If the center does not hold…
By Michael Moriarty
web posted November 10, 2008
We now have our own Pierre Trudeau, our Tony Blair, a truly transnational sophisticate with a suitable amount of gravitas to warrant his title as leader of the most powerful nation in the world; and after a disturbingly letter-perfect, first press conference (he read the names of a pre-prepared list of questioners off of a list) … with a baker's dozen, a long string of economic advisers standing behind him, we must stress the well-informed gravitas. Even his cheap shot at Nancy Reagan turned into gold. His apologetic phone call to Mrs. Reagan, creating a quaint new anecdote within the legends of presidential noblesse oblige, will be deemed a "plus" by historians … well … Progressive historians.
Interestingly enough, his first press conference seems to have been already prepared on the day of the "Bailout Announcement" made by President Bush … weeks ago! The main message of this debut was … the sizes of his advisory staffs … a transnational and, as CNN elevates it, a "transformational" …. uh … economic sub-cabinet!!
Recent comparisons, at this point, of president-elect Barack Obama to Machiavelli (Michael Knox Beran) are patently ominous, and Caesar Augustus (Victor Davis Hanson) none too comforting either, seem a bit too dark for this time of celebration, this barrier-breaking proof of America's open-heartedness and faith in its gut instincts, America's feeling that it is time for an African-American president of the United States and, even more importantly, a "change".
So, if president-elect Barack Obama leads the U. S. no further to the Left than a post-Trudeau Canada or post-Blair England, we will indeed have the transformational president which CNN has been touting and, of course, America will obviously survive the "change".
However, with no America to hold at least the Center of the Free World, not the Right nor the Left but the Center, such a U. S., Trudeau-esque "tip", or steady fall to the Left, will carry the rest of the democracies with it. Yes, it's the ultimate "last chip" to fall in the Domino Theory. Then America will be facing Red China on Beijing's "home turf" -- needless to say, we're outnumbered and ideologically outgunned.
Furthermore, neo-Soviet Russia, as vice-president elect Joe Biden predicted, is already "testing" Obama.
So, even if president-elect Obama is simply a more serious version of the Red Peck's Bad Boys -- Trudeau and Blair -- it could well mean the end of the Free World as we know it.
Tragically, the intellectual supremacists of the American Progressive Left will rejoice. Their sense of superiority, so outrageously displayed in their attitudes toward Governor Sarah Palin, are contemptuous of the fact that it has, as they say, "taken so long for America to give up its Ronald Reagan/Sarah Palin delusions!"
"As we know it" is an increasingly obscure reference point, given the bizarre nature of George W. Bush's Progressively neo-Conservative reign, his disturbingly loose immigration perspective and his Big Government Bailout.
"The center cannot hold" … something like that … from a Yeats poem, The Second Coming.
Hmmm … and "the Beast … slouching towards Bethlehem".
Will President Obama really defend Israel? Late last week the president-elect repeated his commitment to an Iran free of nuclear bombs yet, the question remains: Will his rhetoric be as far away from his actions as his previous life-style connections have indicated?
We might eventually find him defending America's profoundest ally, its virtual brother in the Judeo-Christian Civilization, with the same despair he tried to defend his own Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
As a "side-bar", I doubt if Obama's abandoning Israel will, by then, gain any points with Rashid Khalidi. It'll be too little too late but it would keep a promise to old friends. Regardless, The Obama Nation won't even need Khalidi's gratitude. Obama will be fine. He'll adjust as always. He'll survive and the face of America will indeed "change" as he has promised.
The Community Organizer, coming out of President Clinton's "Globally Initiating" tradition, becomes the World Organizer and the concessions to the world will all be made by what once was America "as we knew it".
With President Ronald Reagan at the helm it was the Communist world making concessions to Eastern Europe's demands for freedom.
Now it may well be the other way around, it might very well pass Thomas Sowell's "point of no return", that moment when atomic weapons are indeed in the hands of Ahmadinejad's Iran.
Oh, we will surely see Osama bin Laden's capture and death. That was a campaign promise Obama will most certainly keep and Pakistan will indeed collaborate in the capture.
But what will be the cost?
Could the price for bin Laden become Israel itself?
Who really wins then?
Osama bin Laden.
If the Communists and Al Qaeda win during Obama's presidency, we'll know that the President governs like he bowls.
However, let's hope and pray he "shoots hoops" over the heads of our enemies and not only does Israel remain safe but the American way of life is only "changed" temporarily to appease The Bad Boys of The Obama Nation.
If, however, America's "center does not hold" and we pass what Thomas Sowell calls "the point of no return" then everything, and I mean everything, falls apart.
Oh, my dream ticket for 2012?
Palin/Jindal … with Thomas Sowell as Secretary of State. 
Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor who starred in the landmark television series Law and Order from 1990 to 1994. His recent film and TV credits include The Yellow Wallpaper, 12 Hours to Live, Santa Baby and Deadly Skies. Moriarty is also running for President of the United States in 2008 as a candidate for the Realists Party. To find out more about Moriarty's presidential campaign, contact rainbowfamily2008@yahoo.com.