The Senate is an amazing institution.  It has transformed John McCain from a hero to a panderer.  It couldn’t work its magic on Barack Obama because he already was an empty vessel who makes Dan Quayle sound like King Solomon.  But if George Washington had served a term or two in the Senate before 1776, he wouldn’t have been caught dead leading the Continental army.

             So now we have three senators vying for the highest position of leadership in the world.  Something has gone seriously wrong with our selection process.  It has given us three dwarfs with ambitions to be giants.  Whoever wins, America loses.

             You won’t see it in any of these candidates, but here’s what leadership should look like.

             *A real leader would tell the United Nations to take its racism inspectors, currently probing the United States, and stick ‘em you-know-where.  He would remind these thieves and would-be rulers of the world that the American people pay the lion’s share of the U.N.’s budget, and suggest that they try to get by without our money for a while.

             *A real leader would tell the president of Mexico to stop trying to solve Mexico’s socioeconomic problems by shoveling them across the Rio Grande.  He would tell the leaders of La Raza, in English, that they are long, long overdue for the mother of all tax audits.

             *A real leader would stand in front of the “gay marriage” bandwagon and stop it cold.  What is the matter with McCain?  He endured the worst cruelties those animals in Hanoi could throw at him, and yet he quails before Ellen DeGeneres.  But then we also have Mother and Daughter Bush offering their family chapel as a venue for Ellen to celebrate her perverted travesty of a “wedding.”  If our leaders can’t stand up to a lesbian comedian, how will they stand up to Mahmud Ahmedinijad?  Maybe Ellen should be running for president.

             *A real leader would defend America’s freedom and prosperity against the colossal hoax of “global warming.”  Instead, we have the whole crowd of wannabes truckling to it.  We have Obama suggesting that we bow to “the rest of the world” and say “May I?” before we air-condition our bedrooms on a summer night. But then how many senators do you think will swelter with the rest of us?

             And so it goes, on and on, with no relief in sight.  If it’s true that a nation gets the government it deserves, we are compelled to ask, “What have we done to deserve this?”

             Whatever it is, we’d better stop doing it.