I feel like being “light” today after all the seriousness of last week. However, even in lightness, serious points can be made. I’ve always found the best way to do this is to rely on those who make it their livelihood—the political cartoonists. As you can imagine, the election gave rise to a flurry of new cartoons. Here are some of the best that have surfaced since last Tuesday, beginning with those that use the Obama slogan as their centerpiece:

In case you have trouble reading that sign in the distance, let me help you: it says “Dead End.” But wasn’t Obama’s reelection supposed to be part of the ongoing “success” of his first term? Isn’t the world supposed to be a better place just because he is in it?

If the pain of the last four years hasn’t been sufficient to educate some people, what is it going to take? Is Obama going to continue to blame George Bush for the next four years as well? I predict, if he gets his way, we’ll be in even worse shape by 2016. Both he and his adherents need to awaken to reality and start taking responsibility for the economic, social, and foreign policy disasters we are facing:

So Obama has his chance to make good this time. But what assurance do we have that he will do his homework and fully engage?

He’s already, less than a week after his reelection, shutting down even more public land to energy drilling. How is this helping?

Yet with the media constantly on his side, will his faithful followers ever figure out that he’s an ideological radical, and incompetent to boot? Not if the media keeps doing its outstanding job of distracting the people from his follies and failures:

Will his ineptitude and radicalism catch up with him eventually? Will the American electorate awaken from its stupor? Our job is to work and pray for that enlightenment. Only by God’s grace and mercy will we survive the next four years intact as a country.

It was a battle of strategies last night in the final presidential debate. The Obama strategy was clear from the start: get in Romney’s face, get under his skin, push him into making a mistake by appearing to be a warmonger, and “win” by being the aggressor. The Romney strategy took longer to decipher, but it gradually came into focus: avoid getting into the tangles of details about who knew what when on Libya, appear knowledgeable about foreign affairs, stay above the fray and be presidential, critique the president where necessary but cast a vision for American leadership in the world. Oh, and along with all that, keep bringing the subject—even in a foreign policy debate—back to the horrible economy, which has to change if we are going to maintain a strong presence in the international realm.

How well did each strategy work?

Obama started strong and was the attacker throughout. Every exchange—and I do mean every—included sharp rhetoric attempting to label Romney a reckless, flip-flopping politician who would probably lead the nation into disaster in dealing with other countries. That part of the strategy was reminiscent to me of what Jimmy Carter tried to do with Ronald Reagan in 1980. Obama also repeated lines from the two earlier debates: Romney lies about his policies, Romney lies about Obama’s policies, Romney lies about . . . well, fill in the blank.

The split-screen that dominated the visuals throughout the debate didn’t increase Obama’s likeability factor. He looked permanently pugnacious; some commentators called his facial expression the Death Stare. It was almost unnerving to viewers, practically oozing condescension. The condescension reached its apex with two comments in particular. The first was when Obama sarcastically congratulated Romney for recognizing Al Qaeda is a threat [this coming from a president who is hesitant to call any terrorist act a terrorist act]; the second was when he lectured Romney on the size of the navy, “explaining” to him that we don’t need as many ships now because we have the type of ships on which planes can land. And we don’t need as many horses and bayonets as in 1916. He was practically dripping with disdain for Romney. Pure egotism.

And then there were those constant interruptions. Apparently Joe Biden rubbed off on him. He didn’t want Romney to be able to complete his comments; Obama broke in continually to try to disrupt Romney’s thoughts.

More than one commentator noted that if a person didn’t know which candidate was the incumbent president and which was the challenger, he would probably conclude Obama was the one challenging for the job. The challenger in any debate is widely perceived as the one currently on the losing end who has to do whatever he can to catch up. Ever since that first disastrous debate for him, Obama has truly been playing catch up. All the polls are trending toward Romney. So last night was a last-ditch effort to paint himself as The He-Man. Instead, he enacted the part of The Bully.

