Where is our country headed?

(1) William J. Bennett & Seth Leibsohn, "10 Concerns about Barack Obama" (National Review, June 24, 2008):

1. Barack Obama’s foreign policy is dangerous, naïve, and betrays a profound misreading of history.
2. Barack Obama’s Iraq policy will hand al-Qaeda a victory and undercut our entire position in the Middle East, while at the same time put a huge source of oil in the hands of terrorists.
3. Barack Obama has sent mixed, confusing, and inconsistent messages on his policy toward Israel.
4. In the primary campaign, Barack Obama consistently campaigned against NAFTA, but has now changed his tune, as he has with other issues.
5. Barack Obama’s judgment about personal and professional affiliations is more than troubling.
6. Obama is simply out of step with how terrorists should be handled; he would turn back the clock on how we fight terrorism, using the failed strategy of the 1990s as opposed to the post-9/11 strategy that has kept us safe.
7. Barack Obama’s economic policies would hurt the economy.
8. Barack Obama opposes drilling on and offshore to reduce gas and oil prices.
9. Barack Obama is to the left of Hillary Clinton and NARAL on the issue of life.
10. Barack Obama is actually to the left of every member of the U.S. Senate.

(2) Thomas Sowell, "An Old Newness" (Townhall.com, April 29, 2008):

... There is no reason why someone as arrogant, foolishly clever and ultimately dangerous as Barack Obama should become president -- especially not at a time when the threat of international terrorists with nuclear weapons looms over 300 million Americans.

Many people seem to regard elections as occasions for venting emotions, like cheering for your favorite team or choosing a Homecoming Queen.

The three leading candidates for their party's nomination are being discussed in terms of their demographics -- race, sex and age -- as if that is what the job is about.

One of the painful aspects of studying great catastrophes of the past is discovering how many times people were preoccupied with trivialities when they were teetering on the edge of doom.

... Protecting criminals, attacking business, increasing government spending, promoting a sense of envy and grievance, raising taxes on people who are productive and subsidizing those who are not -- all this is a re-run of the 1960s.

We paid a terrible price for such 1960s notions in the years that followed, in the form of soaring crime rates, double-digit inflation and double-digit unemployment. During the 1960s, ghettoes across the countries were ravaged by riots from which many have not fully recovered to this day.

... Internationally, the approach that Senator Obama proposes -- including the media magic of meetings between heads of state -- was tried during the 1930s. That approach, in the name of peace, is what led to the most catastrophic war in human history.

Everything seems new to those too young to remember the old and too ignorant of history to have heard about it.

[Hat tip to E.E. and Carolyn Binder-Scapone]