What the Next President Can Do

Jonathan Alter:

If you survived lymphoma - why would you generate such negative energy in your words, which then set off all the negativity in the posts below? You want to help cancer patients - stop the negativity and stick to facts. It's unusual to come in hear and not hear the shouting before the web page loads. What you need to do is get Lou Dobbs to latch on to it like he has immigration.

You better get a rein on Barry Obama - he's leaking oil bad. Tell Axelrod et al he's seriously out of his league against the Republicans and needs some serious help. He is no longer on the offensive and going on the defense for the self-named man above the fray displays his elitist side - Barry Obama's body language gives him away.

Whose race is it to lose? McCain isn't called a maverick for no reason. Forget the convention bump - where was Barry Obama's? In a marathon, the runner who pulls away stays in front and It's clear he doesn't have a sprint. Recall the 11-in-a-row and limp home. The camps need to stop sniping at each other and then saying the American people want this and that - which they still haven't heard. Whining and responding means he's worried. How well did his dusting off his shoulders and wiping his feet work after the ABC debate? How many primaries did he win? How big was Sen Clinton's margin of victory?

He's been relying on the issues to keep the white woman and working men. Why is this acceptable now when it wasn't when Sen Clinton said it? How many of those women are past their reproductive years? What did NARAL do? Sen Clinton hold outs will determine this election and what has Barry Obama done other than disrespect them and Sen/Pres Clinton? All they want is to be respected and to have Barry Obama respect Sen Clinton with more than 17 words and a reference to a glass ceiling and his daughters. Michelle Obama benefited directly from Sen Clinton's generation and that admission would go a long way. Mentioning the glass ceiling will remind everyone that Gov Palin will breaking through not Sen Clinton.

How many women Republican voted for him in the primaries? How many of them have gone back because of Gov Palin? It's not about Barry Obama the Messiah - look how well that went over. Same amount of folks watched him from on high as did the unknown Alaskan governor with real life charisma (not mesmerism) in a stuffy convention hall. Whether he wins is up to his pride - if his egomania was a voting block he would win in a landslide. How many folks still wave Hillary signs and chant her name when she shows up? How does that make her feel when she's being "pimped out" to help someone who is still disrespecting her base? And his obvious contempt of women is showing in his minimizing Gov Palin's achievements and allowing his camp to attack her pregnant teenage daughter.

I've probably run out of words. He's going down and the MSM rescuing him isn't going to fly anymore.

I came over from reading the comments that were posted with the article on 911. I cannot believe that anyone would say that McCain and Palin are the ones to get us out of the war in Iraq. Someone else must remember McCain saying that if it took a thousand years to win the war in Iraq that would be fine with him and he would support it. McCain is a scum who ditched his first wife because she no longer fit his idea of beautiful after a car wreck disfigured her. He actively conducted an affair with Cindy while still married. is that really a person we can trust to be in the White. Someone who broke the most fundamental vow of forsaking all others in sickness and in health? I think not.

About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh , had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:

'A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.'
'A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.'
'From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.'

'The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years'

'During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. from bondage to spiritual faith;
2. from spiritual faith to great courage;
3. from courage to liberty;
4. from liberty to abundance;
5. from abundance to complacency;
6. from complacency to apathy;
7. from apathy to dependence;
8. from dependence back into bondage'

Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul , Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:

Number of States won by: Democrats: 19 Republicans: 29
Square miles of land won by: Democrats: 580,000 Republicans: 2,427,000
Population of counties won by: Democrats: 127 million Republicans: 143 million
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Democrats: 13.2 Republicans: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: 'In aggregate, the map of the territory Republican won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Democrat territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare...' Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the 'complacency and apathy' phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the 'governmental dependency' phase.

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegal's and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.

If you are in favor of this, then by all means, delete this message. If you are not, then pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.

WE LIVE IN THE LAND OF THE FREE,
ONLY BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE

Mr. Alter, you are writing this article simply to mislead the American people. Everyone knows that cancer is basically a disease related to aging because the cause of cancer is the build up of chemical toxins and viruses with time. As a person grow older, more toxins therefore more cancer case. In other words, more than 80% of those 565,000 person you mentioned were simply died of our age and not quite die of cancer. So you are wrong! Jordan C. Fan, Prophet of Environment.

