Both Bono and I are interested in Africa, but Bono gets all the press. How is that fair?

Vast sums of money are spent trying to figure out why the people of that continent are so beset with poverty and oppression. One can simply resign oneself to the mess, saying "This is Africa," as Leonardo DiCaprio's character does in Blood Diamond (2006), but, as "God gives us all things richly to enjoy" (I Timothy 6:17), it must be on account of some sinful perversion of God's created order that these people are sitting on top of such wealth and yet in such want. The answer is not in the infusion of capital from the wealthy west (which was poor until we developed it). The answer is in Africa!

Paul Collier has written a book entitled The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It (Oxford, 2007). What we once called The Third World (neither the Soviet sphere nor the Western alliance), we have come to call The Developing World, and indeed much of it is doing just that. But of the world's 6.7 billion people (last I checked), there are a billion who appear to be inextricably stuck in poverty and generally in a manner of life unworthy of human dignity. Collier calls it "the fourteenth century: civil war, plague, ignorance." Collier reports that most of these people are concentrated in 58 countries, and 70% of those people are in Africa.

He identifies four "traps" that have these people ensnared:

1. The Conflict Trap (e.g. civil war, recent tribal conflict in Kenya come to mind),

2. The Natural Resource Trap (over dependence on extracting and exporting these, typically mismanaged by a corrupt government),

3. Landlocked with Bad Neighbors, and

4. Bad Governance in a Small Country.

It strikes me that all of these seem to come down to bad government. But if Western governments put the slightest pressure on these dictators they cry "colonialism!" and all the people rally to them (as well as the American left, needless to say).

He rejects the aid-oriented solution advocated by Jeffrey Sachs (The End of Poverty, 2005) and Bill Gates. But he is not quite as opposed to it as William Easterly (The White Man's Burden, 2006). Aid is not a solution, but "a holding operation preventing things from falling apart." It is subject to a law of sharply diminishing returns. Collins actually suggests military intervention in what we have come to call "failed states," but I'm skeptical. Benevolent conquest is always tempting to well-meaning Americans, but for some reason the beneficiaries of our thumpin' good will never seen to recognize their blessings. Furthermore, it would require terror which only the resulting insurgents have the stomach to pull off. Beyond that, he suggests improving trade and various laws and charters for government to sign and honor.

Ah, yes. It all comes back to government. Why should these gangs of thugs called "governments" bind themselves to principles of justice? They need counterbalancing centers of power. Church. Economic interests. The small size of many of these countries is a problem for which James Madison has wise words in Federalist Paper #10. How do you trade with people who don't produce anything worth having? They won't produce anything without capital investment. No one will invest unless property is secure. If people can be sure of enjoying the fruit of their labors, they will labor.

The latest discussion of the merits of aid to Africa is in the City Journal (Winter 2008), "Hearts of Darkness: Trendy paternalism is keeping Africa in chains" by Michael Knox Beran.

You should also look at a recent New York Sun essay by Amity Shlaes ("One Flawed Gift," Feb. 28, 2008) author of The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. Her point is, "The 2.3 trillion in aid America and allies have spent in Africa over a half century has been a counter-productive distraction from achieving stable growth."

A missionary to a particular African country who, unlike his suffering church, was recently released from prison and expelled from the country, recommended Martin Meredith's The Fate of Africa which, I am told, attributes much of Africa's problems to bad governance. That conclusion should be universally obvious. Sadly, it is not.

Many have remarked on the bizarre, even reprehensible equation Barack Obama drew in his Philadelphia speech between Jeremiah Wright on the one hand and both Geraldine Ferraro and Obama's grandmother on the other. Charles Krauthammer, for example.

Sure, says Obama, there's Wright, but at the other "end of the spectrum" there's Geraldine Ferraro, opponents of affirmative action and his own white grandmother, "who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe." But did she shout them in a crowded theater to incite, enrage and poison others?

"I can no more disown (Wright) than I can my white grandmother." What exactly was grandma's offense? Jesse Jackson himself once admitted to the fear he feels from the footsteps of black men on the street. And Harry Truman was known to use epithets for blacks and Jews in private, yet is revered for desegregating the armed forces and recognizing the first Jewish state since Jesus' time. He never spread racial hatred. Nor did grandma.

Yet Obama compares her to Wright. Does he not see the moral difference between the occasional private expression of the prejudices of one's time and the use of a public stage to spread racial lies and race hatred?

