Belief in an unknown quantity is generally fatal and that is exactly what Barack Obama wants of us.  

Recently the subject of a radio talk show I enjoy turned to the subject of whether the press was attempting to suppress conservative voting by promoting the belief that the election was effectively over before Election Day; that the democratic candidate had amassed such a lead that his victory was a foregone conclusion.   The idea was to make such a convincing case that conservatives would believe it, give up on voting and thereby assure a victory that was not certain for either party.  Beliefs are important, in that if we take them seriously enough they become reality in our minds and affect how we think and act.  

Years ago when I spent a brief time as a volleyball coach one of the first lessons I tried to teach the team was that if they believed that they could not win, they had already lost.  What they believed became reality.  I had wanted them to develop what Col. Robert L. Scott called a “chip of invincibility.”  As a fighter pilot in World War II, Col. Scott knew that this kind of faith or belief in oneself was a necessary part of success.  His belief became reality when he was never shot down in combat. 

I expect that John McCain, as a Navy pilot had a similar philosophy when he was in combat, and is putting it to work now, although very late in the game.  He is right to do so, because the battle he is fighting right now is one based solely on the power of belief; it is a matter of whether or not a majority of Americans will believe that he will do a better job of managing the nation’s business for the next 4 years than the junior Senator from Illinois; an untried and inexperienced individual who has, as previously documented, stated that "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views . . ." .  Thus, he is depending on people to believe something about him that may not be true, or even realistic.   Belief of this kind is extremely dangerous.  Just ask those who believed Adolph Hitler would be a positive force for Germany in 1933. 

The primary reason why Senator Obama can project himself as this “blank screen” is largely because a he has kept his past hidden and a significant portion of the media has been running interference for him, allowing the screen to remain blank.  They have also ignored the shifting sands on which he has built the case for himself.  They pay no attention to how he changes his position whenever he wishes in order to make people believe that he is one of them, even to the extent of taking diametrically opposite positions, as he did on the status of Jerusalem. 

The matter of Jerusalem and the State of Israel is important one here, as many Jews tend to identify with liberal politics.  Some regard evangelical Christians as dangerous, including Governor Sarah Palin.  This flies in the face of Governor Palin’s true beliefs and here support of the Alaskan Jewish community.  We should recall that she was criticized by some media figures for wearing an Israeli flag pin and having a miniature Israeli flag in her office.  Evangelicals are the best friends Jews have in the United States today, largely because they truly understand the intimate connection between Christians and Jews; that Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew.  A belief that Christians are their enemies could be fatal for all that the Jewish community desires, yet, it is possible that many do not know this.  If they allow beliefs to cloud their awareness of facts, then they fall into the same trap as those who believe the media contrived image of John McCain as a clone of George W. Bush. 

Meanwhile, the most important belief that has been assiduously cultivated by Obama supporters is that he is a “unifier” who can bring together all social classes, cultures and backgrounds into a conglomerate where everyone gets along as just as Rodney King wanted.  Obama is, if anything exactly the opposite.  His anti-business, high tax economic policies are decidedly the product of a class-warfare mentality.  He has no intention of bringing economic classes together because he needs to pit the “poor” against the “rich” in order to buy votes with his welfare programs.  His mentor Frank Marshall Davis was a Communist, which, no doubt influenced the Senator’s decision to associate with Communist professors in college, which he admits in “Dreams From My Father.”  What Senator Obama has not dared to admit is his likely intent to tax anyone making over $100,000 per year, probably because he considers them too wealthy, regardless of the other factors that may impact their lives and economic circumstances. 

In the same manner, his 20 year sojourn with Jeremiah Wright’s church in Chicago betrays an attitude devoid of racial or cultural reconciliation.  Instead it points to an ideology of racial division and animosity.   The causes to which he directed money from the Woods Foundation and Annenberg Chicago Challenge illustrate this aw well.  The speeches made by his wife show her slant in the same direction.  Yet, somehow many people have failed to connect the dots.  It appears that they see what they want to see, rather than the reality that stares them in the face.  They blindly accept the assertion that the present state of affairs is the result of “eight years of failed economic policy” when the reality is quite different.  Declaring war on George W. Bush pays off because enough people want to believe that he is at fault.  The fact is that President Bush’s greatest failing was probably the lack of good public relations, but that is another story. 

The reason why the volleyball team I coached did not succeed as well as it should have was that it would not believe in itself.  If the American public no longer believes in itself and is willing to sacrifice reality for an ethereal promise made by a narcissistic, power hungry idealist who is willing to sacrifice them and the nation on the altar of his personal ambition then they are guilty of serious ignorance and perhaps dedication to a failed ideology. 

The trouble with beliefs that are based on faith in an imperfect human, interested in self-promotion and not in what happens to his followers, is that the believer is doomed to disappointment.  If we are unfortunate enough to elect a President whose candidacy is based on faith in an ability to transcend reality, then God help us.  It is likely that no one else will.