Has Mr. Obama ever been confronted with ANY crisis? A commander in chief must make unwavering decisions when lives are at stake; What I perceive Mr. Obama doing is to basically use his Joint Chiefs of Staff as subcontractors for any crucial military decisions.

Every president faces international crises. Kennedy and the Cuban missiles. Johnson and the gulf of Tonkin; Nixon and the Pueblo incident; Ford and the Mayaguez crisis; Carter and the hostages; Reagan and Korean flight 007; Bush I and Saddam's Kuwait invasion; Clinton and Kosovo in the Balkans; Bush II and Sept 11. A president must always be ready to answer the zero-hour call for either decisive action, or inaction to avoid war. There is no time to negotiate. You can't vote "present", appeal to the UN, or hide in the Whitehouse.

Look back at our recent history. The last time our country was disgusted with a Republican administration, our nation chose to make a 90* turn. The public voted for an inexperienced liberal named James Earl Carter, a peanut farmer, who tortured our nation with 444 days of indecision during the Iranian hostage crisis. The man meant well, but he waffled in the Whitehouse, consulted with the U.N. and the World Court, and froze in his tracks, while our hostages were tortured and badgered until Reagan brought them home.

Examine my opponent's LATEST position on Iraq. He's had several. Yes he was against the war in 2002. Since then he's been dependably inconsistent. But now, the situation has decidedly changed. History is about to prove that we made the right decision. We are about to achieve a near-miracle accomplishment, a stable functional Muslim democracy, in the center of what was previously an area of instability and hostility. And Senator Obama wants us out. He would have us not only forfeiting our hard fought victory, but also he would be forfeiting the great peace dividend we are about to reap that could go on for the next hundred years.

Yes my friends, the war has been costly, but eventually we may recoup our expense a hundred-fold. As we speak, foreign investors are preparing a surge of their own. A United Arab Emirates developer will soon break ground in Baghdad on a 30-story $270 million hi-rise tower. It will house shopping malls, office space, and apartments. The cessation of sectarian tensions, and the dramatic improvements in security have attracted developers worldwide to Iraq.

The Mayor of Baghdad, Saber Nabat el-Essawy, is positively exuberant: His vision is to one day look across the city and see billions of dollars worth of malls, luxury hotels, apartment towers, outdoor amphitheaters, gardens, stadiums, and parks.

At our 80-acre military base at Rashid, a massive 5 billion dollar development has already attracted 16 foreign bids. This will include a state-of-the-art medical center, apartment complexes, hotels, shopping centers, and a sport stadium. A sports stadium? Apparently the Iraqis are planning on some long term stability, which well might last A HUNDRED YEARS! Now that the fighting has subsided, the Iraqi people are demanding cars, satellite dishes, phones, I pods, computers, and high definition TV's. Cell phone use has surged to over 70% in Iraq.

The future possibility of Iraq becoming one of our main export markets is there for the taking. The abundance of Iraqi oil is a resource for the capital they would send us to buy American goods...appliances, software, hardware, prescription drugs, airplanes, food, electronics, beverages, and whatever other markets we could develop.

But Senator Obama wants to cut and run, because he feels our money would be better spent on the alphabet soup of social agencies he has planned. Mr. Obama would subordinate our free market economy to his own liberal big-government style of socialism. Maybe he should be running for president of Sweden. Who knows?...maybe he could grow their government from the bottom up? But I don’t think that would work very well here!

But now that we've largely solved our problems in Iraq, the next president will undoubtedly be facing an even more menacing situation next door in Iran. How will the next president deal with a nuclear Iran, in the hands of Mr. Ahmadinejad? He's testing missiles. His engineers are spinning uranium into its heaviest molecular form, so it can be used to trigger a nuclear explosion. His first nuclear test could be in less than two years, and it could very well occur in Israel’s backyard.

Mr Obama said he would start negotiations with Ahmadinejad without preconditions. Would he return successful, or would he only succeed in becoming the next Neville Chamberlain? What if Iran then launches a surprise attack on Israel? Or Israel strikes first at Iran? Would Senator Obama agonize in the Whitehouse? Would he waffle, or get involved, and risk a wider conflict by aiding Israel? What if Iran blocks the straight of Hormuz? We would face a fuel shortage overnight, and our military planes would quickly run out jet fuel. 

