Why I Support John McCain

--(Hiatus: Please note due to the holiday, the blog will be going on Hiatus until Tuesday night)--

Every generation faces its test. Every century faces its challenge and every decade faces its moment of decision. 9/11 was our test. Islamic terrorism is our challenge and this coming election will be the moment of decision for the close of this decade.

Make no mistake about it, we're in a fight and the enemy isn't only over there, they're over here too. They're not just the Saudi students here taking flight lessons, they're the government bureaucrats who let them through the door, the ACLU lawyers who defend them and the entire liberal culture that says we must atone for our arrogance by bowing to our enemies. The entire Obama candidacy is their great bow, their surrender and if we allow it, ours as well.

I wish I could tell you that there is one man who will fight for us no matter what. I could tell you that but it would be a lie. John McCain is not the perfect candidate or the perfect man. Many of his policies will be destructive and their price will be paid for decades to come. Make no mistake about that either.

But the final mistake to make is to pretend that there is any equivalence between McCain and Obama. Because there is none. One is a good man who supports bad policies and the other is a bad man who supports the enemy. In a fight you can't always choose the hero, the knight in shining armor, the perfect man-- sometimes you just have to choose the scarred old pro who may not be clean but who's still on our side.

For those who care about America, there is no way in which McCain is a worse candidate than Obama or Obama is a better candidate than McCain. The only voices to the contrary come from the cynical counsel of conservative commentators who think that an Obama presidency will bring long term gains for short term losses. The village must be destroyed to save it. I think we can look across the Atlantic and see no shortage of destroyed villages and none that were saved.

We are at war now. Beneath the tip of the visible war of bombs and shells, of bullets and shrapnel, is the great silent war in our streets and our cities, the mutter of a rising enemy horde that has swept across Europe and is coming here. We may mistake the folly of Chamberlain for wisdom, sip our beer and be certain in the wisdom of our hearts that the same destructive force that has put Europe on a path to oblivion in a mere generation will not trouble us here. Not even when we elect one of their own to our nation's highest office while he surrounds himself with the men who will give free rein to the worst political impulses of our country.

But the war is already here. It is mostly silent. A stealthy plot uncovered here. A rape there. A burned synagogue. A vandalized memorial. When it is noisy it is with the noise of rhetoric, university courses, talk shows, magazine articles and talking heads, simultaneously softening us up and lulling us to sleep. The money pours in, investments in American companies, endowments for universities, chains, companies, colleges, links being forged that will one day become chains.

The enemy is afraid of our culture but it has also learned that it can be subverted, that the same media that broadcasts our culture to their shores, will also broadcast their agenda to ours and take it on as their own. They have learned how to masquerade as us, to wear not only our clothes but the false masks of friendliness, to relate to us, to chat us up, to make their way up the ladders of power.

There is still one thing they fear from us, force. That is why they have done their best to lull us to sleep, to make us feel guilty and ashamed for our strengths and to treat submission to them as a moral reckoning. They no longer fear our culture as they once did, but they fear our soldiers. They fear the waking of the sleeping giant. They fear Americans who are without guilt, who know how to fight and will defend their country. They fear John McCain.

Obama's supporters say that John McCain has a temper. And he does. Where Obama smiles with incessant artificiality, McCain grins with good humor and beneath that surface there are storms. Obama's supporters tell us that with him in office, the world will have nothing to worry about. They even think that's a good thing. I disagree. It's much better to have a man in the big seat that our enemies are afraid of and whose actions they can't predict. Obama has put all his cards and our cards on the table. Negotiations. Negotiations and more impotent negotiations. For all his speeches, McCain has no cards on the table, just that same grin, waiting for Putin, Ahmadinejad or anyone else who comes. For Obama enemies are political. For McCain they're global.

I would very much like a President whom our enemies are afraid of, not one whose election is their fondest dream. That is why I support a man who has often been wrong, bullheaded, misguided and even destructive, but who has refused to give up fighting for America since 1967. That is why I support John McCain.

I won't pretend that McCain is a perfect candidate or that in many ways his policies won't represent a step back from even the Bush Administration. But we don't have perfect candidates. We never do.

I take issue with much that the police department does, but I will always support them against the junkies, the drug dealers, the murderers and the rapists.

I take issue with much that the military does, but I will always support them against the terrorists and the other enemies out there.

I take issue with much that the free world does these days but I will always support the nations of the free world against the dark tide rushing against their shores and ours.

I take issue with much that McCain does, but I support him against Barack Hussein Obama. And you should too.