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G. Don Gale: Building a better nation will always be a work in progress

Pres. Clinton’s personal peccadilloes were not his only or even worst problem. His worst was the handling of the rapidly encroaching threat of terrorism. Had he been more effective in dealing with Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden when they were openly menacing the U.S. on several occasions during the 90’s and in 2000, there would never have been the attack on 9/11.

The same is true of the debacles of Enron, et al. They all were detected during the Bush administration but had their genesis years earlier during the Clinton era.

One might even argue that the tragedy of Katrina was decades in the making as billions in federal aid was squandered on poorly designed and built levees and other mismanaged infrastructure. Not to mention a ridiculously ineffective local response to the hurricane threat.

In a representative democracy such as ours, the buck will always stop, ultimately, at the feet of each and every citizen with the right and responsibility to vote. Clinton, Bush and every other president has served because we put them there.

To borrow from Shakespeare, "The fault, dear citizens, is not in our leaders, but in ourselves, that we are dissatisfied."

Why is it when talking about incompetance and who is the worst that Jimmy Carter's name never comes up. He accomplished more incompetance in 4 years than Bush could have done in 12.

This is just me, but Congress over the past several years could have been run better by a high school student council.

And I've heard high school debate team members communicate much more effectively than President Bush.

Remember, if you're going to "vote the bums out," you have to do so in the primaries! Otherwise, you're stuck voting for the other party, which you may not want to do.

samhill is correct in his summation. We get the government we deserve. Like the proverbial insane, we keep doing the same thing over and over, each time expecting different results. The theme that seems to be striking a chord in this election campaign is "change." I'm very skeptical about how profound this so-called change will be. I fear it will be nothing more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

I think mr. Gale is a little weak on the facts. The current interest on the national debt this fiscal year alone (October and November only) according to the government website is already 49 billion, and last year hit 449 billion. Seems that with that much money, shouldn't we focus any hopefully eventual surpluses to paying off the national debt, thus freeing up money for actual needs?

Maybe that is just asking too much of any politician, and why I would prefer someone spending my tax dollars to have some business sense. I wonder who that might be.... Seems Romney is the only one with any business sense out there.

Unless something drastically changes, our country is going to be in a "heap-O-trouble", especially if all the funds invested by foreign government-owned banks suddenly decide to pull all their assets out of our country, or call loans due. That is not unimagineable in some scenarios. Then we are left, like a previous post put it, "rearranging the deck chairs" of our financial lives.

to lay blame.
samhill | 7:29 a.m. Jan. 5, 2008
Pres. Regeans worst was the handling of the rapidly encroaching threat of terrorism. Had he been more effective in dealing with Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden when they were openly menacing the U.S. on several occasions during the 1980? Does Lebanon ring a bell or are you to young?