These Muslim dictators have no moral code. You can't hold them in good faith in any diplomatic agreement. Yes...they will lie, and try to lull us into a false sense of security. That's why you don't negotiate with a dictator or a sworn enemy. An Islamic theocracy and our American democracy are polar opposites. Iran has spent the last five years buying up American technology on the black market, and making electronic detonators for the roadside bombs, which have been used to kill and maim our soldiers in Iraq. This Ahmadinejad character is no friend of ours!

My friends, the best way to assure our own national security is to develop our own resources, so our children don't have to fight any future energy wars. If we were to begin a Manhattan project of new offshore drilling, in the short term, it would put one million people to work! In the long term, it would translate to even more workers, more oil, lower gas and diesel lprices, and we can keep that 700 million we send annually to Opec in this country for new investment in jobs; and enable people to purchase a new car, or washing machine, or home improvements, because people would no longer be spending so much on gas!

Mr Obama would create five million new green jobs in alternative energy. But he must have been quoting from an estimate from the National Council of Mayors, which said five million new alternative energy jobs will be created in the next 30 years! THIRTY YEARS!

That's a long time to wait for a new job.

Mr Obama says we use 25% of the world's oil, but we have only 3% of its reserves, so we should plan on driving less, turn down our thermostats, and reduce our standard of living so the rest of the world can catch up. That's his plan for real change.

My friends, you can't grow the economy without a low cost supply of energy. Our factories run on natural gas...our heavy industries use diesel vehicles, and our airlines run on kerosene. Mass-produced electric and hydrogen cars are years away. 60% of our electricity comes from coal. And I plan on supplying the rest of it with new nuclear plants, that would put many other people back to work. And Mr Obama is against it all. He promises to replace all fossil fuels in 10 years. This would jeopardize our military security. Tanks, Humvees and jet fighters can't run on wind or solar.

Mr Obama is the taxman. He would place a carbon tax on coal plants; a tax on natural gas. Like that old song from the Beatles...he will literally tax your heat! Mr. Obama despises fossil fuels. He will have Al Gore whispering in his ear, as he dismantles our present energy infrastructure.

If you want to know what your Obama future will really look like, just watch the news from Atlanta, and see the gas lines winding around the block. This is what the democrats have done to our country from their anti-American energy policies. No new drilling...no new refineries... tax the energy companies. Blame George Bush. Strangle the free market. Do the bidding of the environmental puppeteers. Pretend alternative energy is just around the corner. Let the people keep paying 4 dollars a gallon, so they can continue to send their money to Opec, instead of to the bank for their mortgage payment.

My friends, as your president, in my first act of bi-partisanship, I will go directly to the Congress, and meet with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. I will tell them that we are going make a maximum effort to drill our way out of this present energy crisis.

We will develop our alternative energy supplies. We will build 45 new nuclear plants, and we will get rid of Opec in ten years after we perfect our shale-to-oil, and coal-to gas domestic energy supplies. There's your five million jobs!...and they're all ready to be filled now under a new McCain-Palin administration.

Governor Palin is America's most shining example of the perfect energy czar. She has the experience where America needs it most...solving our energy problem! We are going to find as much offshore oil as we can, which will lower the price of gas, and restart our economy.

And we will go to work on our infrastructure, and construct new corridors of hi-speed rail, and take the burden off our airports and interstates, conserve fuel, and create another job boom in alternative transportation, and put our engineers to work developing geothermal, solar and more efficient wind power.

But my friends, none of this will happen without your support this November. You may not agree with all my policies, but as your president, we'll regain our prosperity and place in the world, because the economy comes first, and restarting it requires realistic policies backed by firm, unwavering decisions. And I ask you to think very carefully about whom you choose to send back to Congress, because a president can accomplish little unless the people and the entire government are all on the same page.

And after you go into the voting booth, and begin to mark your ballots, I'd like you to think of our soldiers abroad, who are serving in Iraq and the Middle East. They're not on the front page any more, or in many news stories, because we're winning: but just the same they are still out there everyday, accomplishing their missions, and securing our freedom back home. Keep them in your prayers. Remember those who have died, or have survived with amputations and terrible burn wounds. We've payed a heavy price, so like Ronald Reagan always said... we must stay the course.