Joan:

When I saw McCain on Meet the Press, the same thoughts went through my mind that he looked and sounded lost. It is time that you and other commentators who appear on shows such as Hardball point out that the biggest issue with McCain's age is not that he might die in office, but mentally he is slowing down with age, and like many older people seems to get easily confused, and go off in weird directions when speaking.

Can the United States afford a leader whose mental skills may be deteriorating with age? You and others in the media should not be afraid to discuss this issue.

Now that it appears that Hillary Clinton will become our next Secretary of State, let us hope that she demonstrates greater competence in running the State Department than she did running her campaign for the presidency. It concerns me that she wants to control the appointment of her staff when one considers how well her appointed staff performed in the recent campaign.

Let us hope that President Obama exercises the necessary control of foreign policy so Hillary will be an asset and not a liability.

Critics of the bailout claim that UAW members make $70 plus an hour but how they come up with that figure is truly an example of "fuzzy" math at its best. The hourly pay of UAW members is about the same as non-union workers in the South. The biggest difference are the health care costs. In Europe and in Asia there is universal health care coverage that is guaranteed by the people through their government unlike in the United States where health care is the responsibility of business and workers. Not only does this create an unequal playing field for American automakers, you also have the unique situation where foreign automakers see the United States as a "third world" country where they can manufacture cars more economically than they can in their own countries. Thus it can be argued that senators from Southern states are aiding in the colonization of the United States by foreign powers. What must Theodore Roosevelt, William McKinley and others who promoted American imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th century must be thinking?

There are two ways of looking at the invitation to Rick Warren to participate in the Obama inauguration. The first would be that Obama is a genius in choosing Warren because this will help defang the Christian Right as he moves much more aggressively to advance gay rights such as ending, "Don't ask, don't tell." Not only does this move allow Obama to not only to remove, "Don't ask, don't tell" but it will also make it much easier for him nominate a gentleman whose name I just can't remember who is both openly gay and has the support of many in the military to be the Secretary of the Navy.

The other way to look at this invitation is that Obama in order to advance his agenda will never let moral sensibilities get in the way. Clearly Obama understands that it would be totally unacceptable to invite a minister who openly compared a biracial couple to two family members getting married or an adult and a child getting married. By inviting Warren, Obama has calculated that there would not be a similar backlash therefore he can make this move since he has calculated it can help him in the longrun to advance his progressive agenda.

We live in interesting times, and certainly the Obama presidency will be anything but boring.

Let us give Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt that he did not properly vet Rick Warren and was therefore unaware of his hate speech before he asked him to give the opening prayer at the inauguration. What is not understandable is how so many leading Democrats seem to be remarkable silent when they would have been so outspoken if a Republican would have chosen a minister with a history of hate speech to give an opening prayer at a presidential inaugural. Leading Democrats including Diane Feinstein who is the senator in charge of organizing the inauguration should have the guts to tell Mr. Obama that he has made a serious mistake despite his good intentions, and should therefore correct his mistake. If he refuses then she should publicly step down from her position. If we expect Republicans to stand up to their leaders, should not Democrats expect the same of their leaders?