play the comic relief role of Sanjaya, with only slightly less outrageous hair.

The second striking aspect of the debate was that I do not recognize the world in which these people live. In Hillary, Obama and Edwards’ world, the greatest danger is the fact that some children might not have free comprehensive health insurance. It is a world in which the vast majority of Americans face daily fears and struggles, with no help at all from government. It is a world in which there are no foreign threats, except for those foisted on our nation by George W. Bush. In Obama’s world we have no enemies, only good-natured people longing to sit down and talk with us.

In Hillary’s world the greatest danger we face is the possibility that we might have a permanent military presence in Iraq, on the border of a nation whose sound track runs "Death to America." She sees this as a threat. Not Iran, but the idea that we would seek to defend ourselves.

In Edwards’ world the greatest danger we face is the possibility that his hairdresser might take an ill-timed holiday. It is a wonderful world in which they live, a dreamscape of audacious hope and reflexive change. It is the land of the incredible shrinking war.

Remember Iraq? Remember the quagmire, the civil war, the surge doomed to failure? The country where our brave boys and girls are being offered up as sacrifices for the amusement of the President? What happened to that war? What happened was the surge worked, the violence diminished, and the only people dying were al Qaeda terrorists. It became an inconvenient truth, and so it dropped from the news cycle, and thus from the consciousness of the American people who were more interested in seeing Hillary’s interpretation of "Play Misty for Me."

Last night the final three Democrat Idol hopefuls strutted across the stage, each claiming they could "Get Back" our troops faster than the others could. They apparently don’t read the papers, or even watch the news. They are mired back in December 2006, when Iraq was spiraling into a civil war, and there was no hope of victory. For them the shifting surge had transformed itself again. It had changed from a gesture doomed to failure to an effort that was never about military tactics, but only about prompting the Iraqi parliament to achieve reconciliation, and that wasn’t happening. Now that it is beginning to happen, the surge has shifted again. The goal of the surge wasn’t reconciliation, but rapid reconciliation.

Which brings us back to the world in which the Democrat Idols live. It isn’t a world in which Belgium had to cancel its traditional New Year’s celebration in Brussels’ Grand Place due to terrorist threats. It isn’t a world in which the 2008 Dakar Rally was canceled due to terrorist threats. It is a world in which there are people who want to kill us and destroy our way of life, and no amount of "making nice" will change that.

It would be nice to live in a world in which we can beat our arms into ploughshares, but as Carl von Clausewitz wrote, "In affairs so dangerous as war, false ideas proceeding from kindness of heart are precisely the worst. The fact that slaughter is a horrifying spectacle must make us take war more seriously, but not provide an excuse for gradually blunting our swords in the name of humanity. Sooner or later someone will come along with a sharp sword and hack off our arms."

Perhaps the most frightening thing about the Democrat warblers’ world is the possibility John McCain will win the Republican nomination. McCain, the quintessential "Man in the Arena," strikes terror in the hearts of Democrat Idol contestants. His surge has coincided with success in Iraq, and his No Surrender Tour resonates with adult voters. The Democrats know his nomination would bring national security back to the fore, or would, as Obama said last night, force them "to play on the Republicans’ battlefield," which tells you all you need to know about the junior Senator’s world view.

Which brings me to my dream. It is a debate between McCain and Hillary, and McCain says, "Senator Clinton, you called General Petreaus a liar on the Senate floor. How can you presume to claim you’re qualified to be Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces if you will impugn the character of one of our finest soldiers merely to pander to your base?"

Would McCain do it? He recently told Stephen F. Hayes, "I know this: If I was debating her you’d certainly hear that phrase again–you’d have to ‘suspend disbelief in order to believe that Petraeus’ strategy is succeeding.’ I’d say, ‘How’s your disbelief factor today’ I mean really! We’re all responsible for what we say."

With yesterday’s rejection of Hugo Chavez’s bid to become President For Life, the Venezuelan people have joined the Pope and the King of Spain in the swelling ranks of those who wish he would just shut up. It must be tough for Chavez to find that the only friends he has in the world are Fidel Castro and Jimmy Carter.
 

