So, what do you think McCain would have done differently by now?

Let the banks fail? Let the auto industry fail? Told the unemployed to get a job? Told the uninsured to stop whining? Punched Chavez in the mouth? Told Palestine to get over it? Bombed Iran?

I see a lot of Republicans knocking the decisions Obama has made, but I don’t see them making suggestions on what McCain, or they themselves, would have done.

It’s easy to say ‘screw the banks’, but what happens when YOUR bank goes out of business due to a cascade failure? It’s easy to say ‘screw the auto manufacturers’, but what do you do about the tens of thousands they employed and the hundreds of thousands employed by businesses which make parts and materials for them?

It’s easy to say ‘your health isn’t my problem’, but how does one ignore what the health care ‘industry’ is costing taxpayers, in money and in lives, every year?

It’s easy to say ‘Ignore Chavez’, but do we really want another 12 year old president? It’s easy to say ‘It is all the Palestinians fault’, but is that intellectually honest? It’s easy to say ‘bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran!’, but do we really want another war?

It’s easy to knock the President, especially if you don’t agree with his political persuasion in general, and his goals in particular, but no so easy to fill his shoes.

I find it entirely against the grain of American politics to be so against the President from day one as has been the case with Obama, and which was in no way the case with Bush.

Bush was given a chance. He was even given the benefit of doubt. In return he took his eyes off the ball in Afghanistan to ‘finish’ daddy’s little war in Iraq.

It is said that the Iraq war will, in the end, cost America $3 trillion dollars (WaPo Article). But let’s say they’re wrong. lets say it just (just!) costs 1/3 of that. That 1/3, $1 trillion, would provide health care to every American for the next 10 years. That’s $1 trillion over 10 years, $100 billion a year, when we are currently spending about $20 billion a MONTH in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Is that still too much for you? Okay then, how about $2.5 trillion, 17.6% of the GDP? That is what we will pay THIS YEAR ALONE for health care! Health care which only covers about 4/5 of the population, denies coverage to those who have paid into it for years by dropping people when they become ‘fiscal risks’, lose their job or move jobs, and skims 20%-30% off the top.

Or how about $4.4 trillion? What we will be paying EACH YEAR in 10 years.

Judging is easy and inaction simple, but neither solve the very real issues we are facing. It’s easy to say ‘I have a job, so I’m not concerned about my financial security or health care’. It’s easy to say ‘wars don’t have anything to do with me’. But most of all it’s easy to say ‘that liberal, that DemocRAT, is doing it wrong!’, but does any of this move us forward as a nation, united?

If you want to ‘take back’ your country then go ahead! Take it back from the United Healths and take it back from the Haliburtons and the Blackwaters. Take it back from the credit industry and the corporate interests.

But most of all, take it back from the Glen Becks of this world and while you’re at it, take back your mind and your integrity.