How I will vote ...

If you have more than a passing interest in how I will vote on Election Day, then please continue reading...

Although we live in one of the most advanced democracies on this planet, we are still light years away from enjoying the ultimate promise of democracy. How absurd it is that regardless of all the vital issues that affect us individually and collectively, one has to cast either a Republican, Democrat or tentatively Independent vote. To retain my voting integrity, I scrupulously avoid being pandered to and I will never allow myself to be mindlessly hostage to a particular party. At election time, I make every effort to select from the chaff, the single most important issue confronting our nation and I will vote for or against it regardless of how that vote may affect my other personal preferences.

Of transcendent importance to me now, is that we are under relentless physical attack by Islamic Jihadists. But Muslims feel that they too are under unceasing exploitation and predatory attack by us. For more than a thousand years this conflict between East and West has raged. Peaceful coexistence continues to elude us. And now, with weapons of mass destruction becoming universally available, the intensity of this conflict has risen exponentially. Without a serious and mutual effort to reconciliate, our drift into Armageddon, is inevitable.

And now to the vote: Lofted by unfathomable wealth and perversely misdirected by Senator Kennedy, a man often drawn to peripheral pathways, John F. Kerry has become a latter day Pied Piper. Carrying oversized knapsacks bulging with plans, his egotistical certitude preordains him to lure his followers and himself into the waters of Chappaquiddick. What totally eludes him is the tactical wisdom of our current efforts to inoculate Islam, a vast and restless community which has long been in a stage of arrested development, with a vibrantly democratic Afghanistan and Iraq.

But on the other hand, though he is neither a Messiah nor a Moses and by his own admission is not endowed with a scintillating intellect, Bush finds himself securely and energetically mounted on a foaming Trojan Horse. This fiery steed is carrying him and us onto a singular battlefield that actually has a burgeoning opportunity to reconcile Islam and the West. All that really needs doing, in order for everyone to be truly victorious, is to start freeing Islamic women from their bondage. Fate will do the rest. Ergo, my vote for Bush.

Footnote: Had I voted in 1864, I hope I was among those who cast their ballots for Lincoln and the continuance of his efforts to preserve the Union and abolish slavery. I cannot imagine I would have succumbed to the intensive support given to McClellan by the NY Times. Nominated by the Democratic Party, he was committed to negotiate an immediate peace with the South and allow it to retain its institution of slavery. In retrospect, utterly disastrous!