The two most surprising things about the election are 1) that Chavez didn’t steal it, and 2) that he would hold it at all. Clearly a misguided reading of the electorate, suggesting at best that el Presidente’s people massaged the intelligence. Although based on the NBC Sunday Night News report on the country, in which the assertion was made that the only people opposed to Chavez were the very rich, perhaps his advisors were justified in reaching their conclusions. If NBC is right, then a majority of Venezuelans are very rich. It’s tough to run a populist campaign when most of the people in your country are well off. Which might explain why John "Two Americas" Edwards took a job with a hedge fund that’s busy throwing people out of their houses.

Or it may be indicative of a larger trend around the world. With the exception of the Democrat Party in the United States, recent elections have shown that an excess of anti-American rhetoric alienates voters. Witness the results in Germany and France, where unabashedly pro-American candidates Angel Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy defeated avowedly hostile opponents. Even in Canada a pro-American Stephen Harper defeated the "Bush is a Moron" party.

With the relegation of Chavez to tin-horn dictator status, Iran, North Korea, and Democrat primary states remain the only places in the world where leaders gain support by shouting "Death to America." And of course, the United States Congress, where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi continue to mount rear guard efforts in support of our enemies in the War on Terror.

Faced with the overwhelming success of the sure-to-fail "surge" in Iraq, Democrats, having based their electoral strategy on our failure there, are doing everything in their power to change the subject. Which is why when Bill Clinton, the Old Houndawg himself, blustered forth with the preposterous claim that he had opposed the war from the beginning, he dismayed not just his lovely bride, but all the Democrat front runners. The Democrat base remains firmly mired in yesterday’s narrative, and the only way to win the nomination is to move MoveOn.org movers and shakers to embrace them. The only way to do that is to out-Chavez Chavez, which means no matter who becomes the party’s standard bearer, he or she will have run up a lengthy list of sound bites bound to offend a general electorate still inclined to love their country.

The bursting of the housing bubble, with the concomitant sub prime mortgage meltdown, is being felt throughout the country. Every region reports drastic reductions in real estate value, including Michigan, which, thanks to auto industry woes, had largely sat out the dramatic run up in prices. Metropolitan Detroit is rapidly moving to the forefront in the foreclosure sweepstakes, the result, not just of the housing value collapse, but of rampant, unregulated fraud.

A recent study predicts that local communities could see a $100 million reduction in property tax revenues, while the state might lose as much as $12 million in lower sales tax proceeds. This has caused a crisis for government, which suddenly finds itself unable to fulfill its most basic function, that of constant expansion. Because of a shrinking economy and a lower population, this year’s budget was only able to expand by 8%, and then only after confiscatory new tax regimens and much ballyhooed "spending cuts." And that was before the foreclosure glut struck.

Faced with the likelihood of dramatically reduced revenues, many experts are beginning to question whether local government will be able to function at all. Clearly, Michigan government faces a searing crisis. If it is unable to expand, then what function could it possibly have?

After wrestling with this question, I believe I have come up with a solution, and hereby offer it as a gift to Jen-Jen Granholm, Michigan’s perky yet utterly clueless Governor. The most effective means of replacing lost revenues, and even increasing them, thereby allowing government to perform its primary expansion function, is to institute a foreclosure tax.

Foreclosures are well on their way to becoming Michigan’s leading industry, exceeding even coin operated photo machines and baby shoe bronzers, both of which were welcomed into the service tax paying community last month. By introducing a foreclosure tax, Michigan’s leaders will be able to dramatically ramp up revenues. The foreclosure is especially effective as it will be levied against both the forecloser, and the foreclosee. The foreclosing agency will be subject to a tax equal to 10% of the value of the property, while the party being foreclosed will have to pay a 50% tax.

It is this last part that is particularly brilliant. Since the foreclosure is happening because the homeowner is unable to meet his or her mortgage obligations, it seems obvious that they will be unable to pay the tax. However, the state can count this tax as revenue, thereby allowing it to finesse that obnoxious constitutional requirement that the budget be balanced. If in the future government’s expansionary needs increase, the foreclosure tax can be raised however high it needs to go.

Add to the first two parties’ foreclosure an additional 10% tax charged to whoever eventually buys the foreclosed property, and Michigan’s government can continue to expand, even if nobody in the state is actually working.