The current political season has intensified my love for a country that is revered by some and reviled by others. I can not be convinced, even amid the drumbeat of “change”, that America no longer is a shining city on a hill.

Our nation certainly is not invulnerable to internal conflict, as we learned so painfully in the mid-19th century. It is not immune to catastrophic economic downturns (1930s), or to severe economic bubbles (1907, 2008). It is not always on guard when enemies visit (1941, 2001).

The strength of this union will be tested again on Tuesday on an election day that is historic by any measure.

Sen. Barack Obama’s candidacy for President represents a serious crossroads for the United States. If he is elected, the power Obama will inherit and how he wields it poses a serious, long term threat to the economic and physical security of our nation.

Opposition to Obama has drawn sharp criticism. Predictably, many left wings citizens, and neighbors, assume that concern voiced openly about Obama’s candidacy equates to racism. This illogical leap was, sadly, inevitable.

I am not, to quote comedian Dennis Miller, worried about the color of Obama’s skin. I am worried about the thinness of it. I am not concerned by his blood lines. But I am gravely concerned about Obama’s blood oaths (Ayers, Khalidi, Rezko, Wright, et al).

Some say Obama has turned the race for the White House into American Idol. I fear more his idle, empty social welfare rhetoric, and ideologically cluttered foreign policy vision.

Sen. John McCain prepared to become President of the United States by living, serving and persevering. Sen. Obama prepared by endearing himself to powerful and wealthy mentors, memorizing every page of the Democrat playbook and reciting it to the adoring masses with undeniable eloquence.

Before you vote on Tuesday, and if you are at all undecided, consider the eloquence of commentator Charles Krauthammer, who offers the most concise description of the Obama phenomenon I have read (below). Most of all remember that, while we are strong and resilient as a nation, we are not invulnerable, even to trifling, ambitious, unqualified political candidates.

Krauthammer, August 2008:
“Barack Obama is an immensely talented man whose talents have been largely devoted to crafting, and chronicling, his own life. Not things. Not ideas. Not institutions. But himself.

“Nothing wrong or even terribly odd about that, except that he is laying claim to the job of crafting the coming history of the United States. A leap of such audacity is odd. The air of unease at the Democratic convention ... was not just a result of the Clinton psychodrama. The deeper anxiety was that the party was nominating a man of many gifts but precious few accomplishments – bearing even fewer witnesses.”

By The Conservative Soldier:

So it has come to this: Everyone who is critical, even fearful, of Sen. Barack Hussein Obama is not simply opposing the radical-liberal tsunami that he intends for our country. No, those who shudder at the possibility of Obamarama 2008 are fueling the “silent subtext of race that has been part of the contest since Day One.”

That’s how the current state of affairs is characterized by the vitriolic Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell, who is Obama’s unofficial fan club president in his adopted hometown. I can only imagine Mary has waited her entire lifetime for the opportunity to paint every opponent of a Presidential candidate of color as racist scum. As a columnist for a dying, irrelevant newspaper, daily breaking news on Obama is a windfall for Mary. He gives her a platform upon which to play the political race card and, possibly, an excuse to keep her pathetic little newspaper on the radar, too.

Even as Obama declared Tuesday night that he is the Democratic nominee, history was unfolding, unimpeded by his empty, liberal boilerplate rhetoric. He’d better be careful wishing for change, because change is happening all around him, even faster than Obama’s speechwriting team can possibly type. Or hype.

On the day Obama declared a “defining moment” for America (his candidacy, to be precise), Iran’s little open-collared dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in Rome, attending a UN summit, where he warned (in softer terms than his previous “stinking corpse” description) that “Israel is doomed to go.” Clearly, there are different interpretations out there about when the defining moments will come and what they will mean.

On the day Obama vowed his campaign never will “use religion as a wedge”, his friend Rev. Michael Pfleger was quoted in an interview observing, “This is a dangerous time in America … where you have to whisper your thoughts.” These were his comments after he was blasted by the Chicago Archdiocese for, essentially, using religion as a wedge in a sermon in which he mocked Obama’s opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton, from the pulpit.

Pfleger, an iconoclast for years, was asked to undergo a leave of absence after taking his act into Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, where he was afflicted by the same self-absorption that beleaguered Obama’s former pastor at Trinity, the fashion challenged Jeremiah Wright. He, like Wright, forgot that leading the flock does not include campaigning for causes, or, in Pfleger’s case, the Obama presidential chase.

Pfleger expects us to believe that he never would have gone off on Hillary in a sermon had he known that Trinity’s streaming video technology had been restored just prior to his so-called Memorial Day weekend sermon. It would have been all right, Pfleger implies, to spew his pro-racism venom to a strictly private audience (similar to Obama’s audience in San Francisco, where he assailed the religion and gun clingers). Pfleger was obviously “victimized” by whatever techie fixed the equipment, not by his own arrogance.

And, on the morning of the day Obama declared himself the Democrat nominee (notwithstanding the angered delegates in Florida and Michigan), old mother Mary in her Sun-Times column was blaming “ugly politics” for trampling the sanctity of Trinity Church, and lamenting that “Obama has repeatedly been forced to cut ties with black leaders by people who are exploiting white fears.”

She can lament from now until November. The truth — an I am not whispering here, Father Pfleger — is that Revs. Wright and Pfleger have awakened the nation to the Obama agenda by virtue of their total disregard for the sanctity of worship. God and religion are mere props by which radical liberalism and creeping government encroachment on American life are advanced.

For a majority of Americans, the defining moment sought from Obama will be his willingness to demand the separation of church and hate. Resigning his 20-year membership from Trinity’s “Open Mic Night” stage is a hollow gesture, at best.