I see every comment by Parrish painted by an anti-war outlook.  He also tries to equate Obama as being friends with the anti-abortion crowd.  Please be more truthful about this.  Obama FAVORS partial-birth abortion alongside any other type of abortion you can think about.  While it is easy to point toward the highly publicized death toll of our beloved countrymen, and the cost of a war that HAS BEEN POORLY managed POLITICALLY, it is very difficult for anyone other than logically and forward thinking humans to grasp the significance of attempting to end the cycle of ruthless violence in the MidEast by removing A THREAT and planting a democratic seed in the midst of the Theocracies, Monarch's and outright dictatorships.  A war would have had to happen some time unless some miracle occured and Saddam and his family were forcibly evicted by someone actually interested in helping the Iraqi people instead of just swapping out one vicious ruler for another.  It is also better that the regime change happened BEFORE a WMD was developed and handed over to an opportunistic group that would have been delighted to plant it in the middle of one of our cities.  This solemn and rational outlook is all but lost amid the clamor of "Bush lied, people died" chanted by mentally deficient,  unbalanced drones.  

You might love Obama, you might question him, you might hate him.  If you love Obama, why?  He sounds good and full of "hope" and "change"?  It might interested you to ask what has Obama changed at any point in his short political career?  Where did he push through, or fight for, any legislation that would improve anything?  We know he sat at the same church for 20 years and became enamored with a Pastor that has gone on to become famous, or infamous, for his passionate hate-filled dialogs.  From the enthusiastic yelling of his flock we know that the Reverand didn't just have a bad day and get up mad at the world.  They love him for what he is, a bitter person that lived through turbulent times and has seen enough wrongs done by white people and invented a few more just to cover all bases.  It is understandable that he is angry.  What is hard to argue for is the rightousness of the preaching of his anger that does nothing to heal the hurtful history in which ignorance and bigotry allowed racism to fester and grow.  Could you not argue that the Reverands own sermons do the same thing to his culture that racist whites did to their own people; create an atmosphere of anger and resentment directed at another culture?  But the presidential race is really not about Wright, it is about Obama.   If you could question Obama about anything what would it be?  Are you really going to search for deep down convictions or are you going to give him a softball?  And if you hate him, why?  He is a merely a presidential candidate that is the author of two books of which the first only gets mentioned by the right and the second book gets mentioned by both liberals and conservatives.  He was relatively unknown until 2004 when he gave a keynote address to the Democratic convention and the media practically feel in love with him.  He is riding the wave of popularity from that moment and using it to win the Presidency.  He is literally a media made figure poised to bring "change" and "hope" to government.  If you really need to hate, then hate the media.  Obama wouldn't be where he is today without the assistance and complicity of the media.   

By the way, I am for change and hope also.  Our government can't bring itself to really control the border as the special interests on both sides profit from the human waves that pour into the US every year.  One day a bomb, probably a very big one, will come across also and when it goes off the political parties will point fingers at each other while we climb out of our historic economic disaster.  Our government developed another bureaucratic agency, the TSA, charged with ensuring no toenail clippers, fingernail files, baby bottles filled with breast milk and suspicious body jelelry made it on board a flight while allowing remote control devices for hobby items like cars, trains and planes up until last September.  Probably some terrorist spilled the beans that they were going to set off a bomb with a REMOTE CONTROL DEVICE and the TSA put all the dots together and banned any such device.  This GOVERNMENT agency was developed with the express purpose of increasing the number of unionized federal workers to benefit the Democrat party.   Our government has ignored the obvious signs of the pending economic crisis created by not accessing or utilizing known energy sources for over 20 years.  Now, as politicians slap oil companies around and threaten to instill more taxes, (read, "even higher gas prices"), they still won't acknowledge that their own legislation mandating bio-fuels has manifested in creating the perfect cycle of endless rising energy costs and decreasing expendable income.  Thus leading us into an economic slowdown.  Our government blessed and encouraged the disbursement of mortgage loans to risky borrowers all in the interest of fairness.  No one should be denied their opportunity of acquiring the American dream just because of some pesky credit issues.  Now as the number of individuals are leaping out of their promise to repay lenders while blaming the lenders for cheating them, our government is stepping in again to "fix" the crisis.  Our tax dollars are going to buy down mortgage amounts for some, artificially  setting a real estate market price that will be a disaster for every one invested in that same neighborhood who actually made sure they could afford their loan before they went home shopping.   The rest of the tax dollars will be funneled to banking institutions to repay them for losses incurred, thus ensuring the same high risk behavior in future financial decisions.  For a market economy to work, bad decisions by consumers must not be directly compensated by government entities.  Yes, our government is screwing up our economy, but not in the way people think.  Our government, the same ones who are causing the economic decline, in order to placate us and buy our vote, is sending out stimulus rebate checks.  One group with the ideological thought that they never get enough money from the government will be ecstatic.  The other ideological group that is tired of the government spending money willy nilly is mad as hell.  It is interesting to note that one group, that earns too little and pays no income tax, will receive the stimulus check.  There is another group, that earns too much and pays bunches of tax dollars, that will not receive a check.  The group that pays NO income tax thinks this is fair.  

Yes, we do need change in the people who are running our government.  We have the best form of government in the world with the lousiest cast of characters running it.  Well, not the lousiest.  The ruling generals in Myanmar are worse,,,than MOST of our politicians.  Obama couldn't find a Reverand that wouldn't speak ill of his country for 20 years, he won't change anyone in Washington with that kind of dynamic leadership decision making.

If you haven't already received one of those nasty "Obama Is A Muslim" emails, you will. The problem is in deciding how to respond to them, because more than likely, they come from one of your friends or relatives. Your first reaction will be to berate them for being so stupid to believe the charges that are being made. The only problem is that your response runs the risk of severing a long-term relationship.

Call me a coward, but I responded simply by pointing out that in every election season there will be charrges by both sides - some substantiated and some not, and that I intended to listen carefully to the issues and make a choice based on that. I think that they get the message and stop sending me their drivel, and we remain friends. Of course, I respond more honestly on anonymous blogs...

Advice to contributors: Long rambling blogs are generally not read.