“Fragile economy, battered middle class, increasingly unequal society and a grinding unnecessary war that has exacted a huge toll in lives, money, civil liberties and America’s reputation abroad.”

Today is September 1 and the NYTimes editorial hits hard with the words above about the hard road ahead for the successors of George W. Bush in the battle for the Presidency.  It cannot be repeated sufficiently that just making Barack Obama our President will not work unless he is supported by a Democratic House of Representatives and Senate with a filibuster-proof majority.

It looks to me like the odds are piling up against Mr. McCain and his new partner, Sarah Palin despite the clever insertion of the “common man” image of a practically unknown and unseeded woman from Alaska into the campaign.  Who knows how this will play out?  What is clear is that the Bush Administration has left a toxic legacy of putting America and you and me in a bad place at this time and place.

Aside from the weaknesses of the economy, the middle class has lost its voice while increasing the powerless numbers of the lower working class and the unwieldy mass of “refuse” from foreign shores who desperately want to become Americans anyway.  We are at war – an “unnecessary” war – which sacrificed a huge toll of lives, money and civil liberties here at home.  Abroad, the American image has been sullied and no longer serves as the model we are trying to export as the way other nations should comport themselves.

I have done some thinking about the differences between the two major parties and find that each has evolved over the terms of Clinton and Bush.  The Democrats have their reputation sullied because of too much Liberalism – and that hurts.  Inclusion of all peoples and their ideas is a Liberal position and should be the direction our country moves in.  The Republican insistence on conservatism just misses the important letter which changes it to conservation.  Unlimited oil drilling in places reserved for ALL the people makes a mockery of what the conservatives are trying to create – an America where we are free enough to  carry guns and smart enough to give power to the lower classes while taxing all in accordance to their ability to pay.

My thinking has revealed a great schism between the rich and the poor, the worker and the manager, the young and the aged and the hide-bound and the free spirited.  The Toxic world of Mr. Bush must go and let it be behind us.