The Choice

For years, I've held the belief that Americans have been blessed with the correct wisdom to elect the right president for the time; even our bad ones. For instance, I don't believe Americans would have ever rallied to the message of Reagan's American exceptionalism without the Carter presidency.

And let's face it, without Bill Clinton, we never would have had reality TV in this country.

The Obama presidency has truly tested my belief system. But Dan Henninger may have put my mind at ease.............

If the Obama presidency didn't exist, we would have to invent it.

At a time when the American people need to make some decisions about the nation's purpose, along comes Barack Obama to make the choices crystal clear.

In one corner of the world you have Europe, beset by a sovereign debt crisis that's been building for 50 years. The U.K.'s new prime minister, David Cameron, promises his people years of austerity to dig out from beneath their debt. Americans, staring at fiscal crevasses opening across Europe, have to decide if they also wish to spend the next 50 years laboring mainly to produce tax revenue to pay for public workers' pensions and other public promises. The private sector would exist for the public sector.

In another corner of the world, wealth is rising from the emerging economies of the east—China, India, Korea and the rest—posing America's greatest economic challenge in anyone's lifetime. Do the American people want to throw in the towel, or do they want to compete? If the latter, the public sector has to give way to the private sector.

One or the other. It's time to choose.

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