Sinclair Lewis's 1922 novel Babbitt in many ways predicts Ronald Reagan. Babbitt was all form and no substance. While Babbitt was morose and generally dissatisfied, Reagan was blissfully unaware of reality. Of a sunny disposition and much charm, Reagan's great legacy includes his unalloyed and mindless disregard for government and its services.

Remember his famous statement: "Government isn't the solution to our problem - Government is the problem."

Remember his dismantling of the Air Traffic Controller's Union, and the havoc that wreaked on our air safety system, which is still not completely resolved.

Remember Iran-Contra.

Remember the huge budget deficits.

Remember how the respect for the less privileged among us began diminishing - see his quote above.

Charming, attractive - for sure - and ignorant of ecology, global citizenship, caring for others and being an engaged human being. Just examine what his children said about him.

Maybe Ronald Reagan didn't completely suck- but he certainly attained a lofty degree of incompetence. To see how bad it was, we need a George W. Bush to make RR look good.

We are still suffering the consequences of the Reagan revolution, with President Bush completing whatever mess Reagan didn't finish.

That President Reagan was no Hitler, Pol Pot or Stalin is hardly the same as saying he did much good for this country.

I sent Hillary some more money today. I know she lost. but I just wanted to help her pay off her debts. I'm married to a woman who really doesn't like Hillary at all, but I do. I thought she earned the right to be president - paid her dues and all that.

I think she lost because she had very little margin for error - I would say she came in with two strikes against her. And she did make mistakes- the most important one being an inability to let people see her real humanity. Listening to Mark Penn persuade her to not explain her Iraq vote, and forgetting that authenticity is the characteristic people want most.

Yet she hung in and almost pulled it off. Depending on which votes you counted, she either won the popular vote by up to 260,000 or lost by about 40,000. Not bad for someone who ran a lousy campaign (sometimes), took bad advice (too often), was out organized and out fund raised.

She made Sen. Obama a much better candidate by raising all his weaknesses (and yes he has some) and preparing him for his race against Sen. McCain. None of the other Democratic candidates did that. She's tough as nails and she proved that she has the goods.

People wax rhapsodic about JFK, but what they forget is that he won because he was tough too. So Sen. Clinton, my hat's off to you. Perhaps Sen. Clinton will be the vice presidential candidate - I think an Obama/Clinton ticket will be a winner.

To a vociferous minority there seems to be a stubborn and irrational belief that war and killing are really terrific activities. It's as if we have never learned a thing about how to work with other people. In everyday society, people who want to kill other people, or who do kill other people are charged with a crime, tried in court and if convicted, suffer the consequences.

But when our government engages in mass killing and maiming, it's called patriotism, and thus there is no penalty because there's no crime. But I assert that it is a crime; we just don't have a court which today has jurisdiction over the U.S. War, or institutionalized murder, can only happen because the power of of the president is so much greater that even a determined opposition.

I've talked to many veterans of Vietnam and not one thinks it was a justified war. Rarely mentioned is the untold mental and emotional damage that comes from fighting a war, and the ongoing costs to treat often permanently damaged veterans.So when Senator McCain, or others talk about winning, it's just B.S., because I don't believe that they actually have any idea of what winning looks like.

It actually takes a good deal of courage to be against war, and especially against stupid war. I don't think Sen. McCain has the usable and effective ideas of how to actually deal with the situation in Iraq. And I don't believe his 5.5 year POW status is an effective training ground for knowing how to deal with the modern world.

The thing we have to do is to make sure we mobilize our friends and associates and encourage them to vote to prevent Sen. McCain and his know-nothing party from being seated in the next congress.

As a retired insurance agent, I learned, over and over, that part of the job was to experience the lure of making the sale. The challenge was to become clear about my purpose: to make the sale or serve the client. There was often no conflict; but when there was, it's not hard to imagine which choice the agent would be tempted to make.

The challenge is always the same: to do what is right for the client, regardless of your stake in the game. It takes a good deal of thought and reflection to be strong enough to resist the lure of compromising to make the sale. Essentially one has to see that the price of lying is not worth the gain.

Everyone who has a choice must grapple with this issue, and of course politicians are tempted more than most.

Both McCain and Barack are now faced with this moment of truth. It appears Sen. McCain has succumbed to the siren's song of gaining political power and has abandoned his moral center.

True character is most tellingly revealed in times of stress; I believe the long and grueling campaign provides valuable insight into what we can expect when the candidate takes office.