Columnist whiffs on Obama.

Rarely does Pat Wiesner get it wrong on all counts, but regarding Barack Obama, his column consists of all gutter balls ("Obama candidacy transcends race but not party," Pat Wiesner, July).

I found it laughable that when there appears to be a chance that the Democratic Party may get majorities in both houses of Congress, and win the presidency, Wiesner drags out the "a divided government is best" line. Funny how we didn't hear this during the years when Bush had a GOP majority in both houses.

Under Democrats, the economy and the stock markets historically do significantly better than under Republicans, even when a lag effect is calculated (under the supposition that a president's policies take some time to kick in). Further, Wiesner apparently prefers "borrow and spend" (the GOP way) to his allegation of Democrats as the tax and spend party.

Our massive public debt, pushed ever higher by Bush and the GOP Congress (high-end tax cuts, massive war spending and the Medicare drug program), has made the dollar plunge so that what we buy from abroad is much more expensive--a hidden tax on consumers.

-JIM ZELENSKI, LAKEWOOD

Pat Wiesner had a "foggy" mental day when he wrote his shallow endorsement of electing a Republican president this year. His editorial in the July issue was not up to ColoradoBiZ standards.

Wiesner suggests that electing a Democratic president in 2008 would give the Democrats too much power. In fact, it is necessary for the Democrats to continue to control the House and Senate, and for Obama to win the presidency to be able turn around the widespread, deep abuses of power, corruption, secrecy and trashing of the Constitution that the Bush administrations have inflicted.

Our economy is in the tank under Bush's laissez faire policies toward business that allowed the mortgage industries to conduct their shoddy business practices as though there were no tomorrow. Sadly, for millions of Americans and businesses now, there isn't, and it's getting worse.

Iraq's oil was the reason for Bush/Chaney waging war on Iraq. Sept.11 terrorism and Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" were the lies and distortions they used to "justify" invading this country. Well, we're in the sixth year of this war, the U.S. still doesn't have the oil, and we've paid a very high cost in American and Iraqi lives. McCain certainly hasn't given us any definitive reasons how he could do a better job.

-JERRY L. COLNESS, AURORA

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