WHAT DO YOU WANT FIRST? THE GOOD NEWS OR THE BAD NEWS?

The week has been replete with catch-22 stories that have a good side and a bad side.

Good News: Sen Roland Burris (D-IL), who promised fundraising favors in exchange for being appointed to Barack Obama's vacated U.S. Senate seat by now-indicted and impeached former Democrat Gov. Rod Blagojevich, has publicly said he will not seek re-election.

Bad News: Roland Burris is actually still a United States Senator.

Bad News: There will apparently be a protracted and bitter custody battle between Michael Jackson's surviving blood relatives and his ex-wife for custody of the suspected pedophile's three children.

Good News: Michael Jackson himself won't have custody.

Bad News: President Barack Obama was allegedly caught in the act of ogling the backside of a 16-year-old Brazilian girl as French President Nicolas Sarkozy leered on approvingly.

Good News: The President is not gay.

Bad News: The Dow Jones average has fallen for the last four weeks.

Good Worse News: There's a new stimulus plan being discussed at the White House.

WHAT A CONSERVATIVE CAN LIKE ABOUT BARACK OBAMA

If you are a frequent visitor to this space, then you know how I feel about President Barack Obama and his policies, judgement and life philosophy. If you're new here, you won't have to go back too many entries to obtain this knowledge.

But today will be different.

I firmly believe that there is something about even our most diametric enemy that we can find admirable. Satan himself is resourceful and perseverant.

On that note, and with the appropos nature of the analogy properly cemented in context, I offer three things for conservatives - and, by extension, all Americans - to admire about President Barack Obama.

1). Education. If you accept Barack Obama's claim of being an African-American, then this is huge. A student from a low-level undergraduate program gains acceptance to the prestigious Harvard Law School and becomes editor of the Harvard Law Review. We can quibble over the role of affirmative action in Obama's selection or the actual value of a Hardvard education. But, at the end of the day, at least the kid had the intent of reaching high and bettering himself. This is something praiseworthy and that hopefully will motivate other young black American men to attain.

Or, in other words . . . (Warning! Offensive language! F-bomb, plus milder extras! Scroll to the bottom of the page to stop the music player before watching the video.)

2). Marital fidelity. It is clear thus far in Obama's existence that he places tremendous personal value (and, by extension, probably political value too) on his relationship with his wife. Michelle is likely more than a political asset for the President . . . although, she is surely that. Regardless, given the track record of the most recent member of Obama's party to inhabit the White House, it is a matter of no small merit that he has been - thus far - able to resist the Hart/Clinton/Sanford/Ensign/etc. curse of infidelity.

3). Articulate. Here's where I get called a racist (like you liberals didn't hop on that boxcar back at "Education"). Barack Obama is capable of speaking proper English. He does not use the would "axe" in place of "ask". He does not inquire "Esscooze me?" Obama, perhaps because of his upper-middle class white background, perhaps because of his Harvard education, or perhaps because he simply doesn't want to sound like an idiot when he opens his mouth, speaks well. And, as a man of letters and a lover of the English language, I admire that about him. He can transition to common street language, if necessary - but he does not allow it to define his rhetoric or content.

OAS MEMBERS ON HONDURAS

"Birds of a Feather"

About the cartoonist: Michael Ramirez is a forty-something, Pulitzer Prize and Mencken Award-winning cartoonist. He intended to become a doctor, as did his two brothers and two sisters. Instead, he became an editorial cartoonist. Think of him this way: Instead of slicing and dicing you, he slices and dices the public figures and issues of our time, for you.

THE LAST OF THE INDEPENDENCE DAYS

Independence Day is this weekend. I will be at a the home of church friend's celebrating the baptism of one of our newest members. I had planned to attend our local Brevard Tea Party event, but I was informed that this baptism is more important.

In the process of discussion, I concluded that while the idea of the United States of America is timeless, it is very likely that she is in the final days of her current geopolitical form.

The elements that made America timeless were the same things that make all spiritual endeavours eternal. When someone embarks upon a particular task, the resource and dedication to that task will have tremendous bearing upon its success or failure.

It is fashionable today to deny most of the fundamental truths about the United States of America, her government and her history. The nation was founded by men committed to Judeo-Christian theology and the freedom it offers to all men. Its government was structured upon models found in The Bible. And its earliest laws were a direct reflection of their belief in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

On July 4, 1776, the first Independence Day, future president John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail, "This day ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty."

Over 60 years later, Adams' son and former president John Quincy Adams spoke at an Independence Day celebration in Newbury, Massachusetts.

"Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day? Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior. That it forms a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity?"

- John Quincy Adams, 1837

The United States of America began its descent into irrelevance - and ultimately into its own balkanization - when it abandoned its debt to God. It is true that the United States was a Christian nation. History and documentation clearly bear this truth out repeatedly and indisputably. But the evil hearts of men acknowledge no truth . . . nor Truth. Like petulant toddlers who have not learned the limits of their own self-importance, such men find no shame in arguing the inarguable.

But what something was and what something is are often irreconcilable through the pathway of time and decision.

Today, Americans sue one another to have Christian symbols removed from public view, let alone government buildings. We make laws for our citizens to live by that violate the basic Judeo-Christian ideals that were formative to our republic. Our arrogance even seeks to bar the mention of the name "Christ" from our public schools, even as those same schools force children to accept homosexuality as normative behavior.

Finally, and most devastatingly, we no longer consider ourselves Americans. Unlike our Founding Fathers, who were defined solely by the term "American" itself, in large part due to their knowledge that they were either condemned or free men because of it, we have added hyphens to ourselves.

Irish-American. African-American. LGBT-American. Arab-American. This practice shackles our humanity to a part of ourselves that we do not share with our national brothers and sisters and creates barriers to unity.

Our Founding Fathers sacrificed their false identities of national and personal culture in order to design, build and defend a brand new culture. It was only their spiritual culture, their Christian faith, that they retained to define their new hope and their new selves. And America, for many decades, thrived and prospered for the committment of her people to the new culture.

Now, on the eve of our national collapse, I will celebrate Independence Day as I would mourn for a Christian friend gone to our mutual Home - with joy for what they accomplished and with sadness for my own loss. I'll enjoy the fireworks and comraderie as one of the last parties before the Great Tribulation.

Ironically, I think the Founding Father who best voiced my sentiments was one whom the liars and the deceived often claim to have been an atheist. Thomas Jefferson may not have been an orthodox Christian, but like me, he lived in mortal fear of the consequences to an America that had betrayed the favor and grace of the Almighty.

"God who gave us life, gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?"

- Thomas Jefferson, 1781

Jefferson's prescient worry is born out in our own day.

"Indeed," mourned the great and future president, "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever.”

I tremble too, Mr. President. Very much..

I WISH AMERICANS WERE AS BRAVE AND HUMANE AS HONDURANS

In 2005, the Honduran people freely elected socialist Manuel Zelaya to a single four-year term as president of their nation.

Last week, just six months short of the expiration of his legal term, Zelaya attempted to hold a national referendum to eliminate the restrictions on his presidency by getting rid of term limits.

In response, the Honduran army - acting upon a vote by the Honduran Congress and a ruling and directive from the Supreme Court of Honduras - politely woke him from bed early Sunday morning. Rather than shooting the traitorous commie bastard as they probably should have, the Honduran military and people showed incredible restraint in this "pajama coup." 

Instead of leaving his bullet-riddled body in a lonely, unmarked rain forest grave, the nation this man attempted to betray calmly and mercifully put Zelaya on a plane out of the country and dropped him off in next-door Costa Rica.

It remains to be seen whether or not Mr. Zelaya, the global community and the Obama administration will reward the Honduran people's restraint.

Yesterday, Obama administration Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanded "full restoration of democracy" in Honduras. This put Obama in the company of his desired conversation partner, Communist Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who also demanded that his good friend Zelaya be reinstated. You might recall that during his run for the presidency, Obama expressed a longing to talk to Chavez "without precondition".

Strangely left undiscussed by Clinton, Obama or anyone else in the global community (read: "United Nations") is the fact that Zelaya had violated the expressed will of the Honduran people by trying to overturn a restriction they themselves had placed upon the presidency. If Secretary Clinton and her boss would like "democracy restored" in Honduras, then they need to thank the Honduran people for having already taken care of that task.

Little wonder that Obama and his lackeys would be so quick to uplift a criminal who has sought to exceed the powers of his office; this American presidential administration has been acting in this same manner since its inauguration.

If the United States truly wants to proliferate democracy and freedom, it should do absolutely nothing to interfere with Honduran affairs. The Honduran people, in their sovereignty, have defended democracy admirably from a usurper and thief. Would that Americans had half the backbone (not to mention the human compassion and restraint) that they have displayed.

 If Zelaya is a true Honduran patriot, he will admit his mistake in trying to illicitly seize power and return to his homeland to face the charges against him.