Admittedly, a pretty good speech

I've got to hand it to Obama. That was a well-delivered, well-crafted speech on race.

This was a good line that showed he wasn't backing down here:

On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

But my question is: what does it say about your judgment when you remain in those pews even though you don't agree with the man's disgustingly bigoted political beliefs? Either the man is a pretender, who joined Trinity to get the black vote out for himself, or he really believes that tripe.

But all this aside, this man is not the man you want answering the phone at 3 a.m. He's never been an administrator at a business or even in government. He was a civil rights lawyer and a state legislator before coming to the Senate.

He's a classic socialist, who wants to grow the entitlement culture and confiscate more of your tax dollars.


But it's here where he shows what an idiot he really is. Read this and you'll be startled by his naivete. I certainly was.

He speaks of delaying weapons systems and cutting waste. Our procurement of new weapon systems to replace 30-40 year old systems like the F-15, F-16, M-1A2 Abrams tank, Ticonderoga class cruisers and others has lagged behind needs for years, thanks to that idiotic "peace dividend" that just went to buy more votes and anti-defense efforts of Bush-Clinton. So what are our warfighters supposed to fight with, rocks and swords? With oil-rich Russia prowling and growling again and China clearly on the move, this is no time to reduce our military. Especially not in a time of war? Has he forgotten that we are in the GWOT? Oh that's right, he'll go to Iran, meet with them. He'll got talk it out with Kim Jong Ill. Sure. It worked for Bill Clinton. He gave those Norks a NUCLEAR reactor. Yeah, stop your nuke program and we'll just give you a REACTOR, food aid and fuel! How does that make any sense?

As far as cutting "waste," what does he define as "waste?" Defense, while not perfect, is much better than the rathole that mediscare money is being flushed down at an alarming rate. A friend of mine who was a case worker told me of the widespread waste he witnessed. Imagine that in every city in the country and you see why the government is well on the way to fiscal collapse.

The best way to fix procurement woes and cost overruns is this: make sure that the companies give an honest bid that reflects built-in adjustments for inflation and other factors and ban generals and admirals from being hired by defense companies after their tours of duty end. I think these two steps would largely curb the excesses in these areas.

He spoke of not weaponizing space. What if the Chicoms do that? I'm sure they're glad you're not doing it. Way to play poker, numbnuts. Tell your opponent exactly what you WON'T do it.

Nuclear free world. Now this is the dumbest statement of the lot. Are you going to waltz over to India and Pakistan and get them to give up the bomb? Yeah, they'll listen. NOT! Only one country has developed the bomb and gave it up voluntarily: South Africa.

We can not and will not. Like gun control, it sounds good on paper. But in a nuclear free world governed by international law, only dangerous scofflaws will have nukes. Not good.

Just like in gun control where only the government (bad) and criminals (worse) will have guns.

But he's another Jimmy Carter. A naive bastard who thinks the world works one way, when in fact, it works quite another. He's a classic idealist in foreign policy, which is defined as:

Idealism in international relations usually refers to the school of thought personified in American diplomatic history by Woodrow Wilson, such that it is sometimes referred to as Wilsonianism, or Wilsonian Idealism. Idealism holds that a state should make its internal political philosophy the goal of its foreign policy. For example, an idealist might believe that ending poverty at home should be coupled with tackling poverty abroad. Wilson's idealism was a precursor to liberal international relations theory, which would arise amongst the "institution-builders" after World War II.

Idealism is also marked by the prominent role played by international law and international organizations in its conception of policy formation. One of the most well-known tenets of modern idealist thinking is democratic peace theory, which holds that states with similar modes of democratic governance do not fight one another. Wilson's idealistic thought was embodied in his Fourteen points speech, and in the creation of the League of Nations.

Idealism transcends the left-right political spectrum. Idealists can include both human rights campaigners (traditionally, but not always, associated with the left) and American neoconservatism which is usually associated with the right.

Whereas many on the right are believers in the school of Realpolitik.

Realpolitik (German: real ("realistic", "practical" or "actual") and politik ("politics")) refers to politics or diplomacy based primarily on practical considerations, rather than ideological notions. The term realpolitik is often used pejoratively to imply politics that are coercive, amoral, or Machiavellian.

In Realpolitik, nations have and pursue vital national interests, like for example, the continued flow of inexpensive oil is a vital national interest to the U.S.

Bush has been a combination of both, to his peril. The Iraq War, I'd argue, is an example of the former rather than the latter. If the Iraq War was fought under the philosophy of Realpolitik, we would have simply replaced Saddam with another dictator friendly to our interests as a counter to Iran instead of trying to pacify the country, stamp out the insurgency and make it a democratic state.