Contractors (such as Blackwater) have gotten a bad rap because allegations of war-profiteering are a cheap and easy talking point for the anti-Bush gang. Taking it as a given that about 80 percent of what our federal government does it has no business doing at all, it is interesting to note that the image of the well-connected contractor basically hooking up a syphon pump to the treasury while shouting "I drink your milkshake!" is yet another media myth.

 A slight rejiggering of the coding rules might well place the United States much higher on the list or somewhat lower. Regardless, however, the takeaway is not our relative position vis-a-vis other incredibly stable, prosperous states but rather than we are an incredibly stable, prosperous state. Whatever differences in “stability” or “prosperity” exist in Luxembourg, the UK, and the US are so negligible as to be meaningless. Conversely, one would never confuse Sudan or Somalia with Monaco.

What to do? What to do? The party bosses are slumped in their seats, staring blankly into space, or doing job searches on their Blackberries. All is gloom and despondency.

Then … A fanfare of trumpets! A shaft of light! Into the hall rides a man on a white stallion! Stirred from their lethargy, the delegates begin rising from their seats. They start cheering and applauding. The rider reaches the podium, dismounts, and strides to the dais. The applause is deafening now. Cheers ring round the hall! Women are weeping; men are hugging each other.

Broad-shouldered and confident, his sternocleidomastoid muscle flexing and rippling, the Rescuer sweeps his powerful gaze around the hall. A hush falls. He begins to speak. As he speaks, the same though settles on every listener simultaneously: This is the one. He has always been the one. What fools we have been!

Don’t think it couldn’t happen. Don’t, in fact, think it isn’t going to happen. The Democratic party has two lame candidates, without a dime’s worth of executive experience between them.

Obama professes to be concerned that the contact between church and state can impinge upon religious freedom. As he says, "One of the things that I think churches have to be mindful of is that if the federal government starts paying the piper, then they get to call the tune." In itself, this isn’t an unreasonable concern. But in the context of Obama’s conception of the political role of churches and prophetic witness, it doesn’t ring altogether true. Churches that have as significant a role in political advocacy as he ascribes to them are going to be sorely tempted to conform to the world for the sake of influence in it.

That Obama apparently isn’t troubled by this may be a product of his rather worldly conception of the role of religion in our social and political order. For him, religion is principally a source of reformist energy, to be checked in its excesses by a rationalist, non-majoritarian judiciary. The reformist energy that supports and promotes the agenda of the Democratic Party is to be welcomed and harnessed. Those who have other ideas in mind can be treated with a disarming respect, as conversation partners who can be persuaded but won’t be permitted to persuade. Or they can be criticized and resisted as irrational, divisive, and unconstitutional, not to say hypocritical and un-Godly.

They do worship an awesome God in the blue states. And He unfailingly votes Democratic.