Democrats and Republicans both have a lot to answer for in the mortgage mess. Yet one party is going to hold the White House for the next four years. Here’s a way of looking at the presidential election without regard to partisanship. It comes down to the caliber of the individuals who are asking for our trust, and the kind of America we want to live in.

On one side there are the Pilot and Mrs. Palin, a war hero and a tough frontierswoman, a maverick senator and a reform governor. On the other side are the Wizard of Ob and his sidekick Jolly Joe, a Chicago hustler and a Washington hack. The Wizard scares me, because if something seems too good to be true, it usually is. Our country will be in better hands with the old Pilot flying. McCain’s my man.

Twenty reasons come to mind, based on the rival candidates’ positions. It’s the Pilot for economic growth and job creation, for avoiding big tax and spending increases, for encouraging world commerce and preventing the return of 1930s-style trade barriers. He and Sarah will maximize America’s energy resources, traditional and alternative alike. They’ll restore prosperity sooner; no New New Deal for them.

The Wizard wants health care to become a government-sponsored enterprise, much like Fannie and Freddie, heaven help us. He’s against parental choice of schools, bowing to teacher unions. He’d sign the labor proposal denying workers a secret ballot. His ACORN allies specialize in voter fraud.

Pilot McCain would appoint judges who respect the constitution like Roberts and Alito, in contrast to Wizard Obama’s liberal activist judges. Rabidly anti-gun, the Wizard would trash self-defense and the Second Amendment. He’d muzzle talk radio with the Un-Fairness Doctrine. Saving babies after botched abortions is “above [his] pay grade;” so is protecting traditional marriage. Unbelievable.

The old Pilot’s wings wobble, it’s true, on securing our borders against the illegal alien invasion and refusing to reward immigration lawbreakers with amnesty or citizenship. But you know Mac will still fight harder for our national identity than the multicultural Wizard with his America-hating church background.

And speaking of Obama’s 20-year tutelage under Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who wants radical pastors like him and Father Pfleger as unofficial chaplains to the First Family? Not me.

A president able to say “God bless the USA” with no profanity or KKK sarcasm was never more needed than today, when perhaps 10 percent of a billion Muslims desire religious war for our annihilation. That makes Pilot McCain by far the safer choice to lead America’s war on terror.

The Wizard of Ob is such a naïf on national security, it makes Bush’s gullibility toward Putin seem cunning. Amazingly, he blamed the victim in Russia’s rape of Georgia. He promised an unconditional summit with the Iranian madman who wants to nuke Israel. He stubbornly insists on surrender in Iraq. He ranks below Clinton and Carter in understanding peace through strength.

This brings me, if you’ve been counting, to No. 20 in my list of reasons to prefer John McCain over Barack Obama for President of the United States, party labels aside. The final and most important reason is character. The crusty old Pilot, airborne for all these years, has it beyond a doubt. The weaselly Wizard may or may not. The shadows enshrouding his resume, the special effects propelling his campaign, just make you wonder.

Was Mac faultless as a POW or in the Keating affair? No. Yet his integrity is manifestly that of an Ike or a TR. Whereas about Barack, we can’t be sure. The Wizard’s voice is alluring, but what’s behind the curtain? These stormy days are no time to gamble. Trust the Pilot, America.