Candidates with no substance

May 14, 2008

The current campaign for the presidency of the United States has been reduced to a sideshow of unqualified candidates engaged in meaningless rhetoric.

Once again we are bombarded by pretenders to the throne relying upon celebrity rather than substance in lieu of experience, statesmanship, honesty, and/or past credible performance.

Their positions on the economy, the war, our education system and our health and welfare systems, and the disparity between the wealthy and the disappearing middle class, certainly seem as though they have all succumbed to money-raising ploys rather than confronting salient issues with sanguine optimism.

They have all invoked the memory of such ineffective leaders as John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan as if our own memories are so short as to hold them in high esteem.

The remaining contenders have brought with them the specters of fabricated experience, nefarious relationships and dubious qualifications.

Are there no people of integrity willing to beard the problems with honesty, genuine patriotism and overwhelming love of country?

This magnificent experiment, the United States of America, has been sold, or given, to corrupt business and administrations.

And it is on the brink of becoming a Third World entity.

The current candidates are certainly in no position to avert or rectify the present down slide; in fact, they are party to, and complicit in, its decline and ultimate demise.

Once again, celebrity trumps substance.

—Don Williams

South Holland