By now, most political junkies have probably already heard it. The "it" to which I refer is Joe Biden's warning at a Seattle fundraiser Sunday:

"Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

Actually, it is very hard to disagree with the Democratic veep nominee. But what he said--even if entirely true--does seem a bit impolitic. After all, why should we wish to elect a person as president whom our enemies do not take seriously? Nikita Khruschev thought he could steamroll the young JFK, after the latter became president in 1961; so the Berlin Wall was promptly erected, and missiles were installed in the Soviet Union's cat's paw, Cuba, just about 80 miles off the Florida coast.

I'm not really convinced that this remark by Sen. Biden was helpful to the Democratic ticket.

Well Biden has a long career of not saying the politically helpful thing, being more apt to say the honest thing.

Because We do not let our enemies dictate to us. I do not let their wishes influence to my vote.

Alqueada is always more likely to attack shortly after an election. And to allow this plan of theirs to succeed, would be treasones.

Now I do however look to our alies and what they think of a candadate. Weather it be Obama or McCain, this will bring world attention It would serve us to garner more positive attention then negative. And our friends have spoken.

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True enough, we should not "let our enemies dictate to us." But if they prefer Candidate X over Candidate Y, it might behoove us to inquire as to why; and if, perhaps, Candidate Y might be sterner in his opposition to our enemies (which I view as an inherently good thing).

I do not look to our allies (a word that seems like more of a stretch with each passing month) than I do to our enemies, in coming to such a decision. In any event, I would certainly not want our Commander-in-Chief to take counsel from the Euro-pacifists, in matters of foreign affairs.

And that is as much our fault as it is theirs. We do what we want and when we want the rest of the world be damned. And then demand they answer to us. And that cowboy attitude for the past 8 years has deepened the divide as much as anything they have done.

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He's trying to make Obama look like he's JFK and he's implying that, just like JFK, Obama will pass whatever test the world throws at him. It's all part of that whole messiah complex thing they and the media have going with Obama.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Make up your mind: do you let foreign opinion (which means nothing anyway) influence your opinion or not (since you said you look to our allies)?

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

A couple of points are in order here:

(1) I am not a pragmatist, but a believer in hard-and-fast, neutral principles; and there is no principle that I cherish more dearly than the principle of national sovereignty. (The principles of freedom and liberty are equally important to me; but no more so.)

Yet by insisting that the US should ask permission from its allies before acting in its own interests, one is suggesting that the principle of national sovereignty should be compromised. And I disagree. Strongly.

(2) It is not a "cowboy attitude" that has "deepened the divide" between the US and continental Europe in recent times. Rather, it is the pacifist leanings of today's Europe--both its leaders and its citizens--that has caused this divide.

One may debate whether this is because of Europe's experiences in the first half of the twentieth century (two very bloody world wars), or because of many Europeans' silly view that war is an anachronism that can be replaced with rational discourse, or both. It really doesn't matter.

On this point, I very much agree with the thoughts of John Stuart Mill:

"War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. ...A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other."

It almost seems as though Mill were projecting ahead, and commenting upon the decadant state of twenty-first-century Europe.

And immediately vote for the other guy.


Since I'd like to see the US stop interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, I think it's appropriate to entirely ignore the opinion of other countries with regard to who we should elect.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Well, hey, that's what happens when you put your trust in Democrats and Republicans.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Ah but we had a hugely higher favorable rating when Clinton was in office. He worked with our allies. Instead of ordering them around and acting like a angrey hurt child and lashing out.

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