Joel Stein, in the LA Times is embarrassed, as well he should be.

You are embarrassing yourselves. With your “Yes We Can” music video, your “Fired Up, Ready to Go” song, your endless chatter about how he’s the first one to inspire you, to make you really feel something — it’s as if you’re tacking photos of Barack Obama to your locker, secretly slipping him little notes that read, “Do you like me? Check yes or no.” Some of you even cry at his speeches. If I were Obama, and you voted for me, I would so never call you again.

But can we help ourselves?

Thing is, I’ve watched too many movies and read too many novels; I can’t root against a person who believes he can change the world. The best we Obamaphiles can do is to refrain from embarrassing ourselves. And I do believe that we can resist making more “We Are the World”-type videos. We can resist crying jags. We can resist, in every dinner argument and every e-mail, the word “inspiration.” Yes, we can.

Of course, everyone knows by know that they should be reading David Brooks every Tuesday and Friday (and watching him on The News Hour on Fridays) but, just in case there someone who did not get the message….

…his column today is pretty good.

the essential competition in many consumer sectors is between commodity providers and experience providers, the companies that just deliver product and the companies that deliver a sensation, too. There’s Safeway, and then there is Whole Foods. There’s the PC, and then there’s the Mac. There are Holiday Inns, and there are W Hotels. There’s Walgreens, and there’s The Body Shop.

Guess who is Safeway’s and who is Whole Foods!

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

– Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I feel the longing…

Trivia: If you Google that quote, guess which campaign will show up near the top! Pssst. It’s not Hillary’s.

After his Faith in America speech, I confidently predicted:

I just read Romney’s speech on Faith in America and I have to say that I am terribly impressed. I think he just won himself the republican nomination. It was an excellent speech.

The parts of the speech that caused the most uproar were the parts were he said freedom was not not possible without religion

Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.

and when he condemned the idea of secular democracy

It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They are wrong.

and when his statement of inclusivity carefully excluded non-believers. Which makes it all the more ironic that

 Among the small group of Republican voters who say they never go to church, Romney got his highest vote total – 39 percent. Among people who attend services more than once a week, he received his lowest, 21 percent.

Put another way, those dreaded secularists – whom Romney himself criticized in his off-tune and hugely miscalculated speech on religion in December – were far more likely to vote for him than were the most devout Christians.

The best part of Romney’s drop-out was the spiteful concession speech in which he gave a taste of the campaign that he might have run in the general election.

I’m convinced that unless America changes course, we could become the France of the 21st century.

The threat to our culture comes from within.

In the 1960s, there were welfare programs that created a culture of poverty in our country. Now, some people think we won that battle when we [er, who is exactly is we? - ed] reformed welfare. But the liberals haven’t given up.

Europe — Europe is facing a demographic disaster.

That’s the inevitable product of weakened faith in the Creator, failed families, disrespect for the sanctity of human life, and eroded morality.

Soon the face of liberalism in America will have a new name. Whether it’s Barack or Hillary, the result would be the same if they were to be able to…

(BOOING)

… if they were to be able to win the presidency.

The opponents of American culture would push the throttle, devising new justifications for judges to depart from the Constitution.

Frankly, in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.

Romney’s speech was aimed at those people McCain has a chance to call their bluff. I hope he takes it.

If any of my readers donate to the McCain campaign, please send a note saying that some of your best friends are liberals and that you don’t want them demonized.

Thanks.

PS. Would be great if the Clinton supporters would do the same - but it would be even better if you stopped being Clinton supporters.