Norm Crosby suggested during the Jerry Lewis Telethon that this may be the election when voters "hope that nobody wins."   He might be right. 

Sen. Barack Obama has suggested that Sen. John McCain  would be a continuation of the Bush administration.  I wish that I thought  one of the presidential candidates would be as effective a president as George W. Bush, but I don't.  The current set of major party candidates may be the worst since the 19th Century.

 I would rather have four more years of George W. Bush or Bill Clinton than have four years of either Barack Obama or John McCain.  I would rather bring back Jimmy Carter or George H. W. Bush, in spite of their ages, than have four years of Barack Obama.

Neither George W. Bush nor Bill Clinton will be considered a great president,  but both are likely to look good compared to which ever of the major party candidates  wins  this year's election.

The only ability Obama seems to have is the ability to con people into thinking he can handle the presidency.    He has never  handled any executive  position and doesn't understand  the War on Terror or the current economic  situation.  There is more to being president than just looking good on television.  Fred Thompson knows how to act like a president on television, but I wouldn't have voted for him either. 

Obama is less experienced than the 20th Century's least experienced president Warren G. Harding.  Obama shares  Harding's tendency to associate with corrupt individuals.  Unlike Harding, Obama may himself be corrupt considering that he attempted to earmark a million dollars to his wife's employer after the employer more than doubled her salary  Providing government benefits after receiving money  is usually consider bribery.  

He cannot understand that regardless of whether or not the U.S. should have invaded Iraq, the country has  become a battleground in the War on Terror.  If we leave before the Iraqis are able to  keep al  Qaeda from taking over, Osama bin Laden (OBL), or another al Qaeda leader, will move to Iraq and use its oil revenue to fund al Qaeda's operations.
 
Obama doesn't understand that if OBL is hiding in Pakistan, OBL is doing so because even if the U.S. kills him there, his successors might be able to use the action to  either take over Pakistan or at least gain access to some of its nuclear weapons.   Sending troops into Pakistan, as Obama wants to do, could spark a full scale war with Pakistan  which not only has nuclear weapons, but also a population nearly as large as the combined populations of  World War II Germany and Japan.  

OBL is not a Hitler type leader who wants power for himself.  OBL  believes he  is pursuing a cause  that is bigger than he is. He believes he might benefit in the afterlife if he became a martyr to that cause. 

Obama's comments about the current economic situation  are just simplistic partisan nonsense.  He fails to recognize that the sitaution results from global economic problems rather than the policies of President Bush.  

The basic problem began with a boom during the Clinton administration.  Historically, economic  booms fuel greed and encourage  those with money to feel they cannot lose regardless of the risk. Booms may also encourage politicians to believe that busts are a thing of the past.   The boom could have gone bust with the double shock of 9/11 and the Enron collapse, but Bush helped prevent that outcome.       

McCain isn't much better on economic matters than  Obama, but he does recognize the dangers of tax increases in a bust situation.  If I remember standard economic theory taxes should be increased during growth periods to prevent a boom situation and pay off any debts and reduced during recessions to stimulate the economy.  Reducing taxes is less expensive than sending out economic stimulous checks. 

As an experienced executive McCain won't be distracted by having to learn how to be in charge of an organization.  McCain has a better understanding of what can go wrong because of his experience during the savings and loan crisis in the late 80's.

McCain understands the War on Terror and recognizes the need to win on all battlefields.   He is unlikely to  make the mistake of starting a war with Pakistan.

McCain's weakness is that he doesn't come across as a strong enough leader.  I don't expect him to  be another Roosevelt (TR or FDR), but  he could exhibit the fiestiness  of Harry S. Truman.  McCain was too laid back during the debates which is one way he is like George W. Bush.

Obama also  shares a trait with Bush.  Obama decided to follow Bush's example and choose an older vice president who could tell him how to handle foreign policy.  If Obama really were as intelligent as his supporters claimed he would have selected a woman for his vice president. 

I'm not a fan of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, but I would concede that she would have been a better choice for vice president than either Sen . Joe Biden or Gov. Sarah Palin.  She would have been a better choice for President than Obama or McCain.     

Obama's foolish decision to choose Biden allowed McCain to select Palin as his running mate.  She's the only bright spot in this dismal election.  She is better prepared to be president than Obama.  Like Vice  President  Calvin Coolidge, who became president after Warren G. Harding died,. she was selected for the vice presidency during her first term as governor.    

Theodore Roosevelt, who like Palin was 42 at the time he was selected as vice president, was also in his first term as governor.  However, he had also briefly been an under secretary of the navy as well as an army colonel (the army equivalent of the rank achieved by McCain in the navy).    It's too early to say Palin is another TR, but she has a similar enthusiasm.  TR may have been the ultimate presidential maverick.

Why are journalists so naive about politicians?  If they had any sense they would realize that politicians are not the most truthful individuals. 

Some politicians lie to mislead voters.  Others lie because they don't really know what they are talking about.

