Topic category:  Other/General

Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary: "CHANGE implies making either an essential difference often amounting to a loss of original identity or a substitution of one thing for another."

Change is not necessarily for the better, of course.

Change can be good, or bad, or insignificant.

Rookie United States Senator and presumptive 2008 Democrat presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. has presented himself as the change candidate and spoken passionately of "the audacity of hope" and "the fierce urgency of now."

Unfortunately, his background is NOT well known and criticism of him usually is spun as racist.

Fortunately, the more than becomes known about him, the worse it is for his presidential prospects.

What America needs is NOT another white president, or a black-and-white president, or a "rock star" president, or a rhetorician president, or a skilled teleprompter reader president, or a good basketball player and bad bowler president, or a rookie United States Senator without military or executive experience president. America need an experienced champion of traditional American values who will wisely pursue important American goals instead of making changes for the sake of change as president.

Tactical flexibility is a virtue, but flip-flopping is a vice.

Flip-flopping is trying to have things both ways or switching positions based on political expediency instead of principle or changed circumstances.

Presumptive 2008 Republican presidential candidate John Sidney McCain understands the difference between changing strategy in light of changed circumstances and flip-flopping.

Whether or not the United States should have chosen to liberate Iraq from the dictatorial rule of Saddam Hussein, it did so and thus it became critically important for the United States to succeed in Iraq.

Recognizing "facts on the ground," McCain promoted the tactical change known as "The Surge" when it was not politically popular to do so and Obama was wrongly predicting that it would fail.

Unsurprising, the steadfast and experienced veteran who chose the United States Navy as a career, served in Vietnam and refused early release as a prisoner-of-war to deny the enemy of a propaganda coup (even though it meant his continued imprisonment and torture) got it right, while the young fellow with no military experience (or even Peace Corps service) who had pursued his own careers as a community organizer and an attorney and tied his political fortunes to Rev. Jeremiah A. "God damn America" Wright, Jr. and the likes of William "domestic terrorist" Ayers would have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, with catastrophic consequences for America and the world.

On drilling, McCain recently showed some good judgment. With the price of oil having more than doubled quickly, McCain re-weighed the factors related to the advisability of off-shore drilling and concluded that states should be allowed to permit off-shoring drilling. That was not flip-flopping. McCain did not abandon his conservation and environmental principles; rather, he determined that the time to drill off-shore had come (and he would be well advised to reconsider allowing drilling in ANWAR, if only for national strategic reserve purposes, since America needs more domestic oil and telling California, Florida and Virginia that it can decide on drilling while refusing to allow drilling in ANWAR that Alaska wants is not fair or wise).

Since becoming the presumptive 2008 Democrat presidential candidate, Obama has done flip-flop after flip-flop as he has lurched toward the middle of the political spectrum.

On abortion, Obama was even more pro-abortion than his Democrat rival Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. As an Illinois state senator, he had blocked a bill to protect babies born as a result of botched abortions, because he had been afraid that it might undermine that court-created right to abortion. Recently, however, Obama suddenly expressed great concern about late-term abortions and the mental distress justification for abortion. Pro-abortionists know that Obama is their candidate, but Team Obama is hoping that some voters may be fooled into thinking that he is "moderate."

On immunity for telecommunications companies that helped the United States government during the War on Terror, Obama's flip-flop was astonishing. After promising to lead a filibuster against it, he voted for it.

On capital punishment for child rapists, Obama, never known as a proponent of capital punishment, recently tested the political wind and criticized the Supreme Court decision declaring capital punishment for child rapists unconstitutional.

On the Washington, D.C. draconian gun ban, Obama's yes became no. During the primaries Obama had declared that the ban was constitutional. After the United States Supreme Court, 5 to 4, upheld the Second Amendment's individual right to bear arms and struck down the ban, Obama supported the decision. Importantly, without the votes of the two Justices whose confirmation Obama had opposed (Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito), the ban would have been upheld and the individual right to bear arms would have been denied.

What kind of Justices and judges would Obama appoint?

It's best not to find out!

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.