Not ready to lead

An excellent Letter to the Editor originally published in The Mercury from a Montgomery County resident who isn't ready to turn over the presidency to the least experienced candidate ever to seek the White House.

Sen. Barack Obama is not ready to be commander-in-chief

This is one of the most important elections this country has faced in a very long time. So much is at stake.

Sen. Barack Obama frightens me with his incessant, "This is the greatest nation on earth but ..." comments. For example, he has compared the U.S. to China and of course, we came up short in his opinion. "Did you see Beijing?" Yes, we saw it Sen. Obama, the smog, political prisoners, slave labor, child labor, forced abortions, and earthquakes where 70,000 people are killed and 400,000 injured because of the poor safety standards. Is that the change he wants here?

When Russia invaded Georgia, it took him three days to come up with a coherent statement. His first thought though was to blame the U.S. for not setting a "better example." Then after realizing the blunder he makes another one by suggesting that we go to the Security Council in the U.N. He didn't know that Russia has veto power? Scary!

At the conclusion of the debate he stated, "I don't think any of us can say that our standing in the world now, the way children around the world look at the United States, is the same." How can he know how children around the world see us? Does he not see how many people from around the world still long to come to the United States? Of course not, he only sees the negative because that is his perspective of the U.S.

What makes him ready to be commander- in-chief? Here are his words, "Part of what we need to do, what the next president has to do — and this is part of our judgment, this is part of how we are going to keep America safe — is to send a message to the world that we are going to invest in issues like education, we are going to invest in issues that relate to how ordinary people are able to live our, their dreams." So his plan to keep us safe is to invest in education and social programs while promising to cut the military to shreds? I suppose that if everyone had an affordable college education and government-run health care, Al-Qaida wouldn't be hell bent on our destruction.

This man is not ready to be commander-in-chief! At this crucial time, we cannot afford to take a chance on a president who doesn't believe fully in the goodness and greatness of our country.

MARY DEMENO
Limerick