At a campaign event in Elkhart, Ind. on 8/6/08, a 7-year-old girl asked Barack Obama, "Why did you start running for president?"

Obama replied by saying,  "America is, is no longer, uh, what it could be, what it, it once was," Obama said haltingly. "And I say to myself, I don't want that future for my children."

(Audio here :07)

A presidential candidate should talk up the country they lead.  What great leader has ever denigrated and bashed the thing he led?  When did it become fashionable for presidents and presidential candidates to denigrate their country?  Great leaders and great presidents lead by inspiring, lifting up, motivating by appealing to our best side.  You can't lead a country, an organization or even a company if all you can say about it is negative. 

Sorry Obama, that's not what presidents do.  They inspire, they lift up, they motivate by appealing to our best side.  What you are doing is tearing down the country you wish to lead.  You're insulting it, you're focusing on it in the most negative ways possible.  You see every bad thing about the country you hope to lead and no good thing.  

Can you imagine hearing the leaders of Germany, France, Russia, China say anything like that?  Can you imagine the leader of China saying "China is no longer what it could be, what it once was."?  

Democrats, liberals and leftists have lost the will to make and keep America great, because they don't understand what greatness is.  To them greatness is not a self-sufficient country that produces great wealth.  To them greatness is a country on the decline.  One that refuses to utilize its own resources (like oil) but instead relies on its sworn enemies for its most critical needs.  To them a great country is one that constantly asks its citizens to do less with less!  Use less oil, drive smaller cars - and drive fewer miles.  Build smaller homes, use less air conditioning, produce less, give less, help the poor less (while all the while claiming to be helping the poor).  

Obama says America is not what it once was.  Why doesn't he tell us what it once was so that we may aspire to that?   In what period of our history does Obama think America was great?  He said it's not "what it once was" so apparently he does think it was great during some previous time.  But which one? 

He never says.