We are almost halfway through the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China. Every four years, the world comes together to compete in the Olympic games. The games are marked by national pride, with every nation’s citizenry cheering on their countrymen to gold. The resurgence of pride in the United States has me wondering about the American pride of certain politicians.

Over the past several years, it has become en vogue to espouse a pessimistic view of the United States of America. We have witnessed high profile politicians go to the floor of the Senate and declare that our own troops have lost the war in Iraq. One congressman charged our troops with the cold-blooded murder of civilians in Iraq. These are just two examples of elected officials taking a very dim view of not only our country but also of the brave men and women who are fighting for the very freedom of speech of these politicians. The charges of murder were proven to be completely unfounded, and the defeat in Iraq turned out to be wishful thinking of a politician looking to turn public opinion against the war.

Before the hate mail goes into full swing, I am not questioning the patriotism of anyone opposing the war in Iraq. I am simply pointing out the pessimistic worldview of many on the left. The liberal elites have opined their depressing view of the U.S. on a variety of issues. They believe that we are engaged in an illegal war of aggression in Iraq, even though Congress approved the military action twice. They believe that we are the sole cause of “global warming”, even though they discount the pollution of China and India. They point to our refusal to sign on to the Kyoto protocols, even though the European countries that did sign on have found the infeasibility of the protocols. They believe that we are using more than our fair share of the world’s resources and that we should all learn to live with less, even though the elites preaching conservation fail to live by their own standards.

The presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama has made some very pessimistic comments over the course of his campaign. He has said that as Americans we need to learn to live on less. He has also said to a 12-year-old questioner that he believes America is not great as it once was. He has gone overseas to criticize the country that has enabled him to climb to the brink of the highest office in the world. I realize that his campaign is based on “hope” and “change”, but why does he feel the need to tear down the greatest country in the world?

I am not saying that the U.S. is without any problems, or that we have not made any mistakes. We are the country everyone else in the world looks to in time of crisis. When the Tsunami hit, the U.S. Navy was on the way immediately with supplies and medical help. The citizenry of the United States is the most charitable in the world. In 2006, American citizens gave nearly $300 billion to charity. That is not the government sending money after a disaster, that is your neighbors giving to help those that are less fortunate. I believe Obama is playing a politically dangerous game. He is running the risk that the voting public will grow tired of being told that they are selfish and uncaring. Ronald Reagan in contrast to Obama ran on optimism. He genuinely believed that the United States had unlimited potential because of the citizens. He constantly spoke of how great the U.S. was and how much greater we could be. I believe we are still the greatest country in the world and have the potential to go even higher if the government and it’s pessimistic politicians just stay out of our way.

As I watched the Opening Ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, I was reminded of the countless practice and training of the athletes for this one moment in time. The Olympic participants are the best in their particular sports from their native countries. They have sacrificed much to reach their full potential. Probably because I have a slightly warped mentality, I found myself making a correlation to politics, and to the current presidential race.

An inspection of Senator Barack Obama’s political biography provides a glaring lack of practice or training. Mind you politics does not generally require the years of sacrifice and rigorous training that preparing for the Olympic games demands, but it odes require some preparation. The past few weeks have highlighted Obama’s extreme lack of experience and shown hints of his socialist leanings.

Senator Obama suggested that by simply having all of us inflate the tires on our cars and have them tuned up, we could save all of the oil that we would get by drilling. First of all, from where did he conjure the numbers? As I walked to my car this week through a parking lot, I didn’t see hundreds of cars with flat tires, I saw hundreds of cars with inflated tires. I realize that some of these cars may have tires that need a pound or two of air, but that would not equal the amount of fuel savings that Obama is promising. In order to buy into Obama’s fantasy, one must assume that the vast majority of the automobiles in the United States are driving around on flat tires. Even then, that would not equal all of the oil in ANWR, or the oil on the outer continental shelf. It appears that once again, Mr. Obama is not aware that his words are heard and can and will be verified.

Another pillar of the presumptive Democratic nominee’s energy policy is to create a “windfall profit tax” for the oil companies. He would then use the money from the new tax to give every family in the United States a $1000 check. The idea of a “windfall profit tax” is not a new concept. Actually it was tried once before by the economic geniuses of the Carter administration in the late 1970’s. Does Obama believe that a failed policy from 30 years ago will have a different outcome? One other note on his proposal, the latest round of economic stimulus checks that most of us received over the past few months cost those of us who actually pay taxes $159 billion. How mush profit does Obama believe that the oil companies are making? The last time I checked it was nowhere near even $100 billion. His proposal is pure and simple socialism. It is a redistribution of wealth plan in his usual flowery rhetoric. His proposal, if it ever came to fruition, would create an even greater energy crisis, and more than likely see the oil companies either pass along the tax to the consumers, or change their business structures to avoid the tax altogether.