But there is another criticism that builds on previous observations that behind all this talk of bringing America together and getting beyond the old polarities is the same old big government, forget-liberty-and-collapse-in-my-big-strong-arms, nanny state liberalism.

Jonah Goldberg found the speech initially "thrilling," and listened with hope that, for a Democrat, Obama was going to set a new course. Then, "Sigh, Here we go again."

For all the wonderful rhetoric and tantalizing promise of Obama and his speech, there's not much that's new here. This was largely a restatement of Wright's indictment of America, delivered in University of Chicago parlance instead of South Side Chicago diatribe.

The old baggage has been replaced with shinier suitcases, but the contents are the same. Black America's problems can be solved by spending more money on the same old Great Society programs. Any talk about blacks' problems that takes the eyes off that prize is a "distraction." Yet again, white Americans can prove their commitment to racial justice by going along with more big government. My hope for something better proved too audacious in the end.

Krauthammer also touches on the new eloquence with which Obama packages the old complaints and the old destructive remedies. "This contextual analysis of Wright's venom, this extenuation of black hate speech as a product of white racism, is not new. It's the Jesse Jackson politics of racial grievance, expressed in Ivy League diction and Harvard Law nuance."

Krauthammer then declares our presumptive young emperor naked, and poses these devastating questions:

But Obama was supposed to be new. He flatters himself as a man of the future transcending the anger of the past as represented by his beloved pastor. Obama then waxes rhapsodic about the hope brought by the new consciousness of the young people in his campaign.

Then answer this, senator:

If Wright is a man of the past, why would you expose your children to his vitriolic divisiveness? This is a man who curses America and who proclaimed moral satisfaction in the deaths of 3,000 innocents at a time when their bodies were still being sought at Ground Zero. It is not just the older congregants who stand and cheer and roar in wild approval of Wright's rants, but young people as well.

Why did you give $22,500 just two years ago to a church run by a man of the past who infects the younger generation with precisely the racial attitudes and animus you say you have come unto us to transcend?

We have not heard the end of this. In a war, it is usually with aerial bombing and artillery that you soften up the enemy before you send the troops in to topple what's left. In this political battle, Hillary Clinton and John McCain are just watching The Self-Declared-Moral-Future jump up and down on his own land mines.

Hillary has one eye on Obama's self-destruction, and another on polls like this one from Rasmussen. "Nationally, Barack Obama now holds a statistically insignificant one-point advantage over Hillary Clinton, 45% to 44%. Before the story broke about his former Pastor, Obama led Clinton by eight percentage points."

For his part, McCain is seeing what Rich Galen is seeing:

According to the Gallup poll track, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is sitting on a five percentage point lead over Obama 48-43. This is in contrast to the Gallup measure on March 16 (two days before The Speech) when Obama had a two point lead over Clinton – 47-45.

What do polls in March mean for the general election in November? Sure, but keep this in mind:

Given the state of the economy, the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq, the lack of any positive news for Republicans at the US House or Senate level and the constant claim of the popular press that Democrats are so much more energized than Republicans, how can this be?

Hillary and Barack should be beating McCain by 20 points.

Jeremiah Wright should be beating McCain by 15.

At some point the national political press corps is going to come to the realization that the prospect of a Democrat being sworn in as President on January 20th next year is becoming increasingly dim.

I'm upbeat. This is why I have said that Barack Obama is quite beatable. But for that very reason (grumpy, brittle conservatives!), it is vital that we beat him!

Michelle Obama stunned us with her bombshell statement in Wisconsin on February 19, though it was not the first time she expressed the sentiment.

What we have learned over this year is that hope is making a comeback. It is making a comeback. And let me tell you something -- for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment. I've seen people who are hungry to be unified around some basic common issues, and it's made me proud.

We puzzled over how she could forget or dismiss all the good for which this country stands, the good that has happened in this country and happens every day, and that this country has brought to the nations of the world over that past 30 years, i.e. over the course of her "adult lifetime."

We have recently discovered the plausible source for these views, however: the America-hating, race-centered victimology-posing-as-theology that is the crowd pleasing demagoguery preached up at Obamas' church where they have been attending for twenty years--Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

Consider these fiery arrows let loose from the pulpit to a cheering and even back slapping congregation by the church's long time preacher, Jeremiah Wright. The video from which I draw these proclamations has itself drawn from sermons delivered on several different occasions. I offer these transcriptions largely without editorial comment, though I have arranged them thematically.

