To the editor:

Regarding your response to the letter “Not candidates,” Kevin Albert, the “point” is I’m sick of glossing over by any means this president’s run for re-election! “It’s called ‘politics,'” you say. My adjective “inept” for Mr. Bush is an understatement. Despite Clinton’s failings and stupidity, his years saw a good economy, diplomacy and the United States in good standing internationally with the United Nations and the World Court. There was no shoot-first invasion of an oil-rich country in an unstable Middle East and no parlaying false information about WMDs into another war.

At the cost of American lives, the present mess is without foreseeable end with astronomical deficits and Halliburton’s lucrative cleanup at America’s expense. Soldiers are billed for their food while recovering in the hospital. The military deaths and disabilities toll while Congress votes themselves pay raises is not acceptable. Veteran benefits are reduced. Half of veterans’ death benefits to survivors are taxed.

My point, Kevin, is that a faltering economy, the world’s mistrust, a hard-sell invasive war with casualties are the work of the present administration. Bill and Hillary’s books aren’t important. The present debacle is. One doesn’t need “research,” Kevin, to see massive unemployment, corporate crime, lost retirements, a military-industrial complex impoverishing us of life and security now and in the future. To question is not unpatriotic, nor treasonous unless we’re to become like Germany in the ’30s and ’40s.

Sue Hess,

Lawrence