To the editor:

Many, afraid and disgusted with Republicans’ low road and the media’s failure to focus on issues (e.g., our $10 trillion national debt), look for reasons to vote for Obama. The first nine are the Supreme Court, which would be legislating moralism from the bench with one more justice as ideologically pure as Scalia, Thomas, and Alito. McCain promises this to his Bush/Cheney/Rove base. Americans are capable of making rational, responsible reproductive decisions without government interference.

The 10th reason is Obama’s (often maddening) tendency to consider the big picture and long term; McCain is happy to spit out infantile easy answers like “Drill, baby, drill.”

The 11th is Obama’s honesty and politeness. Would you keep talking issues while your “maverick” opponent, claiming to “always” put country first, distorts and directs partisan attacks in prime time? “Lipstick on a pig” is a cliche. Can you say swiftboat?

The 12th is Obama’s willingness to communicate, and abandon the provocation, international bullying, and profitable arms sales that led to Iraq. Would McCain continue Bush’s use of torture?

The 13th is that only a party change will let us finally discover what terrible excesses (e.g., torture at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib) were secretly committed in OUR names for eight years.

Stoking fear, the Bush administration has bankrupted the country, thwarted the ideals and protections (e.g., habeas corpus) the Founders enshrined in the Constitution, and squandered the good will of the other 95 percent of the world’s peoples. What could four more years of the same do?

George Sundstrom,
Lawrence