If ever there was a "test" to qualify candidates to be able to run for high office, a grade-school grasp of the realities of the Middle-Eastern dilemma would be it. Mike Huckabee gets a D-minus...and, I'm being generous.

This is what happens when a BornAgain preacher, steeped in Rapture/SecondComing/Armageddon-ist philosophy that favors Israel's demise so Jesus may come again, is taken seriously as a candidate for the Presidency.

The knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing crowd must be so proud.

When they're running for office, candidates left, right and middle promise to "do the people's business" if elected; upon election, these SAME droids immediately and completely forget all their campaign promises. What's a voter to do?

That total disconnect between campaign promises made and campaign promises acted upon simply reinforces that feeling of loathing many of us have for politicians.

Short of removing an official from office for malfeasance or an illegal act, wouldn't it be nice to be able to remove one or two of them for "failing to carry through with a campaign promise"? We have a legal remedy when a seller or manufacturer cheats us or fails to make good on a warranty; why not have some similar solution for elected officials?

Of course, a good old-fashioned tar-and-feathering would be a satisfactory solution, as well.

For those who choose to smoke tobacco/marijuana, drink to excess, inject drugs, have sex without protection, eat greasy cheeseburgers or any other potentially self-destructive behavior, the question is: did race cause them to act this way? Or, is it a question of class? Is it a combo of both? Is it neither?

Questioning whether blacks are directly responsible for the plight or plights that befall them is simplistic, at best and clueless, at worst. In fact, probably many factors are in play...education to racism to culture...to "explain" why poverty is, perhaps, so ingrained or endemic to them as a people.

Many blacks who have been raised in abysmal conditions or have endured blatant racism have, nevertheless, thrived and triumphed; unfortunately, others have not. Why?

It benefits no one to excuse bad behavior as either culturally and/or ethnically-based. Neither does it benefit anyone to dismiss others who suffer as unredeemable. It does benefit society as a whole to attempt to help change "bad behavior" into non-destructive behavior.

In the end, it seems to me that we are all responsible for our own fates, where conscious choices are made. I don't think that one single race, though, is either more or less responsible for their own fates, because of that race.

Mike Huckabee, in poor taste and even less humor, wished that Hillary Clinton would be sent to Mars.

I, in turn, hope that Mike Huckabee will be sent to another and wholly-appropriate-for-him planet: Uranus.

Long ago, police everywhere underwent a transmogrification from friend of the people to foe of the people. As a child, I remember the nice cops who generated respect, were firm but fair and who treated the people with respect. Those days are gone.

Now, cops dress in black like ninjas and strut around like holdovers from the Third Reich, cops lie routinely about everything from speeding to "found" drugs in cars and they now look at all of us simply as perps who just haven't been caught yet.

While I wish no harm to cops, I have zero respect for any of them today...at all! You see, I didn't change; they did.

I don't care whether Mitt Romney is a Mormon, I don't care if Mike Huckabee is being ghosted by the author of the "Left Behind" series of books, I don't care if John McCain...a life-long Episcopalian...has told voters in South Carolina that he is a Southern Baptist, I don't care if Barack Obama is/is not pro-Islam nor do I care if Bill Richardson is a practicing (whatever that is) Roman Catholic.

i DO care if any one of the candidates running will tackle the imminently-important issues such as global warming, healthcare, energy conservation, poverty, fixing the infrastructure, racism and the host of issues that truly matter.

Self-flagellating, stigmata-showing, Opus Dei-leaning, Bible-thumping, Second-Coming-encouraging religious nutballs need simply to S.T.F.U.; solve the issues here on Earth before becoming the unauthorized-spokesperson for someone who lives in the stars.

Please. Stop before you make even bigger asses out of yourselves...if that's possible.

Should Rudy Giuliani somehow win the Presidential election, would his wife Judy be the first lady, the second mistress or the third bimbo?

Putting "independent thinking" and "Roman Catholic" in the same sentence is at the apogee of stupidity and the perigee of reason.

People who think are precluded from being accepted as members of that "church"; they must accept whatever papal bull-sh*t eminates therefrom.

Want proof? Just remember the travails of Galileo...among millions of others...in opposing dogma from the Papal Peanut Gallery.

Call me anti-Catholic and I'll answer "here"; I still hope for revenge in the name of my French Protestant Huguenot ancestors who were persecuted viciously by them after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

I haven't forgotten...and, never will!

Mitt's attempt to "explain" his Mormonism will, most likely, change no minds either way; some see his religion as a cult and others see it as a benign mainstream Christian religion. Therein lies his impossible mission.

Comparisons to the John F. Kennedy speech in 1960 regarding his Roman Catholic religion was an entirely different matter: Catholicism has been called many things; far as I know, its never been called a "cult", though. Mormonism is rife with talking toads, speaking salamanders and other assorted wildlife. That's about as far from mainstream as it gets, imho.

Seems to me that Willard "Mitt" Romney's decision to "explain Mormonism" is doomed to failure. Perhaps he can also explain why water is wet after that.