ELECTING A PRESIDENT...2008

The Iowa Caucuses and the subsequent primaries are a big part of the way we go about selecting the President of the United States.

When these pre-election exercises are over, both major parties will have a candidate.

If the system works well, the two nominees may be good ones. May is the operational word.

The job of the citizen is then to select the better of the two.

We elect an inferior Chief Executive at our national peril.

As I consider the candidates, I will be looking for evidence that they are capable of being the world’s most important national leader: that they know the challenges facing the US and possible solutions to those challenges; that they are able to act on what they know; and that they are willing and able to tell it like it is.

Below is a list of fifteen characteristics of a good President in the year 2008. The list is incomplete. There are dozens and dozens of other important characteristics.

Please feel free to add to it.

I may do so myself as they come to mind.

As is usually the case, the world will be watching our elections this coming fall.

The best candidate for the Presidency of the United States is the one who:

1 Commits to unconditional victory over terror

2 Prevents national democrats from taking the White House
3 Rejects the algore view of global warming and deals intelligently and wisely with global warming
4 Knows that there is no world community or world government, that right will win out only if it is combined with might, US might.
5 Reminds us that there really is evil in the world which is a mortal threat to our way of life
6 Secures our national borders
7 Works to safeguard majority as well as minority rights
8 Believes that the best way to assure peace is to prepare for war, as in …they had to choose between peace or war. They chose peace. They got war [from Churchill, I think].
9 By example and word reminds us that good taste, courtesy, morality, and doing the right thing are all subject to the law of the slippery slope, that a slide down that slope has consequences
10 Will be feared in the councils of the barbarians, in the sense that it is better to be feared by the barbarian than loved by him
11 Makes it clear that profiling of the criminal [especially the terrorist] is how it is done in effective police work
12 Knows that preemption and unilateral action are not in themselves violations of international law
13 Knows that the UN is an unreliable protector of US interests
14 Reminds the American people that our international responsibilities are long term, not responsive to the quick fix
15 Knows that world stability is in our own best interest and that only US power and leadership can make it possible

Being the nation that is the last, best hope of the world is not a small responsibility.