I'VE DECIDED FOR PRESIDENT

Here we are in the new year and the Bush countdown continues, thank God, without what I thought was going to happen and may still happen: some crazy invasion or provocation of Iran. It is impossible to imagine that rational people who govern would allow this--but, hey, this administration is full of people who are reported to believe in the Left Behind series and who, at lower levels, are graduates of Patrick Henry University. So reason is left behind, opening the doors to n'importe quoi.

In the meantime, a real and much greater danger, Pakistan, with its nuclear missiles and abilities, is in chaos mainly because the same incompetent administration that got this nation into war in Iraq under false pretenses chose to support one leader only and then bungled fatally the return of Benazir Butto.

It is very unfortunate that a country that formerly enjoyed high standing in the world has gone down such a crazy path in the most volatile region in the world, leaving many domestic and other international issues in limbo. Whoever is elected President of the United States is going to inherit one huge mess. This is why I am taking this election extremely seriously--the stakes are simply too great to ignore.

Actually, I have attempted to be relatively open-minded about the choices facing the electorate, even watching several of the Republican Party debates and trying to listen to what those guys are saying. The problem for me is that all of the Republican candidates are spending their time posturing over how to support the already failed Iraq policy and who is the most conservative and who is the most Christian. The most discouraging and disheartening moments of the last two weeks has been watching them, including last night on the ABC debate, not generate one single new idea.

On the other hand, in spite of their considerable differences, I have found that all of the the Democrat candidates are actually talking new ideas and offering hope that the future might be less of the present. And they know how to construct sentences in a correct and lucid and sometimes even inspiring manner. At this point, because the Indiana primaries come so late that they will just be a footnote or sideshow, I have decided that I will vote for whoever is the Democratic nominee. I could live with all three of the current front runners.

However, I watched the crowds at the Iowa caucuses respond to Barrack Obama and I saw how he ignited their faces and their hopes. I saw young people around him at his celebration after the caucuses. So, for the moment, I am thinking that it would do America a lot of good to cast our lot with someone who can, for once, inspire. I know that resumes and past experience are important. But in a world in which our own young people and a great part of the international population are alienated from the best in this country, it is not negligible to imagine Obama as president. So much for experience when you consider where G.W. a supposedly experienced governor of a major state, has led us.

I am decided. Obama is my candidate. But plan B is, ok, if he does not get the nomination, I will vote for any Democratic nominee.

We need change--the more the better.