c'mon, ake! "political expediency" or "political cowardice" are guesses as to what he was thinking... I can't read his mind, but I might have done something similar, had I been forced to choose. I like to think I would have said, "No way, Georgie...you are a fool to spend that amount of money with no better plan than you have."...but I wasn't there, and I didn't hear the briefings...

...and:

" surely you cant believe that the sickness of American politics can be cured by changing leaders " ....I never came close to saying that!...I make absolutely no claim that one election will automatically 'fix' everything, but I sure see no hope in keeping THIS administration!
..I saw NO candidate who I thought could fix everything. I think Howard Dean had a slightly better 'feel' for the issues and the steps necessary to address them, but he might not have gotten enough support, given his tendency to polarize a crowd.. (where was Tom Daschle, or Mario Cuomo...just too smart to get caught up in this farce?)

As far as 'general governing' and making decisions, there were several Democratic candidates who might have done fine...Kerry might do fine, I dunno...

In this general climate and world situation, it is difficult to imagine any US politican as president who could even imagine all the problems facing us...much less find solutions.

If there were no war, and no one hated us and was trying to disrupt out economy and kill us at random, there would STILL be enormous problems to solve...and NO politican will even talk publicly about some of them!

The USA is a VERY large, diverse country, and two (or 2½ or 3...whatever) political parties cannot begin to represent the various viewpoints. Some areas (Texas, Southern California, the deep south, the Pacific North-West) are almost different entities when it comes to these issues...but we have a pragmatic problem....right now, EITHER Bush or Kerry is going to get the job...we can at least avoid a known evil and hope while we plan and debate ways to improve the process.