Throughout this most exciting presidential election cycle, the pundits and would-be pundits have presumed to fashion a president for the American people.

It is rather insulting that these so-called learned people consider us to be so malleable, we cannot objectively and astutely choose a leader for our country. However, the dichotomous closeness of the contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination portends a disturbing phenomenon; the pundits could be right.

The presumption that the American people are unduly susceptible to spin lies in the recent startling revelation by a former White House insider that the more-than 4,000 young American men and women who lost their lives in Iraq died for a lie. The rationale for the Iraq War was only spin, reportedly manufactured and consciously promulgated by the current sitting president of the United States. Yet many Americans believed the spin and supported the "war."

The whole world now knows we were duped; they probably always knew it. However, we are the ones who must live daily with the knowledge that our president was willing to sacrifice thousands of lives for the sake of his legacy.

It is no wonder that the global perception of the United States is at its lowest point ever, according to a study reported by the Associated Press in March 2007. We all know that countries are perceived through the image of their presidents. We risk becoming political pariahs if we make an errant choice again.

Our next president should epitomize the highest standards of integrity, empathy, compassion, executive oversight, fiscal responsibility and keen judgment. The U.S. president must also be able to define a new, viable socio-politico-economic paradigm for our country and the world that will resolve the monumental domestic and global problems we face in the 21st century, for ourselves and future generations.

Finally, and perhaps most of all, the next president of the United States needs to possess an inscrutable persona that commands respect and inspires us at home, as well as our allies and enemies abroad, to take an active part in helping to build a peaceful, mutually cooperative world.

The Democratic Party is blessed to showcase historical choices of presidential candidates in this epochal period of American history, a woman and a black man. Both bring leadership abilities gallantly hewn out of an American experience from which they were originally excluded. No doubt the unique worldviews they bring from their experiences will benefit America in moving forward. However, there can be only one president at a time and, thanks to the pundits, the possibility of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton working together as a team is dubious at best.

Nonetheless, by the time this is published, there may be a nominee. More likely than not, it will be Barack Obama. If the pundits prevail, the reported demographic split across racial, class and gender lines, as well as unresolved enmity between the rival candidates supporters, will throw the presidency back to the Republicans by default.

If, on the other hand, the American people resist the spin, they will put the interests of the country first at the polls and unify around Barack Obama for a Democratic win in November. These are the only choices that matter for America's destiny.