U.S. Imperialism and 9/11

• "We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into out own front yard. America's chickens are comin' home to roost!"
• "We cannot see how what he are doing is the same thing as al-Qaeda is doing under a different colored flag, calling on the name of a different God to sanction and approve our murder..."

Race and 9/11

• "Yes, 9-11-01 happened to us. And so did slavery happen to us. Yes, the World Trade Center happened to us. And so did white supremacy happen to us. Yes, the Pentagon happened to us. And so did the Tuskegee Experiment happen to us. Yes, Shanklin Pennsylvania [he means Shanksville] happened to us. And so did the Sharpeville Massacre happen to us [actually to black South Africans in South Africa in 1960]. A government sponsored religiosity makes you suffer from amnesia."
  

Race

• "White America" he calls "US of KKKA."
• "We believe God sanctioned the rape and robbery of an entire continent. We believe God ordained African slavery. We believe God makes Europeans superior to Africans and superior to everybody else."
• "Black men turning on black men. That is fighting the wrong enemy. You both are the primary targets of an oppressive society that sees both of you as a dangerous threat."
• "Oh, I am so glad that I got a God who knows what it is to be a poor black man in a country and a culture that is controlled by and run by rich white people."
• "Barack Obama knows what it is like to be a black man living in a country controlled by rich white people."
• "...gives them drugs, build bigger prisons, passes a three strike law, and then wants us to sing "God Bless America?" No, no, no! Not God bless America...God damn America. That's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating her citizens as less than human. God damn America as long as she tries to act like she is God and she is supreme."

He Doesn't See the Irony...

• "He taught me, Jesus did, how to love my enemies. Jesus taught me how to love the hell out of my enemies and not be reduced to their level of hatred and bigotry and small mindedness."

The Preacher Behind Obama’s "Change" and "Hope?"

• "We have got to change the way we have been doing things as an arrogant, racist, military superpower."
• "Hillary ain't never had her own people say she wadn't white enough! Jesus had his own people siding with the enemy! [Remember, Wright claims Jesus was black.] That's why I love Jesus, y'all. He never let their hatred dampen his hope." (Rich Lowry reports in "The Dishonesty of Hope" that the first sermon Barack Obama heard from Wright was entitled "The Audacity of Hope--later, the title of Obama's book--was a diatribe against "white folks' greed" and had a formative influence upon the young Obama.)
  

Notice that when describing America as "a country controlled by rich white people" he makes no distinction between rich white Republicans and rich white Democrats, between Republican and Democratic administrations or between Republican and Democratic controlled legislatures. Whether it's one or the other, it's all just the U S of KKKA.

In a separate video, Wright claims, in an especially vulgar reference to Monica Lewinsky, that President Bill Clinton betrayed the confidence of the black community. "Bill did us just like he did Monica Lewinsky." He then makes lewd gyrating motions and puffing sounds right there in the pulpit!

How many other black political leaders have been fed on this sort of rhetoric that passes for spiritual counsel? How many other black churches are preaching up this stuff? If we are concerned about the radical Muslim teachings at certain Mosques and madrassas, why should we not be concerned about this?

Barack Obama's understanding of Christianity has been fed for the last twenty years by a strange and controversial church. Perhaps you've seen videos of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the longtime preacher at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, spouting hatred for white people and for America. Sen. Obama claims that this happened so infrequently that he always missed it when he attended church.

But the church itself has a very strange theological foundation. It is a form of Marxism called "Black Liberation Theology." This is from the church's website, though the information there seems to change in response to media attention, as it did after Sean Hannity probed the issue on Fox's Hannity and Colmes. In his interview with Sean Hannity, Wright directly and explicitly associates his "black value system" with the "liberation theology movement" in Nicaragua "26, 28, 30 years ago," i.e. during the time of the Marxist revolution there.

The vision statement of Trinity United Church of Christ is based upon the systematized liberation theology that started in 1969 with the publication of Dr. James Cone’s book, Black Power and Black Theology. Black theology is one of the many theologies in the Americas that became popular during the liberation theology movement. They include Hispanic theology, Native American theology, Asian theology and Womanist theology. ... Black liberation theology defines Africans and African Americans as subjects – not the objects which colonizers and oppressors have consistently defined “others” as. ... To have a church whose theological perspective starts from the vantage point of Black liberation theology being its center, is not to say that African or African American people are superior to any one else [though in the second video clip linked above, Wright says they are]. ... African-centered thought, unlike Eurocentrism, does not assume superiority and look at everyone else as being inferior.

