I assume that he meant young, gullible and impressionable students because, as luck would have it, I find myself now a full-time university student at the ripe age of forty-five. I also consider myself to be fairly intelligent �?the last three times that I had my I.Q. measured the results came in at a consistent 133, which, according to charts that I found on the Web, places me within the tiniest fraction of the human population �?at the “smart�?end. I am certain that any college student would find that sufficiently smart enough to gauge political candidates. To support this, even after a twenty-seven year absence from serious study, I am making a good showing at school; my two worst grades to date are a 90 out of a 100 and a 98 out of a 100.

    Of course, I suspect that these figures will drop somewhat as I get into Algebra and Arabic. Not that I consider myself stupid; I am just being realistic �?I am a creative personality more than I am an analytical one. Therefore, for the time being you will humor me and consider that an ‘A�?student with thirty years of experience and an I.Q. of 133 to boot is sufficiently capable of making an informed decision as to who earns my vote for President of the United States. And it isn’t Barack Obama. Why?

    For starters, I don’t jump into the herd mentality of those who purport to know that the one-term senator from Illinois knows a damn thing or two about what our nation needs. In fairness, I’ve made the same remark about Hillary Clinton. If being a ‘senator�?is all that is required to lead the most powerful nation on earth, then there are 98 other senators that should easily fit into this category.

    Next, let’s consider the “popular appeal�?afforded to Mr. Obama. No doubt these are the same type of people whose inability to handle mortgages have now left us taxpayers with a $700 Billion bailout looming over our heads. Last I checked, most of the movers and shakers of Wall Street came from the same academic standards as did Mr. Obama. I simply don’t vote via the herd mentality �?I use my intelligence background (both figuratively and professionally) to closely scrutinize my options. I seek not the “motivational speaker�?but the “military commander�?when aiming to defeat either social ills or armed adversaries. Barack Obama would be good at publicizing my books, but nothing more. We need a person with military bearing in a time of war and not a charitable organizer.

    Let’s also consider the so-called intelligent folk that Luke Russert seems to think permeate colleges and universities. By and large, the most accomplished are those visiting from foreign countries. Strike #1. Those Arab bastards that flew our citizens into crowded office buildings were also college students. I’d take a streetwise janitor over a college-educated moron any day of the week. At least the janitor would know a threat when they saw one. Still, let’s consider your typical college student. For eighteen years they’ve been told what to do and when to do and now find themselves free and clear of authority (colleges maintain no authority over their students or else you wouldn’t have hazing, fraternities, demonstrations, and piss poor national standards). Strike #2.

    There can be only  one of two options for a young adult embarking upon life for the very first time alone. Either they will carry with them the values and attitudes of their parents or they will reject those beliefs. Neither makes them independently conscious. The former merely duplicates their parent’s vote and the latter makes them susceptible to beliefs that are foreign to their thought processes. Is this how we desire to elect our nation’s most powerful leader �?either as a rebellion against parenthood or as a gamble entirely without precedence? You go gamble with some other nation’s future.

    The main problem that I have with Barack Obama is that he follows that same principle as Bill Clinton �?“I’m much smarter than you are so you need to bear me out and we’ll think this through.�?Bill Clinton was too smart for his britches and Barack Obama is too hung up on “thinking problems through.�?I want my president not to be a George McClellan but a George Patton. I want someone who knows that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is better off with a bullet to his head, that Vladimir Putin isn’t really a friend, and that the radical Islamists should be hunted down �?one by one �?and shown that there is no paradise waiting for them after death. In short, I want my president to be someone who is compassionate to a point, but lethal as hell when it comes to national security and defense. I just don’t see Barack Obama as this kind of person.

    Let’s get back to college students �?leastways the youngest ones. In college, everything is tolerable; every thought is discussed politely and openly. Debates are held in classes and every point of view is challenged. Yeah, right. How far long would such civility exist if for every error there were death to contend with? Our enemies do not care for debate and those in competition for our limited jobs do not desire to see us well fed and comfortable �?if it means that they’ll go hungry in our stead. If we simply sat around and examined the merits of every action that we contemplated, man would have never made it out of equatorial Africa.

    If we resorted to conventional and academic wisdom for every action that we have taken, the Wright brothers would never have flown, the U.S. Patent Office would have closed more than a century ago for lack of new inventions, and man would never have conquered the moon. Simply excelling in school is by no means a substitute for life experience. You can hang your antique parchment upon the wall, I’ll keep my Winchester by the door. At least my option will keep me fed during both good times and bad.