I don’t care about the Rev. Wright and Obama

This is the first time I’ve written on my blog about the Rev. Wright and his association with Barack Obama. There’s a reason for that: I don’t care about it. The Rev. Wright isn’t running for president, Obama is.

Likewise, I didn’t care about Romney’s Mormonism. And for that matter, even though I’m a Catholic, I haven’t supported the best known “Catholic” candidates — Schwarzenegger, Kerry, and Giuliani — because they’re pro-abortion. My two favorite politicians, Ron Paul and California state Sen. Tom McClintock, are pro-life, small-government Protestants. As for Jewish candidates, I supported Bruce Herschensohn’s Senate run in 1992, but I opposed Joe Liberman’s run for vice president in 2000.

For any candidate for any office, what I care about are only two things: 1. What he says he’ll do. 2. The likelihood he’ll actually do it.

For Obama, I believe he will do what he says on the most important matter of the day: Ending the Iraq War.

I still can’t vote for him because he’s pro-abortion, and I’ve never supported a pro-abortion candidate. But McCain is squishy on abortion, especially on potential judicial nominees. As The American Conservative reports:

But will the Arizonan make good and usher in a conservative majority on the Court? Unlikely. Republicans hoping to rally their dispirited base in 2008 can find little evidence that John McCain is interested in effecting a judicial counter-revolution. Though there will probably be multiple vacancies in the Supreme Court in the next presidential term—John Paul Stevens turns 88 this April; Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 74; Anthony Kennedy is 71—McCain has never made the judiciary a central theme of his campaign.

Given the chance to join conservatives in disarming Democratic opposition to conservative judges, McCain compromised. Lacking incentives to appoint strict constructionists, his attitude toward judicial conservatives runs between indifference and hostility. And while McCain dutifully praises Roberts and Alito in public, he sometimes questions their rulings—particularly when they threaten to overturn his legislative legacy.

Given that McCain, if elected, would face a Democratic Senate, his judicial appointments likely wouldn’t be much different from Obama’s.

As to spending and taxing, Obama is terrible and likely would be in office. McCain is singing small-government lullabies in the ears of conservatives. But the new wars he lusts after would cost trillions on top of the $3 trillion cost for the Iraq War (so far). And given that he originally opposed Bush’s tax cuts, you just know he’d cave in to Democratic demands for tax increases to pay for the new martial carnage.

Neither candidate even talks about returning to the gold standard, the only way to prevent even more inflation.

With all that going on, who cares about Obama’s retired pastor?

It’s a dismal year.

Time to stock up on scotch and bourbon before the prices go up even more.