It's the silly season in presidential politics and it won't be over until November. I'm informed that Obama sometimes omits his lapel flag-pin. Jesse Jackson was caught unaware when a supposedly dead mike picked up a testicular comment. McCain stuttered and stammered when asked since Medicare pays for Viagra, should it also pay for contraception? And Obama is lurching toward the center. But that's standard operating procedure for presidential candidates.

Campaign information is increasingly transmitted by the cable news networks and the Internet. These outlets play the election process as a kind of soap opera entertainment, trolling for sensationalism and gotcha moments. The truly serious issues facing the nation are hardly mentioned or get treated in the form of shouting matches between cable pundits.

I've not heard much serious discussion of any pressing issues. I can't count McCain's feckless promise to balance the budget by the end of his first term while retaining Bush's tax cuts. He cannot be serious.

There is one hugely important issue that I can't recall being mentioned at all in the course of the campaign. The Doomsday Clock of the atomic scientists stands at 5 minutes to midnight - that is, the catastrophic destruction of world humanity. Nuclear weapons are in the hands of the following nations: the U. S., Russia, Great Britain, China, France, Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea. And now, perhaps, Iran also possesses nuclear weapons. More than 40 other countries have stores of highly-enriched uranium, the key ingredient for a nuclear bomb. Do you doubt jihadists are working on a nuclear capability? The Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty is little more than a lame joke.

Furthermore, the successful mapping of the human genome has resulted in the identification of more than 1,800 genes responsible for particular diseases and holds out hope for their cure. But, at the same time, this new genetic knowledge means that terribly dangerous pathogens might be incorporated in weapons material that could result in a human catastrophe akin to the nuclear midnight.

I think I know why climate change, the nuclear issue and the biological dangers are not present in this presidential campaign. Candidates, to put it bluntly, pander to the voters. They know that voter choices are emotionally driven. They avoid doomsday scenarios like sin.

The doomsday scenarios have one big thing in common - they're all global. They will not yield to national solutions, since nations are in competition with one another, not in cooperation, save for temporary alliances. Presidential politicians love their country. Their horizon of concern is the next election.

But world humanity is at terrible risk. Our civilization could disappear by accident or design in a nuclear or biological holocaust. Must we simply accept global anarchy and hope for the unlikely best?

No. I have the answer. We need a wise and benevolent absolute despot who rules over the nations in order to tame catastrophic threats and create citizens, not of nations, but of the world.

But I have no idea how to manage the transition. And I am all too aware of Lord Acton's warning that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Moreover, I'm a Democrat and a patriot. I'm part of the problem, not part of the solution.