Wayne House, professor of theology at Faith Evangelical Seminary, in "An Investigation of Black Liberation Theology" (Bibliotheca Sacra, 139:554, April 1982), gives this summary of Black Liberation Theology:

The modern liberation movement often combines biblical liberation themes with Marxist ideology and methodology. Wolfhart Pannenberg (Lutheran), Jüren Moltmann (Reformed), and Johannes Metz (Roman Catholic) represent the theology of hope movement from which more radical political theologians such as Rubem A. Alves, James Cone (black theologian), and Camilo Torres (Roman Catholic), and Gustavo Gutiérrez have developed a theology of violent revolution. Pulling from Marxism more than from Scripture, they pursue a forceful overthrow of oppression and see this as God's method of working in the world today.

The Questions for Obama

It is harder for Obama to distance himself from this because, according to his pastor, it has been the clearly stated and operational theology of the church for the last 26 years. It would be like attending Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church for 20 years and being unaware of the church's emphasis on believer baptism and family values.

In light of this information, it is reasonable to ask: Behind all this "hope" rhetoric, is Barack Obama really a black separatist? Given the correspondence between Michelle Obama's evident hatred for America and that of the Obamas' preacher, Jeremiah Wright, does "hope" for "change" in Obama's rhetoric mean hope for America to go from presently despicable to something of Obama's making? Would that America be shaped more by the liberation theology of Gustavo Gutierrez than by the liberal constitutionalism of James Madison? What role does Black Liberation Theology play in his thinking? Does Barack Obama believe, as his church apparently would, that James Madison and John Locke (the greatest theorists of the American political tradition), or Jonathan Edwards and John Calvin (the greatest theologians of the American religious tradition) were "Eurocentric" and thus racist? Is Barack Obama in a cult? (In addition to other troubling indicators, his church has honored Louis Farrakhan, a cult leader, with a lifetime achievement award.)

Of course, it would yield nothing simply to ask the likely Presidential candidate these questions. Answers must be culled from the record of his speeches and deeds. Get going, press corps!

Just below the surface of all the lovefest in the Obama campaign and all through Obama's record is a scary and bitter hard-left radicalism. His Sunday religious training explains a lot of it. The mainstream media didn't give any attention to Eliot Spitzer's demons until the crash came. They would do well to give serious attention to Obama's demons. Then if he wins, the people elected him with full knowledge of what they were getting.

Lastly, Mitt Romney came under a lot of scrutiny and criticism for his somewhat bizarre and cultish religion. But Mormonism is far more compatible with the best of the American political tradition that this stuff. If Mitt Romney got a hard time over his religion, Barack Obama should get at least double.

I bought some campaign buttons and a sign from the Obama people, so now they send me mailings. In the recent one, Obama responds to the charge that he is "eloquent but empty." In refutation of this charge, he offers three stories. One concerns a little old lady who wants change so badly that she mailed him a money order for $3.01 and a Scripture quote. Touching, you'll agree.

The other two are sob stories of people suffering in this nation of poverty and despair. (Obviously, he's entirely in agreement with his wife in being ashamed of our country.) What interests me about one of the stories in particular is that I have heard it before...more than once. I have seen only a few Democratic debates, but I have heard Obama tell this story twice, and now here it is again. Clearly, the campaign find that it strikes a chord with Democratic audiences. I' don't get it.

There's nothing empty about the call for affordable health care from the young woman who told me she spends the day in college, works a night shift, sleeps three hours and still can't pay her sister's medicine bills.

How does this involve the federal government? Her problem is not the government's failure to arrange affordable health coverage. Her problem stems partly from unwise decisions she is making. She is trying to do too much at once. If, for some reason, she is having to take care of his sister (who is presumably an invalid since she is unable to pay for her own medicine), she should not also be trying to study full time in college. These are decisions all of us face all the time.

Furthermore, where is the rest of the family? I know that the Democratic party believes that the nanny state should provide for all the benefits that family relationships (so unreliable) used to provide, but the rest of us still recognize that if there is a sister in need there are usually parents, grandparents or other relations who can step in and assist. If this woman's situation is so desolate and unusual that she is the only family to which this poor sick sister can turn (and there's no church to assist?), then she should certainly not be offered as justification for a massive new government entitlement.

