In the week after the President was elected, the comedic newspaper, “The Onion”, ran this headline: “Black Man Given Worst Job in America”. Subsequent events have proven that tongue-in-cheek assessment to be all too true.

The current bevy of candidates for the republican nomination would like us to forget what a mess George W. left the country in. They talk as if Obama is the source of all the country’s problems. They are confident that America has already forgotten that George W. inherited a budget surplus from Bill Clinton. In fact, it was that budget surplus that W. used to sell the country on the “temporary” tax break for America’s richest citizens and its corporations that do business internationally. They conveniently sidestep the fact that their colleagues in Congress consistently vote against initiatives they formerly supported just in order to thwart Obama.

Republicans amaze me. The other day, I saw Ron Paul, a candidate for the republican Presidential nomination; suggest that folk who get sick and have no medical insurance should be left to their own devices.

I heard former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson (R-WY), say that senior citizens are greedy, because we want Social Security left alone.

How is it that a democratic government could be too large if it strives to keep its citizens healthy and its elderly independent? Then, it’s just the right size if it’s big enough to train and arm its young people and wage war around the globe with the help of overpaid mercenaries.

NOBODY asked me, but the 2012 election will be more important than the one in 2008.

Important as it is that President Obama be reelected; it is even more important that Republican Congressional and gubernatorial candidates across the country are returned to private life.

I sat, alone, and watched the ’08 election returns on TV and was moved, nearly to tears, as Barack Obama and his family acknowledged the election result.