MY CHOICE IN '08, AS AN ITALIAN-AMERICAN

Let's see: John McCain has called the Reverend Rod Parsley a "spiritual guide," and Parsley

is not shy about his desire to obliterate Islam. In Silent No More, he notes -- approvingly -- that Christopher Columbus shared the same goal: "It was to defeat Islam, among other dreams, that Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World in 1492...Columbus dreamed of defeating the armies of Islam with the armies of Europe made mighty by the wealth of the New World. It was this dream that, in part, began America."

Meanwhile, Barack Obama's pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, says:

Jesus was a poor black man who lived in a country and who lived in a culture that was controlled by rich white people. The Romans were rich, the Romans were Italian, which means they were European, which means they were white, and the Romans ran everything in Jesus' country. It just came to me, within the past few weeks, y'all, why so many folks are hatin' on Barack Obama: He doesn't fit the mold. He ain't white, he ain't rich, and he ain't privileged. Hillary fits the mold. Europeans fit the mold. Giuliani fits the mold....

(More here.)

So what about Hillary? Well, there was this about her husband:

The Clinton-Cuomo confrontation began ... when [Gennifer] Flowers made public a tape of what she said was a secretly recorded telephone conversation in which she and Mr. Clinton were discussing Mr. Cuomo.

"I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't have some Mafioso major connections," Ms. Flowers said.

"Well, he acts like one," Mr. Clinton responded.

So I guess I can pick the candidate whose "spiritual guide" enthusiastically praises one of my most famous countrymen for seeking to wipe out Islam, the candidate whose minister thinks my people hate blacks (and hated Jesus because he was black), or the candidate whose spouse thinks our most eloquent public official in recent years sounds like a mobster. Gosh, I'm so motivated to vote right now.