Here's a little something from Friedman of the NY Times, to add to what you wrote...

http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/opinion/45636.php



>I think if George is elected again, it will be the beginning of the end for the US. I don't think the US economy can withstand the cost of this war particularly when it has caused terrorism to increase not decrease. Its no wonder that businesses are outsourcing their operations. Other coutries are providing a more peaceful and better life for their workers. When the Social Security funding collapses it is going to start a very dangerous spiral. Canada is looking to trade relations with China because that may be a better trading partner in the future. Our dollar keeps getting stronger but as I watch the returns tonight it looks like W may be back. Its very scary that democracy is working out this way when the population is supposed to be educated.
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>Hello Mike,
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>Sometimes a deep and painful crisis of consience is needed to change a culture. An evangelical grandparent that finds their medicare premiums so high that they are forced to wait in low income emergency rooms for treatment for hours or days, may get some grace and reevaluate the whys of their decisions. An evangelical mother, that votes for moral reasons may be graced to reassess her decision as she buries a child chopped in the deserts of the mideast. A small business owner that goes into bankruptcy because he voted to get 800 dollars in tax releif may be graced with a reassessment of how he came to that decision and has to hock his golf clubs and leave his Suburban or Expedition in a WalMart parking lot.
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>Americans confuse wealth with possessions. People who gripe about taxes, will, when the infra structure becomes so bad they can't drive on the road, or have to use a bucket instead of a toilet may reassess their values. Wealth is nothing more than educated, healthy shiney children and a candle to read by when the days work is done. In America wealth is confused with possession (and debt). A rhinestone is easily confused with a diamond. Most wouldn't know a diamond if they held it in their hand.
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>A few years of victory gardens and waiting for the bus will do us good. Most of us do not even eat home cooked meals. We don't know how to bone a chicken or steam green beans.
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>A Dubya win will accelerate the crisis of conscience we need to learn what it is to be human. We've killed a lot of innocent people in Iraq (search BUSH "War Crimes"). The media hides the dead's faces from us. Our eye is on cheap oil to drive cheap pickups to cheap buffets after a cheap sunday church meeting where the preachers teach us that it is the almighty's will that we kill starved Arab children without reservation. What we've done will come to haunt us.
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>Besides - the game was not for Kerry to win - the game was for Hilary in 2008 and the NYC cabal that seems to need her face to promote their agenda.
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>Our presidents are really just a face for syndicate we never see. And when you giggle at Dubya, I am sure you know, most of us are as empty, shallow and ignorant as he is. THat is why he will win. He represents where America has arrived. A state of ignorant, unfeeling arrogance. We have fooled ourselves into thinking we are god's chosen at the exclusion of all others. Tisk - Tisk!:-)
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>Eat the rich - there fleah is nice and tender:-)