There are major differences between liberals and conservatives, and that’s why I never know what people such as Barack Obama are talking about when they speak of bringing us all together. And I suspect that Jeremiah Wright’s surrogate son doesn’t know, either.

For instance, if I support the surge in Iraq and you insist on bringing the troops home by next Thursday, what’s our compromise? Bringing our troops only partway home? Say as far as the Canary Islands?

If you’re in favor of same-sex marriages and I happen to think the whole idea is a very silly joke, where’s our common ground? Doing away with opposite-sex marriages?

If I believe in capital punishment and you don’t, what constitutes a midway point between our positions? Only executing convicted killers whose last names start with the letters between A and M?

One of the most unpleasant things about liberals is the way they tend to place the politicians they endorse on pedestals. Frankly, I have never understood this phenomenon. How is it that so many people turn into besotted teenagers once they decide to vote for someone?

I’m not saying that I don’t like some politicians more than others. I like those who vote the way I want them to and I dislike the ones who don’t. But when you get right down to it, most politicians on either side of the aisle are pretty mediocre human beings. What is their great accomplishment, after all? These are people who have devoted their lives to convincing other people to hand over their hard-earned money so that they can get or keep a job that essentially consists of spending other people’s tax dollars. Often enough to keep the tabloid press occupied, these palookas are caught taking bribes, using drugs and getting involved in sex scandals. In other words, they often behave like the rock stars they aspire to be, even though they can’t sing, cavort around a stage or play a musical instrument.

Politicians, unlike cops, firemen and members of the military, are not called upon to do anything dangerous, heroic or the least bit self-sacrificial. Instead, they build up fiefdoms on your tax dollars, go on junkets around the world, receive the sort of health care only millionaires can dream of and the sort of pensions no working stiff can even imagine.

If they deign to place their names on ghost-written books, millions of you will rush out to buy them, and if they manage to give a speech, also ghost-written, that doesn’t put everyone into a coma, they’re hailed as great orators.

I swear, when I see the ladies gazing up at Hillary Clinton, adoration shining in their eyes, or at the hordes of born-again left-wingers gathered to watch Barack Obama transform water into whine, I feel grateful that I don’t know any of them.

It’s not because I’m a conservative that I haven’t mentioned John McCain. For one thing, most Republicans have no illusions about him. Many of them will vote for him in November for one very good reason; namely, that their blood runs cold at the mere thought of either Democrat being the next commander-in-chief. For another thing, conservatives tend to be realists, and just about the only politician who really excites them is Ronald Reagan, and he’s been dead since 2004. Continued...