Legislative politicians are particularly prone to changing their positions based on political expediency.  Legislators can always blame the executive branch if something goes wrong.
 
Members of the U.S. Senate have long been known for saying one thing in the Senate and the opposite back home in the states they represent.   As Gov. Sarah Palin observed in the recent vice presidential debate, Washington politicians often are for things before they are against them or against things before they are for them.

Both presidential candidates have changed their positions on important matters during the last year or so.  Sen. Barack Obama first claimed that he would accept public funding for his presidential campaign then changed his mind.  Sen. John McCain once supported realistic immigration reform before he realized he needed   the support of anti-immigrant groups.

Presidential candidates will deliberately make false promises to get elected.  Sometimes they even lie to themselves.  John F. Kennedy probably believed he could get civil rights legislation through Congress, but he failed to do so.

President Woodrow Wilson was reelected in 1916 with a slogan "He kept us our of war."  Less than six months after being reelected, President Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany.

Herbert Hoover ran for president in 1928 promising  "a chicken in every pot and a  car in every garage."  A year after he was elected the stock market crashed.

In 1964 President Lyndon Johnson said he wouldn't send "American boys" to fight a war that should be fought by "Asian boys."   A year after he won the election paratroopers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade were fighting for the lives against a much larger force in War Zone D in Vietnam.

So why do journalists assume we can believe anything polticians say?  Why do journalists suggest we should evaluated presidential candidates upon what they say rather than what they have done?

Perhaps journalists ignore the fact that polticians have lied in the past because they have memories like a VHS tape.  When they get to the end of the tape they simply record over whatever they used to know. 

Or. perhaps, today's journalists just aren't  very smart.  They don't understand that  politicians  will deliberately lie if no one challenges them with the truth.  Journalists don't understand that politicians, especially male politicians, often have a greatly inflated sense of their own abilities.

I'll be glad when these media events dopey journalists  call "debates" are over.  A real debate involves an extended discussion of issues, such as was done during the debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960.

The media events of today only give the participants sufficient time to repeat political cliches and other sound bites.   This approach favors politicians like  Sen. Joe Biden who  lack the intelligence to understand the complexity of the real world.

For example, Biden seems incapable of understanding that wars cannot be conducted according to strict timetables because the enemy and the weather only follow the script in Hollywood.  It isn't even possible to set a strict time table for Sunday football games which is why CBS "60 Minutes"  doesn't  start  at the same time every Sunday in fall on the  east coast.

On the subject of climate change Biden supported the primitive belief that humans control climate because carbon dioxide has a magical power to control air temperature. Gov. Sarah Palin recognizes that climate is more complex, although unfortunately she supports the general myth that CO2  affects temperature.

She failed to mention that the warming in the Arctic is part of the normal cyclic change of the region.  The Arctic experienced similar warming in the 1920's as well as more extensive warming in the distant past.   The current warming in the Arctic, which may be ending considering lower than normal temperatures in Anchorage this summer, is due to the phases of the Arctic Oscillation and the Northern Pacific Oscillation.  These cycles  moved warmer waters and air  into the Arctic, especially from the Northern Pacific.

If humans are impacting the situation, the impact takes the form of black soot from Asia.    The soot becomes mixed with snow after which it is heated by the sun and melts the snow.  Otherwise the snow would reflect sunlight back into space with only limited melting.

The debates cannot resolve disputes on issues because the comments are too short. 

The debates are more useful for demonstrating the personalities of the candidates.  Palin clearly has a more desirable personality for a vice president than Biden.  Palin was more animated and has an energizing personality and a contagious enthusiasm. 

Palin might  be the best thing that could happen to Washington since Teddy Roosevelt and Harry Truman were selected as vice presidents.

Senator John McCain is correct. He and Senator Barack Obama should return to Washington to do the jobs we are paying them to do instead of participating in a political reality show called a debate.  The place for two United States Senators to debate during an economic crisis is on the floor of the United States Senate. They can present their views about what to do and attempt to gain support from their fellow Senators.

Someone who cannot demonstrate leadership as a Senator will not be able to do so as President. 

They can participate in one of those debates anytime. At present their responsibility is to take care of the business (TCB) they being paid to take care of  as United States Senators. If Obama didn't want to continue being a Senator while he ran for president he should have done the honorable thing and resigned like Bob Dole did when he ran for president in 1996.

Obama doesn't want to TCB in the Senate. He prefers being a celebrity who goes around making speeches to adoring crowds because he likes to hear himself talk.     

Would you promote someone who spends all his time talking about what he would do if promoted instead of taking care of business in his current job?   Getting legislation through Congress is one of the president's most important jobs.  Appearing on talk shows isn't.

Does Obama  want  to merely talk about  some vague change or does he actually want to produce changes?  Perhaps Obama doesn't want to return to the Senate to do his job because he has done such a lousy job as Senator.

If Obama wants to play the spoiled brat  who has to have his way about a debate, perhaps  McCain's running mate  Gov. Sarah Palin can stand in for McCain while McCain TCB's  in the Senate.