I am an AF Veteran widow and I feel frustrated about the fact that Americans are treating this Presidential Election as a popularity contest rather than the issues. The fact even take manage his/her own family how the heck is h/she going to manage the Country? How could McCain, a 72 year old man, who has had 3 bouts with malignant cancer, responsibly appoint an inexperienced, yet vocally strident woman as the possible future president of the United States? Just to put it into prospective, my husband, a USAF Veteran, died of bladder cancer at age 68! This is clearly a political move from McCain and an irresponsible one. So much for his rhetoric???s of "Country First" and "I would rather lose a campaign than lose a war." Heck no! He doesn't give a hoot about us. He just wants to win. That's his ultimate ambition. And apart from those 5 POW years, does he really deserve it? Come on! He was a rogue. He graduated from the Naval Academy 5th from the last. If it hadn't been for his Father, who as an Admiral, he'd be running an employment agency right now. I don't see how he excelled in anything except marrying a very wealthy woman and dumping his faithful wife and Mother of his children. I used to write to the guys in Nam, back in the early seventies, before I got married. I had 40 pen-pals I supported with my letters of encouragement and hope. Some of them got killed, some liked to kill, some got caught and I don't know what happened to them. McCain is just one of them, as far as I am concerned. and how about all the young people he sent to their death in Iraq by co-signing with Bush on the war? What would they say to him, if they could? What would their families say to him? The man has no integrity. He is a wolf in sheep's clothing. All I can say to you people out there who are considering voting for McCain is BEWARE!

Dear concerned citizens of America and mass media of the U.S.A.

As a concerned disabled American Veteran and American citizen, I consider it my duty and responsibility to address the following critical issues facing the voters of our Greatgrand nation, the United States of America [USA].

The citizens of the United States of America [USA] have the ultimate power and responsibility to elect the Right Ticket with the right joint "temperament, judgment, and statesmanship" to lead our nation as well as change our nation's present and future moral, political, economic, educational, health care, energy, military, and foundational soul.
In my firm professional, personal, and political opinion, the media should help the common voter to explore and discuss the following attributes of the present Republican and Democratic presidential slates:
1. Does the joint ticket have a calm, cool, and collected " temper and impulse" [Presidential Temperament]?
2. Does each ticket have sound and sustained "Judgment and Caliber"?
3. Does each ticket have a "presidential depth and degree" in regard to their purpose, policies, and positions?
4. Does each ticket have adequate, "understanding and knowledge" of workings around Washington"?
5. Does each ticket have enough "vigor, wisdom and Vision" for the future of our beloved Great-grand Nation?
6. Does each ticket possess enough joint foreign policy experience and ex-poser based on "American Values, Virtues, Vastness, and strong soul"?
7. Are their campaign talk, slogans, ads, plans, and programs based on facts and are they free of fear, fiction, frivolous labels, unfair attacks, negativity, and impulsivity? [Danger to country and countries mission[s].
8. Ultimate irony is he stool change message and uses Palin to kill the messenger. Maverick McCain not good for USA and White House.


As a Independent registered voter I have decided to vote for Obama-Biden ticket. I am sure they will protect our national security, Strong's, stamina and strong soul. Rebuild our nation from bottom up in all areas of need, OBAMA-BIDEN ticket will once again restore and rebuild our global standing with the use of maximum international firm diplomacy and minimal force if and when indicated.


Yours sincerely,

COL. A.M. Khajawall [Ret] MD., Forensic psychiatrist, Colonel, US-AR / MC Combat Stress Control[Ret], Disabled American Veteran and Iraq Freedom team.

PS: This nation will not buy into kitchen sink strategy. We are getting deeper into internal and external holes thru these attacks and world is laughing on us and enjoying our partisan Pitt Bull wounds. I am sure GOP.RC, FOX, RUSH, ROVE.And McCain's his surrogates will fail to dupe, deceive, and deprive USA its deserved leadership.

Hopefully it won't be Sarah Palin in the event of 72 year old McCain (god forbid) passes away!!

Since all Americans are questioning McCain's judgment about picking Sarah Palin and at the core of everyone's concern is her inexperience and utter lack of foreign or national policy understanding - I think it's important that the American people know about this mistake as soon as Sarah was not around one of Bush's speech writers and did not have a teleprompter in front of her!!

