This week I made the, to me, not very controversial assertion that Barack Obama is farther to the left than Gorge McGovern. In fact, I think Senator Obama is much farther to the left in 2008 than McGovern was in 1972. E-mails and phone calls disagreed, often in querulous tones: How dare I suggest the Dalibama was other than a unifying figure building bridges from the center in both directions? But when I spent most of a show soliciting the input of the audience, not one caller or correspondent could provide one field in which McGovern flanked Obama on the left. By contrast, Obama has quite a lot of distance to McGovern's left on many issues

True, both Obama and McGovern ran as anti-war candidates demanding immediate retreat from raging battles with determined foes regardless of the consequences.

McGovern advocated retreat from an enemy who had neither struck at the U.S. (al Qaeda in Iraq is a franchise of al Qaeda) nor which threatened to stage future direct attacks on America and its allies. Obama's retreatism is far more dangerous to the lives of Americans than McGovern's, though the policies of both would lead toi wholesale slaughter of regional populations.

McGovern never evidenced the naivete about the Soviets that Obama has displayed about the Iranian mullahs or their front man Ahmadinejad.

Though McGovern was charged with being the candidate of "acid, abortion and amnesty," his campaign was conducted prior to the decision in Roe v. Wade while Obama's is being run on a promise of more Justice Ginsburgs and the restoration of partial birth abortion as a lawful option for the termination of late term pregnancies. Obama's votes in the Illinois and U.S. Senate on abortion rights put him as far left as any Democrat can go.

I don't recall McGovern as having a position on gun control, but Obama's support for a ban on the possession, sale and manufacture of all handguns is as radical a position as any major political figure has ever held.

George McGovern did not support same sex marriage, but Obama has stated he accepts the decision of the California Supreme Court to impose same sex marriage on the Golden State. Continued...