But Barack Obama thinks that this story will win votes with the American people, that we will rise up in anger against the brutal system that allows people to find themselves in this situation, regardless of what choices they have made to get themselves there.

The Democrat Distinctive

This appeal--that Obama would make it and that the party faithful would buy it--illustrates an important difference between the two parties. Democrats believe instinctively that if there is any human suffering, it is the proper responsibility of the federal government (not just any level of government, mind you) to provide a remedy. Neither families, nor markets nor voluntary associations can be trusted to provide an adequate remedy. They are all either too selfish to address the matter honestly, or either insufficiently committed or inadequately equipped to follow through on the task. Only the public authority can be trusted, and they trust public authority without question. It is by definition public spirited, and it's adequacy for the task is only a matter of funding.

Consider the panic with which Democrats react when Republicans suggest letting young workers invest some of their social security money in the stock market. "Risk!," they cry. If people invest their own money, they'll lose it. But you can trust the government. Never mind that the whole system is on the verge of bankruptcy. Even if it only a few people who might blow their nest egg (unlikely), Democrats see that as justifying centralized government control of the entire system for everyone.

Consider also what a conversation stopper is any suggestion that a consumer driven health care system might be the best way to serve the public. They draw in voters with the rhetoric of choice, only then subtly to maneuver the system into a single payer, government run system. Never mind that the existing government run systems, Medicare and Medicaid, are vastly expensive and which, if universalized, would bankrupt the country.

For the Democratic party, facts from experience are irrelevant. Democrats are driven exclusively by moral sentiments uninformed by practical considerations. It is their fierce egalitarianism. Better everyone a slave than that anyone is ruined by the imprudent exercise of liberty. Better that everyone is equally poor than that anyone is left behind while others prosper. This approach has kept them out of the White House since 1968. The exceptions were Jimmy Carter (1977-81) who squeaked in on account of Watergate and Ford's pardon of Nixon, and Bill Clinton (1993-2001) who ran as a "New Democrat" in opposition to these ideological excesses.

The Republican Opportunity

Far from being the great uniter of these United States of America, Barack Obama would be perhaps the most statist liberal candidate for president we have seen in almost half a century. John McCain shouldn't have a problem playing that angle all the way to the White House.

In view of the Spitzer drama, let me add to the lessons that others have shared a few of my own.

The Moral Compass Lesson:

"I have acted in a way that...violates my, or any, sense of right and wrong." When you are handling lots of power, or if you simply have an ambition to handle what you think is a lot of power, you need more than just a vague, ill-defined "sense of right and wrong." You need specifically delineated moral principles. And they cannot be of your own making, because those are too easily recrafted for moral convenience. They must come from outside of you and above you. They must precede you, and must be sure that they will outlive you. They must be such that you live in reverence for them down to marrow of your bones.


The Congeniality Lesson:

It pay to be nice in politics. "Steamrollers" can accomplish only so much in a democratic government with multiple centers of power. Bill Clinton survived his Monica Lewinsky scandal partly because he had charm, he was up in the polls, and he had good standing within his party. Eliot Spitzer, by contrast, we thought on both sides of the aisle to be arrogant and obnoxious, had made himself enemies even within his own party and had slid swiftly from a 70% electoral victory to a 30% approval level. No one came running to his defense.


The Improbability Lesson:

Anything can happen in politics. George Bush was very popular after the first Gulf War to the point that Mario Cuomo, the Democratic favorite, declined to run against him. He overcalculated the predictability of politics. The events of 9/11 changed George W. Bush and his presidency in ways no one could have foreseen. In the spring of 2007, Barack Obama seemed to be running for the office of vice-president...then whoosh! Who would have thought that Gov. Steamroller would suddenly stop dead in his tracks instead of going on to run for President?


