Author: Charley Reese

Here are some things Americans should consider before deciding for whom they will vote in November: You are not going to sleep with the president, become his best buddy, or be his favorite pen pal. Therefore, you do not have to vote for someone you think is likable or handsome or charming.

Statesmen, in fact, are often not likable, as they often have to make unpopular decisions. And America needs a statesman in the White House, because the years ahead are full of dangers, both from human sources and from environmental stresses. It is also impossible to think seriously and smile at the same time. I have always distrusted people who smile perpetually.

America, like any other nation or empire, has the potential to self-destruct. Nations and empires self-destruct when their leaders make a series of bad decisions. If you visit Great Britain, France, or Spain today, you would never know from their present state that they were once world powers. There is not one single example in world history where any empire ever sustained itself indefinitely.

Leaders make wrong decisions when they are shallow-minded, uninterested in the affairs of state, and ignorant of the world outside their borders. They make wrong decisions when they depend on advisers who are driven by ideology. An ideologue is by definition a person out of touch with reality. Reality is always fluid, complex, and changing from moment to moment. The rigid thinking of an ideologue inevitably loses a clash with reality.

So remember, when it comes to choosing a president, you’re not choosing a date, a fishing buddy, or someone to spend your vacation with. You will be choosing someone who hopefully will have the brains to keep this country from joining so many others in the ash heap of history.

Now, let’s look at how people can make a mockery of democracy.

You make a mockery of self-government when you choose your candidate strictly on the basis of the party label. Political parties in our country are not based on philosophy. They are merely machines for electing candidates and distributing patronage. The truth is that sometimes the best choice is a Republican; sometimes, a Democrat.

You make a mockery of self-government when you vote purely on the basis of your selfish interests. Many Americans make a religion of selfishness, but for self-government to work and to endure, we must all think of the common interests when it comes to choosing the people who will run the government.

You make a mockery of self-government if you allow demagogues to influence your vote on the basis of phony issues. The real threats facing the United States are not homosexual marriages or legal abortions. If you allow people to persuade you to cast your vote based on those two issues, you are wasting your vote, because I guarantee that the politicians, regardless of what they say now, will not do anything about either one of them. These are scarlet fish.

Finally, you are making a mockery of self-government if you allow your vote to be influenced by concerns for a foreign country. And yes, I’m directing this to the Israel-first crowd, both Jew and Christian. The election in November is for the president of the United States, not the deputy prime minister of Israel. We need a president who will make his decisions based on the best interests of the United States, not those of Israel (or France, or Japan, or any other country).

When one of our revolutionary forefathers said the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, he meant that liberty is always at risk. It can only be preserved if a sufficient number of Americans care about it enough to take a serious approach to choosing their leaders.

Charlie Reese writes for King Features Syndicate.

I confess. I’m not sure if President Bush lied or is just confused when he said in a recent speech that “full sovereignty” was to be handed over to an Iraqi government on June 30th.

Full sovereignty would mean that the Iraqi government could tell us to get out of the country, and we would have to either go or go to war against the new government. Full sovereignty would mean, as the British said, that the Iraqi government could veto any decision by the U.S. military commander.

It’s obvious that the president doesn’t intend for the new government to have that much authority. His draft of a United Nations resolution makes that quite clear. So, was he lying, or does he just not know what full sovereignty means?

In another part of his speech, one has to say that he told a deliberate fib. He said that the American embassy in Baghdad would operate like any other embassy. No, it will not. The embassy in Baghdad will have 1,000 employees. No embassy in any country in the world has that many employees, I venture to say.

Despite the president’s words, what is clearly contemplated is a continuation of American occupation under another name. It’s hard to reconcile the president’s statements with the statements of several military men who have spoken of U.S. forces being in Iraq for as long as 10 years, let alone an embassy with 1,000 employees.

So the question remains: Is Bush the most deceptive president in recent decades, or is he some incredibly naive empty suit who reads without understanding whatever words someone puts on his teleprompter? I don’t know. He’s certainly not stupid in the medical sense, but he does appear to be dangerously undereducated and lacking in curiosity.

To watch Bush’s speech, you would never dream that 800 Americans have been killed and nearly 4,000 wounded and that attacks against coalition forces continue at the rate of 50 per day. Nor would you guess that polls show that a majority of Iraqis want us out of their country now. One fellow has quoted an Army captain just back from Iraq as saying he met only two kinds of Iraqis: those who hated Americans and those who wanted Americans to get out of the country.

The president also misrepresented the situation in Fallujah. He called it a decision to share responsibility for security. Well, the Iraqi forces that “share” responsibility have not turned over any weapons or any members of the resistance, both of which we once demanded.

The oddest thing about his speech was that he had not the foggiest idea who will be in this new government he spoke so glowingly about. The people are being chosen by a United Nations official, but he apparently has not yet come up with a full list of names. The president certainly has high expectations for people who are entirely unknown to him. Either he knows they will have no choice but to do what he wants them to do, or he is in for a big surprise, and for George Bush, this whole Iraqi venture has been nothing but one unpleasant surprise after another: no weapons of mass destruction, no welcome, no links to al-Qaeda, but instead heavy resistance, a $200 billion bill, huge delays in reconstruction, high casualties, and falling approval ratings.

Never fear, though, for our president has not made a single mistake. We have his word on it. He is apparently one of those people who believe that they have merely to say something and it becomes true. Most people with such a disconnect from reality end up in houses other than the one at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. n

Charley Reese writes for the Orlando Sentinel and King Features Syndicate.