From time to time we will refer to Ousider’ View. Opinion from international writers and journos that American media might not carry.  Even in these days of the world wide web, the sheer hugeness of the information that is out there makes it unlikely that voters in US can get at diverse, deep discussion. Well, that’s why blogs exist, right!

Spengler, a column at Asia Times Online is a  nom-de-plume  derived from one of the great teachers of history, the German philosopher Oswald Spengler.

The ATOnline Spengler writes about just about every issue in the world, not a specialist on any one area, but a philosopher akin to his namesake, a very definite viewpoint, backed by ample scholarship. A recent Spengler column How Obama Lost the Election   build on  deep insights into Obama the person, the candidate, the nominee, and the US electorate. The entire article is worth a read,  but here are some choice cuts:  

Senator Barack Obama’s acceptance speech last week seemed vastly different from the stands of this city’s Invesco Stadium than it did to the 40 million who saw it on television. Melancholy hung like thick smog over the reserved seats where I sat with Democratic Party staffers.

On television, Obama’s spectacle might have looked like The Ten Commandments, but inside the stadium it felt like Night of the Living Dead.

Obama will spend the rest of his life wondering why he rejected the obvious road to victory, that is, choosing Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential nominee

That is why McCain will win in November, and by a landslide, barring some unforeseen event. Obama is the most talented and persuasive politician of his generation, the intellectual superior of all his competitors, but a fatally insecure personality. American voters are not intellectual, but they are shrewd, like animals. They can smell insecurity, and the convention stank of it.

Why didn’t Obama choose Hillary? The most credible explanation came from veteran columnist Robert Novak May 10, who reports that Michelle Obama vetoed Hillary’s candidacy

Curiously, Obama ignored the rising stars of his own party, offering the prime time speaking slots to familiar faces, including Senator Edward Kennedy and Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as his own wife, the first prospective First Lady to take the keynote spot in the history of American party conventions.

If Palin is unqualified to be vice president, all the less so is Obama qualified to be president.

McCain has certified his authenticity for the voters. He’s now the outsider, the reformer, the maverick, the war hero running next to the Alaskan amazon with a union steelworker spouse.

Obama, in short, is long on brains and short on guts
He is a Third World anthropologist profiling Americans, in but not of the American system

By all rights, the Democrats should win this election. They will lose, I predict, because of the flawed character of their candidate.