Romney did not begin confidently. He appeared a little wobbly. It took a few rounds of questions before he got on track, but once he did, I believe he accomplished what he set out to do. By the end, he clearly came across as presidential, informed on the issues, and able to parry all the personal attacks without allowing Obama to rattle him. He maintained his composure and came across as the grownup in the debate. Further, his closing statement was little short of marvelous, appealing to optimism for the nation’s future. Again, he was partly Reaganesque in his approach.

Would I have preferred a more aggressive Romney? Well, my emotions would have been more satisfied if he had lambasted Obama more than he did. I would have liked to have heard a litany of Obama’s failures in the Libyan situation. I would have counseled him to have been stronger on that. Yet I know most voters are not clued in on Libya and don’t care that much about it. To have become entangled in a timeline of events there would have taken time away from the overall foreign policy vision he was trying to cast.

Romney was strong on Israel and pointed out Obama’s failure to visit that country during his entire first term, even though he had been in the region and spoke in Egypt. He also correctly criticized the president for his ongoing apology tour, a remark that made Obama bristle.

So, when it comes to style, what we saw was a focused Romney who exuded calmness vs. a combative Obama who, to me, continues to manifest peevishness and an always-simmering condescension.

On the substance, Chris Wallace of Fox News—and not Wallace and Fox only—called out Obama afterwards for some obvious inaccuracies in his distortions of Romney’s stances, particularly on the number of troops that should have been left in Iraq and on the auto bailout. While he may have scored points in the debate for making such statements, this is another case of perhaps “losing the week” after the debate as his distortions become the center of attention.

When it comes down to who should be considered the winner of a debate, shouldn’t truthfulness be the primary criterion? If so, Romney won big. His strategy was sound, and he carried it out effectively. Prediction: this debate will not help Obama at all; the polls will continue to trend in Romney’s direction.

Nearly everyone is saying this will be a close election. It might be. But there’s also the real possibility it could be a blowout for Romney. Stay tuned.

The third, and final, presidential debate is tonight, and the topic is foreign policy. Most Americans, apparently, find the topic of lesser interest than domestic policy, yet is has a direct impact not only on pocketbook issues but our very survival as a nation. I guess what I’m saying is that we ought to be intensely interested in what transpires overseas.

America has always been affected by the ideologies and actions of foreign nations. In our first decade, with George Washington as president, our political scene was poisonously divided over the matter of the French Revolution. Founding Fathers who fought side by side in our war for independence accused each other of either wanting to reestablish British control over us or of seeking to set up guillotines on the street corners. It was only Washington’s steady hand and the general esteem in which he was held that got us through the crisis. It does matter who is in charge.

Closer to our day, in 1979, when Iranian radicals invaded the American embassy and took hostages, we didn’t have a strong leader. The Carter presidency shriveled under the stress and the crisis dragged out until 1981. The hostages were released on the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. Perhaps the Iranians had second thoughts about tangling with someone who exuded greater confidence.

One of Reagan’s signal achievements was the part he played in the demise of the Soviet Union. The pressure he put on that country via aid to Afghans who sought to remove Soviet troops from their homeland, and the announcement of his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to counter Soviet missiles aimed at the U.S. pushed the Soviets to the brink of economic extinction. When he then sat down with Gorbachev, he did so from a position of strength. The Cold War, which loomed over us for four long decades, ended not with a bang but with a whimper. Today, there are monuments to Ronald Reagan throughout the old Soviet-dominated Eastern European countries.

Yes, foreign policy matters, and it also matters who is in charge of it.

The Obama campaign had hoped to capitalize on the death of Osama bin Laden and their predetermined theme that Al Qaeda was diminished and on the run. The Libya debacle capsized that strategy. If they were to admit it was terrorism, and terrorism associated with Al Qaeda, it would seriously damage their credibility in the handling of a war on terror they never liked from the beginning. Remember how they changed the wording to “overseas contingency operations”? They’ve been adept at wordsmithing all along the way. When the gunman at the Ft. Hood massacre made it evident he carried out his act because of his radical Islamic ideology, the Obama administration swept that under the rug by calling it “workplace violence,” as if Islamic terrorism had nothing to do with it. I’m surprised they haven’t yet employed that terminology to the Libyan situation.

