Only two weeks after the elections in November of 2008, The United States of America, a nation of former greatness lay in absolute desolate ruin. Within the previous 72 hours a series of eight successive, delayed nuclear devices had been detonated. Indescribably large portions of metro Washington D.C., Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, and two thirds of the island of Manhattan have been turned into steaming craters. Millions are dead, President George W. Bush is in intensive care, two-thirds of the Cabinet - including the Vice President missing or dead.

President-elect Barack Obama faces the most enormous challenge of any incoming President in the history of the nation.

But why?

How did it happen?

Turn back the clock to the week of February 5, 2007. With a courageous handful of dissenting votes against the measures, the two houses of Congress - purposefully ignore the pleas of General David Petraeus and both pass non-binding resolutions that condemn the President's call for victory. One comes from the Democratic controlled House condemning the President, his plan, and by implications the troops and the other from a U.S. Senate that ceases to even feign any faint resemblance to standing for victory.

Most disappointing in the entire sick, pathetic process are the cowardly actions of those who refuse to answer even simple questions on talk radio shows. Names like Boehner, Cantor, Warner, and McCain take actions, evade questions, and sponsor resolutions that then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates confirms will embolden the enemy. It matters not that at 6pm EST across America Hewitt, Levin, Gibson, and Savage tried daily to remind us all of what would come.

As a nation our leaders had taken us from the shadows of Churchill to the defeat of Chamberlain. And what's worse is we had let them.

Even the then "new media" known as the blogosphere rallied tens of thousands of signatures and bloggers to speak back to those in power, only to be evaded, shut down, and ignored.

From those resolutions the remaining remnants of Americans who knew in their hearts the importance of victory over the terrorist movement of Islamo-facisim, begin to resign themselves to the reality that the maniacal and dangerous voices from the left had achieved full victory. Even Howard Dean emerged from his political cave long enough to gloat and offer comment.

As in the Vietnam conflict a generation previous, neither the United States military - nor her allies had lost a single battle on the field of war. Yet her withdrawal from the area begins a rapid progession into absolute civil strife and chaos.

Iran, long on the very publicized trail to a nuclear weapon of her own reinforces the Shia majority population in what was Iraq. Feeling threatened and under-matched to Tehran's superior strategy and numbers Al Qaeda seeks state sponsored help for the Sunni population. Wicked Shia death squad strikes are answered with large scale Shia losses from Sunni IEDs. The Kurds are annihilated by a second set of Hizbollah and Iranian forces and Tehran siezes the oil wealth of northern Iraq. Eventually Iraq all but disappears, and only an imaginary line now divides the Sunni controlled south and the Iranian controlled north.

For a brief while Americans forget about war. Soldiers return home and go back to families, children, and jobs. During the main push of the 2008 election cycle pro-war-on-terror candidates begin to be scorned so badly on the campaign trail, most of them drop out by mid May.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama battle it out to the end. But in the end the Kennedy styled message of Obama secures enough states to guarantee the nomination. In a gesture of unspeakable generosity, particularly after many of the things she has said about him on the trail, Obama invites Clinton to accept her place as his Vice-President. The convention rocks with excitement, and causes the already shaky ticket for the GOP to simply fall apart. Continued...