Obama was recently asked, by a twelve year old, why he was running for President. After stumbling for words, which he is prone to do when not reading from a teleprompter, he began to explain that the United States is not as great of a country that we once were. Mr. Obama’s handlers need to explain to him that most Americans are patriotic and do not like being told that our country is not the greatest country in the world. We realize that we have room to improve, but we are the freest and greatest country on the face of the earth. Of course, when you consider whom the Obamas have called friends over the years, you begin to understand why they are not proud to be Americans.

Barack Obama has a very thin political resume and his inexperience is beginning to show. It is becoming increasingly evident that his campaign and his surrogates are ready and willing to throw the race card whenever they believe it will benefit them politically. For all of the rhetoric about Republicans being the racist party, it was the Clinton campaign that started with the race issue and the Obama campaign has just continued to use it. I guess it is easier to distract with race than to allow any type of real discussion of Obama’s outlandish and foolish proposals.

Is it a negative ad strategy if he is simply using the praise given him by Democrats like Barack Obama, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton? Some are claiming that he is using this ad to keep Obama’s message from getting out, though I am still trying to figure out what that message is. Wall Street Journal has an opinion here.

Obama did recently claim that he was open to drilling as part of an energy plan. But his actual plan seems to leave this out. It also leaves out nuclear energy, but uses tax dollars to subsidize alternatives that have not proven to be effective.

Politicians are mostly stupid, and they are mostly slimy. And there is no better example of this than the current Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

The belief of a lot of pundits both on the left and the right is that the Democrats can take the White House and increase their Congressional numbers due to the downturn in the economy that was caused by the credit crises. The economy is the number one issue that many Americans are looking at this election year when they cast their votes, as so many have in fact forgotten that we are fighting a war on terror. When things are going well, we don’t think about them, which is why there is little news coming from Iraq. Other pundits have theorized that the bad economy is a good thing for Democrats because Americans blame most of their problems on the President and his party. Some have even claimed that the Democrats are getting in the way of economic relief so that more blame will be assigned to the President and to Republicans.

Well, it seems that something started happening recently that hasn’t happened in a very long time. The Republicans in Congress starting acting like leaders. I know what you are thinking. “This can’t be happening. If only they had done this years ago.” Anyways, nearly 100 Republican members of Congress have gone back to Washington to demand a vote on the energy bill, a bill that is opposed by Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi decided that with gas prices sitting at four bucks a gallon, it was a good time to take a five week vacation. So Republicans decided to stay at the office and discuss the issue and continue to demand that Pelosi call Congress back for a vote. They have been giving speeches and have been personally escorting people into the chambers. They are doing all of this without microphones or cameras because Pelosi had everything shut off.

Before the protests had ever begun, Republicans starting making public the fact that opposition from Democrats is largely responsible for the high price of oil. This is in fact a supply and demand issue and has little to do with speculators. And it appears that the American people are starting to catch on to this. According to Rasmussen Reports, voters trust McCain on energy issues over Obama by a 46% to 42% margin. Only 33% of American voters believe Al Gore’s proposal to switch all of the nation’s electricity production to wind, solar and other carbon-free sources in 10 years is realistic. And more than two-thirds of voters want to allow offshore drilling.

These polls aren’t being ignored completely by Congress. It seems that Nancy Pelosi is secretly encouraging at risk Democrats to express their independence if it helps them politically. She may be stupid, but she is also slimy, and she wants to take more seats this year, instead of losing them over this issue. She is encouraging this despite her well publicized opposition. She swears up and down that drilling won’t help, but she thinks that releasing the oil reserves will help. Please note that she is talking about 3 days supply.

Obama appears to be reading the poll numbers too and recently said he could support off-shore drilling. He said this despite his recent opposition and his current ads attacking John McCain over energy issues.

Can the Republicans in fact have a large victory this year over the Democrats opposition to drilling? If you add this to the fact that a majority now see us winning the war on terror, you start to have an affect on the voters that could swing things towards the right. History tells us that the American voters will blame their woes on the Republican party because of President Bush. But Republicans have a chance here to show who is really causing the problems in this country if they market this issue properly.

I guess we will see this November.

This video shows Nancy Pelosi unable to answer simple questions regarding the vote.