I wonder if that’s what we will hear tonight? At the very least, Obama is going to have to explain why he and his people took so long to call the attack on the consulate and the murder of our ambassador simply a demonstration against a movie trailer hardly anyone has seen. If he tries to deny that was the case, he has history against him:

The key to this debate will be whether Romney is up to the challenge of clearly exposing this hypocrisy. There are other issues as well—our relationship with Israel, the misnamed Arab Spring, violence in the Middle East in general, the failure of the “reset” button with Russia—that also should come up.

Foreign policy is vitally important, and it’s just as important who is leading America on the world stage. We are suffering through another Jimmy Carter Moment. Will another Ronald Reagan Moment follow?

One of the most satisfying things about last week’s presidential debate is that, for many people, this was the first time the air was let out of the Obama balloon. Ever since he entered the national political scene, his credentials have been mostly air, but he and his operatives have been adept at concealing the painful fact that he’s the emperor who has no clothes. Despite all the hype over the past four years about his oratorical skills, he came crashing down as utterly frail and human. Personally, I’ve never been impressed by his oratory, and we know he often stumbles without his teleprompter. The debate was a welcome dash of reality:

I’ve written a lot about Obama’s ideology, which I believe is the core of the problem, but there’s also the issue of his basic competence to hold the highest office in the land. He was so sure of himself when he took over; just his presence was going to wipe away all fear, and his masterful command of policy was going to make everything right. Again, the reality has been somewhat different:

Yet with no genuine accomplishments in his term, except for the forcible takeover of the American healthcare system, he chose to run again. He thinks he deserves more time. Another one of those painfully obvious facts by now is that what he really does best is campaigning. The job he’s campaigning for is of secondary importance to him. Even as the world slips closer to the brink of catastrophe, he is not going to be found dealing with the problem directly; he has more pressing issues on the table:

Less than one month from now, we have an opportunity to correct the mistake we made four years ago.

Tonight is debate night. The topic is domestic policy. I almost wish the first debate would be on foreign policy because that has forced its way into the forefront lately. A number of things have occurred nearly simultaneously. The biggest event, of course, was the attack on our consulate in Libya that led to the murder of six Americans, one of whom was our ambassador to that country. We now know the consulate had been begging the administration for greater security for some time, but all requests were denied. We also now know it was a terrorist attack, not some spontaneous protest over some silly film. Yet Obama and his people continue to push that discredited story. The radicals don’t need an excuse to hate America and try to kill our citizens, but the administration keeps blaming our insensitivity to Islam instead. It’s flimsy, but it fits the Obama narrative and his worldview:

Then when Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu sought a face-to-face with the president, he was rebuffed. Netanyahu performed a valuable service to the world with his speech at the UN, seeking to draw a line in the sand, so to speak, with reference to the Iranian nuclear program and that country’s publicly expressed desire to annihilate the Jewish state. Netanyahu challenged the world community—such as it is—to draw a “red line” and take a stand. What was our president doing in the meantime? His calendar was very full:

Even more recently, just in the past couple of days, the Spanish-speaking network Univision did some investigative reporting that revealed how the foolish Fast and Furious operation killed even more Mexicans than we originally thought. It’s a scandal that should be shouted from the housetops, along with the Libyan fiasco. Why does the mainstream media bury these stories and concentrate instead on manufactured Romney gaffes? It’s almost as if the president has some sort of mesmeric control over them:

None of this should be surprising anymore. There’s a history of denying reality with this administration. One cartoonist offers this little history lesson:

Another four years of this could signal the death of the republic.

The intent of yesterday’s post was to ensure we understand that there have always been bad times in American history, and that we’ve been at the point of despair before. Our future as a nation is still open; the decisions we make now will determine our path.

