What a black columnist has to say about Obama...

Ken Blackwell - Columnist for the New York Sun

"It's an amazing time to be alive in America. We're in a year of firsts in this
presidential election: the first viable woman candidate; the first viable African-American
candidate; and, a candidate who is the first front running freedom fighter over 70. The next
president of America will be a first.

We won't truly be in an election of firsts, however, until we judge every candidate by
&n bsp; where they stand. We won't arrive where we should be until we no longer talk about skin color or
gender. Now that Barack Obama steps to the front of the Democratic field, we need to stop
talking about his race, and start talking about his policies and his politics.

The reality is this: Though the Democrats will not have a nominee until August, unless
Hillary Clinton drops out, Mr. Obama is now the frontrunner, and its time America takes a closer
and deeper look at him.

Some pundits are calling him the next John F. Kennedy. He's not. He's the next George
McGovern. And it's time people learned the facts. Because the truth is that Mr. Obama is
the single most liberal senator in the entire U.S. Senate. He is more liberal than Ted Kennedy,
Bernie Sanders, or Mrs. Clinton. Never in my life have I seen a presidential frontrunner whose
rhetoric is so far removed from his record. Walter Mondale promised to raise our taxes, and he lost.
George McGovern promised military weakness, and he lost. Michael Dukakis promised a liberal
domestic agenda, and he lost.

Yet Mr. Obama is promising all those things, and he's not behind in the polls. Why?
Because the press has dealt with him as if he were in a beauty pageant.
Mr. Obama talks about getting past party, getting past red and blue, to lead the United States of
America. But let's look at the more defined strokes of who he is underneath this superficial "beauty."

Start with national security, since the President's most important duties are as commander-in-chief.
Over the summer, Mr. Obama talked about invading Pakistan, a nation armed with nuclear weapons;
meeting without preconditions with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who vows to destroy Israel and
create another Holocaust; and Kim Jong II, who is murdering and starving his people, but emphasized
that the nuclear option was off the table against terrorists - something no president has ever taken
off the table since we created nuclear weapons in the 1940s. Even Democrats who have worked in
national security condemned all of those remarks. Mr. Obama is a foreign-policy novice who would
put our national security at risk.

Next, consider economic policy. For all its faults, our health care system is the strongest in the world.
And free trade agreements, created by Bill Clinton as well as President Bush, have made more goods
more affordable so that even people of modest means can live a life that no one imagined a
generation ago. Yet Mr. Obama promises to raise taxes on "the rich." How to fix Social Security?
Raise taxes. How to fix Medicare? Raise taxes. Prescription drugs? Raise taxes. Free college?
Raise taxes. Socialize medicine? Raise taxes. His solution to everything is to have government take it
over. Big Brother on steroids, funded by your paycheck.

Finally, look at the social issues. Mr. Obama had the audacity to open a stadium rally by saying,
"All praise and glory to God!" but says that Christian leaders speaking for life and marriage
have "hijacked" Christianity. He is pro-partial birth abortion, and promises to appoint Supreme Court
justices who will rule any restriction on it unconstitutional. He espouses the abortion views of
Margaret Sanger, one of the early advocates of racial cleansing. His spiritual leaders endorse
homosexual marriage, and he is moving in that direction. In Illinois, he refused to vote against
a statewide ban - ban - on all handguns in the state. These are radical left, Hollywood, and
San Francisco values, not Middle America values.

The real Mr. Obama is an easy target for the general election. Mrs. Clinton is a far tougher
opponent. But Mr. Obama could win if people don't start looking behind his veneer and flowery
speeches. His vision of "bringing America together" means saying that those who disagree with his
agenda for America are hijackers or warmongers. Uniting the country means adopting his liberal
agenda and abandoning any conflicting beliefs.

But right now everyone is talking about how eloquent of a speaker he is and - yes - they're
talking about his race. Those should never be the factors on which we base our choice for president.
Mr. Obama's radical agenda sets him far outside the American mainstream, to the left of Mrs. Clinton.

It's time to talk about the real Barack Obama. In an election of firsts, let's first make sure we elect
the person who is qualified to be our president in a nuclear age during a global civilizational war."