After eight years of the intellectual and moral disgrace that has defined the feckless Bush Administration, it is time for a change.
Sen. Barack Obama best represents that change.
It is time to break with the trigger-happy, jingoism of the past. Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's comments over the weekend attempting to link Obama to terrorism came right out of the Karl Rove playbook, and portends how a McCain administration would govern - the continued use of mindless fear as a political tool.
Enough. We've seen it all before.
We believe Obama will bring sanity to this country's foreign relations and renewed respect for the democratic process here at home.
There are stark differences between the two candidates.
Obama supports a windfall profits tax on oil companies. McCain does not. Obama understands global warming is a real and present danger. A Republican Administration would be bound to give only lip service to that incipient crisis- while questioning its causes.
Obama grasps that this country must put American ingenuity to work in the pursuit alternative energy sources to get us off our oil dependency. We doubt Sen. McCain, with the puerile chant, "Drill, baby, drill," ringing in his ears, really gets it. One can only imagine the oil-producing oligarchs, were they watching the Republican convention on TV, chanting along with the delegates.
As for the economic mess we're in, Sen. McCain has been late to the game and, indeed, erratic. His 26-year record is a profile of a staunch deregulator, while Obama, as the crisis grew, advocated increased regulation.
Meanwhile, American taxpayers are saddled with a $12 billion per month expense to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hard, thoughtful decisions await the next president. Even the Obama scold, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, allows the Democratic candidate has a "first rate intellect and first rate temperament."
It's time.
STATE RACES: GREGOIRE, BURBANK
It's obvious Gov. Christine Gregoire has her work cut out for her to make this state solvent. Yet replacing her with Dino Rossi would be a mistake. While Rossi works to be fiscally responsible, his transporation agenda lacks new ideas we so desperately need in this state let alone the country. Gregoire recognizes this need and will work to help this state become less dependant on foreign oil.
The 36th District candidates John Burbank and Reuven Carlyle are almost carbon copies of themselves and are both excellent candidates for the job. Carlyle has great passion and business experience and so does Burbank. But the edge goes to Burbank who, along with a definitive plan to bring more tax revenue to the state without taxing the middle class, and a desire to provide heath care coverage for everyone, has the experience and relationships with legislators on both sides of the aisle that may prove invaluable toward getting good ideas put in place.
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