By the way - hopefully "Softball" Gibson will ask Sarah Palin the tough questions that the American voters need to know and understand about her qualifications to be VP - which being a gritty mother of 5 is not one of them - respectful and demanding in it's own right - but certainly not a qualification to be VP of the United States!! Let's hope you write about this first mistake - I'm sure of many more to come - about how inexperienced and unqualified Sarah Palin really is. See below...

McCain's judgment should be seriously questioned! He made a terrible mistake in picking Plain. Obvious fact: in the wake of the government taking over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - here's what Sarah Palin had to say below. Sarah Palin is seriously under-qualified for a job that McCain (should he win - which I don't see it happening) that she has ABSOLUTELY NO KNOWLEDGE of national or foreign policy and lacks the understanding for a wide array of issues right now!! Palin is not ready to be VP for anybody!!

Gov. Sarah Palin made her first potentially major gaffe during her time on the national scene while discussing the developments of the perilous housing market this past weekend.

Speaking before voters in Colorado Springs, the Republican vice presidential nominee claimed that lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had "gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers." The companies, as McClatchy reported, "aren't taxpayer funded but operate as private companies. The takeover may result in a taxpayer bailout during reorganization."

Economists and analysts pounced on the misstatement, saying it demonstrated a lack of understanding about one of the key economic issues likely to face the next administration.

"You would like to think that someone who is going to be vice president and conceivable president would know what Fannie and Freddie do," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "These are huge institutions and they are absolutely central to our country's mortgage debt. To not have a clue what they do doesn't speak well for her, I'd say."

Even conservative analysts acknowledged that the statement simply did not hold true.

Thank you.

Alter. One would think someone who faced death would realize the importance of kindness. Since you laid off the misogyny this week, here's a few clues for your friend barry:

1 Stop whining.

Does he want to win or be most popular? McCain's speech received higher ratings and 38M people watched Gov Palin's speech. Deal with it. He keeps talking about McCain like a he's been attacked by a bully. People think barry's spineless already. His attempt at humor/sarcasm comes off as disdain and his face reflects it. For someone who has been accused of elitism all it does is remind and reinforce with his tone.

2 It's about the voters, stupid.

Remind him he's there to talk to the voters - they're not there to see him and chant change! Those days are over. Does he want to be adored or be president? Does he want a Dem in the WH or does he just want to be put on a pedestal with styrofoam pillars behind him?

3 Say something.

Lay out specifically what he will do about the economy. Unemployment record high in 5 yrs, foreclosures in 18 yrs. People in OH/PA don't want to hear about earmarks - they want to hear about paychecks and mortgage payments. And why does he even want to go there? (Crown, U of C, Jones)

4 Stop relying on Sen Clinton.


Unless he's finally ready to apologize to Sen/Pres Clinton for his treatment of them, especially at the Convention. You know what I am talking about. Sen Clinton's following are even more incensed that he's using her to do things he cannot/will not. Those 18M voted for her because she spoke to and for them. He hasn't spoken to them and it's very clear he's not interested in speaking for them.

5 Calling on Sen Clinton reinforces the notion that she should have been picked for VP.

And the MSM (Quindlen, Kornblut, Crowley) who whine that Sen Clinton should go here and do that only makes him appear weaker than he already is. Why is it Sen Clinton's job? Is her name going to be on the ballot? Did he win the nomination or was he selected? Where's Caroline Kennedy? Pelosi? Dodd? Kerry? Gore? Dean? And all the other pink-faced presidential failures? It appears they just wanted Sen Clinton to lose because they sure aren't doing anything to help barry to win.

6 Admit defeat.

Axelrod in all of his own narcissism and hate has no experience against the GOP machine and it's glaringly obvious. Who but axelrod would think playing the race card would work? How much more of the black/white guilt vote did he think he was going to garner from the GOP? All it did was prove conclusively that it was his main strategy in the primaries. There's only one Dem since 1980 who has fought successfully against the GOP. barry's inexperience is glaringly obvious in that he has still not sought the counsel of Pres Clinton. In fact, he's gone out of his way to be cruel. Does he want a Dem in the WH or does he want to destroy the last one who was? It's clear he can't do both.