The Character Lesson:

The is not the same as The Moral Lesson. It pertains to what ancients called "the soul" but which we would call character. It is striking how everyone simply stood in awe of this man, 70% of us approving him to lead us as Governor. (I say everyone, but of course there were critical voices.) Now that he has crashed so spectacularly, everyone is coming forth with wise observations on his tragic character, on his type of soul that is so ill-suited to healthy political leadership. His prosecution of Wall Street barons is now widely observed to have been excessive, unmerciful, self-serving. (Read Amity Shlaes, "Spitzer's Apologies," New York Sun, March 12, 2008.) Perhaps this is training in the art of spotting these characters before we elect them. We will see if the critics of Gov. Spitzer who have recently emerged will apply this lesson to the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. (The Republican decision has been made, but we can still reflect

The Rule of Law Lesson:

It is heart warming to see, at least in the essays I have read, the call judicious restraint in dealing with this man at the bar of justice. I have been seeing respect for the rule of law that comes out of the British legal political tradition and a call to resist the temptation to return evil for evil, a concern for conscientious justice that comes out of the Christian tradition. In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, an editorial entitled "The Spitzer Rules" offered these wise words:

These columns have noted that there would be a certain rough justice in Mr. Spitzer, the Governor, being treated in the way that Attorney General Spitzer had treated his targets over the years. Nevertheless, in our system of justice, prosecutors enjoy broad discretion, and that discretion must be wielded wisely. ... It is tempting to argue that Mr. Spitzer deserves the Spitzer treatment more than many of those he made targets while a prosecutor. That may well be true in the sense that many of his victims were innocent. But the proper exercise of prosecutorial discretion dictates that the power of the state not be wielded merely to settle a grudge. Mr. Spitzer never learned that while in office, but playing by his unrestrained rules is not the same as seeing justice done.

Amity Shlaes ended on the same note in her article. "The best revenge for those on the receiving end of Mr. Spitzer's attacks is to avoid descending to his level. Even Mr. Spitzer's most-damaged targets will find odd comfort in watching him get a deliberate and fair hearing, and measured jurisprudence if it comes to that. May the law accord to him what he denied to others."

It is good see a public discussion about the nature of justice, judiciousness, and equity. The Lord brings good out of evil, and shows his mercy where we least expect to find it.

Addendum:

John Fund in "Eliot the Enforcer" points to Spitzer's "arbitrary use of power" and points to the "warning signs" we should have seen -- signs that liberals chose not to see because he taps into themes that tickled their ears. "Mr. Spitzer cloaked his naked devaluation of the rule of law with gauzy rhetoric that was perfectly pitched to make many liberals ignore his strong-arm tactics." In his Lyceum address, Abraham Lincoln warned us against men of ambition, Napoleons, who would not be content to build on another's foundation. For his part, Fund also alerts us to be cautious against men (or women, of course) of unconstitutional ambition.

An enduring lesson of the Spitzer meltdown should be that crusaders of all types who operate outside the rule books themselves merit a gimlet eye of scrutiny. An enduringly popular symbol in our culture is the man on the white horse who comes to clean up the town and purge it of its errant ways. But in the harsh reality of politics, for every selfless Lone Ranger who arrives on his trusty steed and does good, there are many more budding Napoleons who harshly impose their will -- and fall prey to vices they pledged to root out.

Kimberley Strassel takes the press corps to task in "Spitzer's Media Enablers." Disgraceful. But they never seem to learn.

Eliot Spitzer illustrates the special relationship that Democrats have with power.

It is no secret that politics attracts people who seek power. As bank robber Willie Sutton once said, "I rob banks because that's where the money is." Politics is where the power is. But the most obsessively power hungry politicians tend, in my observation, to be Democrats.

Here, in God's providence, we have Hillary Clinton and Eliot Spitzer sharing the stage of history at the same time. Both have been climbing their way to the highest office, destroying whomever it was necessary to destroy along the way, and both are devoted to big government liberalism. It should not surprise anyone that the party that stands for the maximization of government power (albeit within the bounds of constitutional democracy--am I being generous?) is also the party that attracts the most power hungry of political people.

Eliot Spitzer drank deeply of that power and he was intensely aware of his powerful ability to knock people out of his way or cast them under his feet...even people who were very powerful in their own right such as wealthy Wall Street executives and major corporations. His reckless indiscretions and violations of the very laws he aggressively prosecuted others for breaking was an exultation in what he thought (perhaps just felt) was his invincibility.

Bear in mind that this man wanted to be President of the United States. Because of the unhealthy relationship that Democrats have with political power, we need to be especially careful when we consider giving one of them federal executive authority.

In light of the fireworks to which the Democratic Governor of New York has treated us, Hillary Clinton's ferocious bid for the presidency comes naturally to mind. But Barack Obama is no less committed to government control of the economy and of everything that moves. Of course, I have no doubt that he is faithful to his wife. But I am equally certain that he has a reckless disregard for our constitutional understanding of liberty.