We don't need more of the same

I heard Sara Palin's acceptance speech. She had great speech writers and they did a good job for her. She also did an excellent job of delivering it.

Barack Obama's acceptance speech was great, too. The big difference is that he wrote his own speech and told us what he thinks and believes. I don't know any more about the real Palin now than I did before she spoke.

Because of the policies of the current administration, the once great and respected United States has lost esteem in the world. Again, because of our current leader's decisions, our military has gone from great to something our young people shun.

Even after lowering the acceptable standards, recruiting is dismal. Today, even if we wanted, we couldn't realistically challenge either Russia or Iran militarily.

What I now hear the Republicans say is that because of the surge we won the war in Iraq. What war did we win? The Civil War in Iraq had nothing to do with us except that by toppling Saddam Hussein we helped precipitate it and get a lot of people killed needlessly. What we did do, however, is help the terrorists recruit more suicide bombers and turn friends into America haters.

Instead of encouraging four more years of wrongheaded policies, we must begin to try to rebuild our status in the world. If it's not too late already, we must try and convince the world that we are on the side of right. To do that we need people in power that know how to think, reason and know what they are doing instead of shooting first then aiming.

From what I see and hear, Obama and Biden are surely ahead of McCain and Palin in that regard.

Gerald Loebman

Huntley