Congratulations to Thomas Friedman for his July 3 column that articulated so well what many Americans don’t want to hear (“Next president will have to reverse American decline”). This country is in a serious economic tailspin on several different fronts, and it’s going to take a real leader to introduce and implement any kind of effective, long-term improvement here at home.

I often see Nickel’s Worth contributors saying “don’t blame Democrats” or “don’t blame Republicans,” and they’re right. Instead, we need to put the blame squarely and equally on both sides of the aisle. We have a Republican president who is so mired down in his misguided Iraq war that he seems to have forgotten that we even have domestic problems. And we have a Democratic Congress who sold America a bill of goods to get themselves into power, and then have proved themselves to be every bit as disingenuous and ineffective as the president.

This November, forget your preconceived party affiliations and expectations. Look past the sound bites and cutesy slogans and listen closely to the presidential debates. And in the end, vote for the candidate who will do the best job of getting us out of the decades-long hole that our ineffectual national leadership has dug for us.

As Mr. Friedman correctly and succinctly states — “Nothing else matters.”

Paul Bianchina

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