Today I do want to emphasize the severity of our current problems, as a kind of counterpoint to yesterday’s hopeful thoughts. It’s important that we don’t put our heads in the sand, figuratively speaking. What are we facing right now, and how do these problems compare to previous ones? I’m going to provide what I consider to be the key list of issues with which we have to deal:

• As a nation, we have never been this deep in debt. Credit agencies are threatening to lower America’s rating for dependability in paying our creditors. In just two and one-half years of the Obama administration, we’ve added $5 trillion in debt, rushing rapidly toward a grand total of $15 trillion. That means more than one-third of that debt has accumulated on Obama’s watch. Yet he doesn’t even seem to take it seriously. There’s no attempt on his part to cut back on the spending. Instead, he hopes to pass another stimulus and raise taxes.

• We are going to burst through our debt ceiling in August unless we cut spending. But what solution do the Democrats offer? Keep raising the ceiling. It doesn’t work for governments any more than it does for individuals and families.

The logic used by the administration is fascinating:

• The ideology behind Obama’s policies is more socialistic than anything proposed by FDR or LBJ. He has taken over one-sixth of the economy by ramming through a very unpopular and unconstitutional healthcare bill.
• We are stuck in a recession that has similarities to the Great Depression. The housing market has now been declared worse than what we experienced in the 1930s. Obama’s socialist policies have undercut the free market, ruined small business, and kept unemployment high.
• On the education front, he has taken steps to end school voucher programs, such as the one that was working well in Washington, DC, forcing poor children into awful government schools where they will learn virtually nothing. He is in the pocket of the educational establishment, which is more attuned to maintaining its stranglehold on education than achieving results. The NEA, in particular, has a political agenda perfectly in line with Obama’s ideology. Any attempt by conservatives to change this broken system is met with hysteria and hyperbole.

• Culturally, we have degenerated to a place unparalleled in our history. Over fifty million unborn children have been murdered since 1973′s Roe v. Wade decision. Homosexuality, which was always considered a perversion of God’s gift of sex, is now being touted as a laudable lifestyle, no longer a choice but simply a genetic difference. Last week, New York’s legislature, pushed by Democrat Governor Cuomo and acquiesced in by enough Republicans, made homosexual marriage legal. The Rubicon has been crossed. Marriage itself is being trivialized and degraded. We have broken with Christian belief and tradition to our detriment.

• The homosexual advance has become so dominant that it is difficult to watch television without finding a sympathetic homosexual character on a program. It’s an all-out assault on basic Biblical morality.
• Speaking of morality, our political leaders have fallen short at a record pace lately. I don’t need to review all of the scandals; you know them. Anthony Weiner has become a classic symbol of all that is wrong with our moral compass.

• When we turn to foreign policy, we see the United States practically laughed at in most of the world, the takedown of bin Laden being the exception to the rule. Few in other nations, friend or foe, take Obama seriously. He has become Israel’s worst nightmare. He’s now expanding that bad dream by sitting down and talking with the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, operating on the illusion that they have renounced violence. What a fantasy world! Both are dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the overthrow of Western civilization. This is a travesty of the highest order.

Have I forgotten anything really important? Possibly. I’m sure some of you could add to the list. Taken all together, this set of problems may signal the worst crisis we have ever faced as a nation. We could be on the verge of falling apart completely, morally and politically.

An essential part of the solution is to rid ourselves of the current political leadership, but that’s only a part of the solution. There is a more foundational need. That’s my subject for tomorrow.

In the wake of the successful takeout of bin Laden, there are some who say we shouldn’t criticize the president anymore. I say we give him credit where it is due, but we keep in mind his overall performance and not let one correct decision cloud our memories or lead us to think that in foreign policy and the war on terror, he is on target. In fact, I believe the following illustration is a perfect representation of where he stands with respect to his foreign policy:

Frankly, I’d like to know where all this concern for fairness toward presidents suddenly came from. I don’t remember hearing much about it from the media prior to this presidency:

I think I’m more perturbed about double standards and hypocrisy above all else. There’s nothing wrong with pointing it out when it’s so blatant. We should be grateful that there are many media outlets now from which to choose instead of being tied to a few networks and newspapers that shaped the news as they saw fit. While many other aspects of our culture may be in decline, I’m thankful we have greater freedom of information than at any time in recent history. May we be discerning as we sift through the worldviews and their interpretations, and may we be able to see truth more clearly than ever.