but is Mr. Kerry the best they have to offer as an alternative???

I sincerely believe that everybody has made some mistake in their past.  I bet that some of us have made some in the last 30 years or so.  My problem is that if they lie NOW about what happened then, THAT is a bigger problem NOW, showing CURRENT flaws in character, ethics, and morals, that are more serious than what they did 30 years ago.

I don't believe for a minute that Mr. Bush followed all the rules back then, and never ever took advantage of "who" he was.  I ALSO do not believe that Mr. Kerry is so squeaky clean in terms of medals and honors (3 Purple Hearts???), and I sure didn't like what he said publicly then, and much of what he says now is not so impressive either.

I also think that BOTH of them are telling lies right now.  Both of them, along with people like Zell Miller (at the convention), who will stand there and lye like a rug with a straight face.  That, I DO have a problem with.

"I am not telling the truth, and we all know it, but I still want to be your PRESIDENT!"

Say whatever it takes to get elected, then do whatever is needed to repay the political favors it took to get you elected in the first place.

In my opinion, with all the Political Lobbys, big corporate money, and so on (sometimes making donations to BOTH sides so that they are covered whoever gets elected), in the current
"Political Process" the people who are most qualified to be President (in terms of their character, honesty, etc.) are usually the first to be eliminated.

GIVE ME A BREAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't like, or agree with the reasons we are in Iraq, nor the terrible costs (financial and otherwise) associated with it, but now, for whatever reasons that put us there - we ARE at WAR, and it is OUR citizens getting killed, and I don't want to see us screw around and "politics" this into any more of a fiasco like was done in Vietnam 30+ years ago.

I get pissed, REALLY PISSED, thinking about so many of our innocent non-military US citizens being kidnapped, mistreated and beheaded by those idiots, cowards, whatever you choose to call them.  Nobody is gonna release Saddam because someone was taken hostage and had their life threatened, or worse.

Call me a coward or whatever, but if I was ever over there working in the first place, I would be among the first to come back once the kidnappings got out of hand, and it was proven that it was not at all safe to be there.  It doesn't matter how much it pays to work over there, the money is totally worthless to the person who earned it if he comes back without his head.

How does fairness and Political Correctness fit into WAR?  Let's go and win, and get our guys home.  I believe in freedom and all that, but when it is us against them - I vote for US every time.

I feel that we are sending way too many people over there and not nearly enough air-mail, "Special Delivery pest control", as in Tomahawk, Cruise, ICBM, Sidewinder, Maverick, and Bunker Busters.

I know this anger talking, but I can still clearly remember seeing the tape of some 200 year old ugly hag dancing in the streets (probably was a SW out working her corner) in celebration after the Towers came down.  I know that was not necessarily in Iraq, but not many people over there like us much, but they WILL take our financial aid.  Sorry, but after thousands of years of the kind of society they live in I don't even think that they can handle a true Democracy.

Again, anger, but I suggest someone mark off 1,000 acres or so at a time, tell them to get out or get fried, then make it look like a rototiller hit it leaving nothing taller than 3 ft high, in a big, oily puddle.

They can either stop the violence toward us or we take another 1,000 or so acres... NEXT!  They have a lot of acreage, but we have a lot of missles.

Saddam was talking BIG before we got there, a big brave military leader in his fancy uniform.  As soon as shelling started I bet all you could see was his backside sticking up in the air while his head was hiding under the bed of some child in a nursery somewhere.

Years ago, a palace that Khadafy was then occupying in was bombed.  After he went in to change his underwear, we haven't heard a peep from him since....

WHY do we BUY their oil while we GIVE them wheat?????  Why not take the "$48 bucks a barrel, SO $48 bucks a bushel" approach.  Let's see who runs out first.  If we run out of oil first, we can use the wheat and go back to using horses if it came to that.  When they run out of wheat, let them DRINK their oil...

I know that some of this is simplistic, and maybe I WOULD rather use violence than lose the lives of any more US citizens, but slaps on the wrist, and shaking fingers and saying "Please, be nice" didn't ever work in the past.

My humble opinion is that the time for Diplomacy is past when we have lost the lives of more than 1,000 US citizens.

What do we say to the US military personnel who do come back with lives in shambles, some ruined financially, lost memories, time, families, jobs, limbs, futures??????????????

Since we couldn't get Bin Laden who WAS involved in violence towards us, let's go after Saddam, who wasn't?  BOTH administrations had their chances to get Bin Laden at one time or another.  I totally agree that Saddam is one of the most horrible, cruel, ruthless people in world history, and he needed to be removed from office, but the cost in US lives has been too high.

We can't get Bin Laden, so we divert attention away from that by going after Saddam????  It took 4 years to find Eric Rudolph, and Afghanistan is much bigger than North Carolina.

Last time I checked, we are bigger than Iraq is.  Let's get serious, do whatever it takes to get it done, bring our enemies TO THEIR KNEES, accept nothing less than total unconditional surrender to us, and bring our forces back home and let them get back to the rest of their lives...

For the near future, I think the prospects of an all-volunteer Military has passed.

Enough already.  For the time being I feel better after all my
venting.