HERE'S WHAT MAKES A GREAT COLUMNIST:

Obama's women reveal his secret (Spengler, 2/25/08, Asia Times)

America is not the embodiment of hope, but the abandonment of one kind of hope in return for another. America is the spirit of creative destruction, selecting immigrants willing to turn their back on the tragedy of their own failing culture in return for a new start. Its creative success is so enormous that its global influence hastens the decline of other cultures. For those on the destruction side of the trade, America is a monster. Between half and nine-tenths of the world's 6,700 spoken languages will become extinct in the next century, and the anguish of dying peoples rises up in a global cry of despair.

This mere parenthetical is more insightful than just about anything else you'll read today.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 25, 2008 7:36 AM