On Community Service

Unless I missed the boat (and that's always possible), Barack Obama hasn't claimed his years as a community organizer in Chicago as experience that qualified him to be president. They are part of his life story, his history, part of what brought him ultimately to run for president. But as a qualification to be president? I don't recall hearing him say that.

You'd think otherwise after some of the speeches at the Republican convention this week. You'd think that being a community organizer was all the experience Obama has claimed. "Community organizer," Guiliani sneered. "What?" Palin said that being the mayor of a small town is "sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities."

If you believe in small government, believe in cutting government food programs, cutting programs to aid the homeless, or, for that matter, cutting aid to young unwed mothers in Alaska, if you believe in cutting job training programs because you feel that isn't the governement's role, or shouldn't be . . . well, it seems to me that you might then have a strong personal committment to community service. You should believe in non-governement programs through local houses of worship, though community centers. It's just not good for society to have homeless children starving on the street. So if you believe in small governement, then for Heaven's sake, don't ridicule people who give up lucrative jobs and go into the business of community service!

Pray we all stay safe and dry in Hurricane Ike.