I felt that Kerry was the clear winner of the [first] debate. He held his ground and carefully articulated his points and took a firm stance on what he stands for. Finally, the American people can hear what he has to say without the media spin on it. Bush stuck to just a couple of points and repeated those over and over. He failed to answer several of the questions and kept going back to the "Flip Flopping" that he says Kerry's has been doing. I do believe that he proved to the American people and the world that he would be the best choice to be the next President of the United States!

Michelle Brands (Oakland)

I watched the [first] debate on the Fox channel, as well as the next half hour with Brit Hume, who I respect as an honest opponent. He was accompanied by the "Beltway Boys," who all agreed that Kerry won the debate on substance, but Bush on style. Well, the way I looked at it, Bush showed that he cannot stand on his own legs. If he does not have Karl Rove holding him up on one side and Cheney on the other side to steady him, he is just lost.

Josef Sweelssen

An open letter to Senator Kerry: Many times during the [second] debate Bush made mention of his stand for life being precious during the questions regarding abortion, during the questions stem cell research, and during the questions regarding the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. Not once did he sway about his belief that he never made a mistake, not once did he show remorse for the loss of a thousand plus American lives and countless Iraqi and Afghani lives. Truly, he showed America that he is the real "flip-flopper," but no one pointed it out in the sound bite format that his zealots only seem to understand.

Senator Kerry, let America know that you are a pro-life candidate but not an anti-choice candidate. You will not claim to value every seed of life so much that a three-day old embryo or some cytoplast has a greater value than the lives of our soldiers and citizens. There is no sensible person who would agree that a cell has a greater value than those who are protecting our borders and defending our constitution. There is nothing wrong with being pro-life but once you take away choice, which God gave us, who are you really serving?

The abortion issue is not one that can be addressed by any man; it is one that can only be addressed by the mother and her beliefs. Any student of the Bible should be able to point out that God gave his children the gift of choice -- and those who try to take it away can easily be considered antichrists.

Xavier Casto

Elect Kerry

The press has ignored Kerry's detailed and ambitious health care plan, leaving the impression that there isn't any. The Bush campaign tells you that there is one -- one that puts government in charge of the medical decisions that affect you. I can say flatly: absolutely nothing would change in your present relationship with your doctor.

What would change is your cost: it would go down by about $1000 a year. What else would change is that at least 60% of the currently uninsured would get medical insurance. What the Kerry plan specifically changes is the three-way financial setup on health care: you, your insurer, and the government. Space does not allow me to give the details of the Kerry plan, but you can read it for yourself.

Every American should have quality health care. Do you?

Morton Nadler (Virginia)

I was born and raised in the Buckle of the Bible Belt, taught to respect and honor the democratic values of fair play, liberty and justice for all humanity. With a Ph.D. in International Education, I have enjoyed working in or traveling to 206 countries, I have been welcomed with generous hospitality and made some truly wonderful loyal friends. That is, until the Century of Disillusionment dawned, overcast with a dense fearsome dark cloud cover of Bush-whacking bullyrag in-denial faked bluffs, true lies, deceptive intimidation and uncompromising aggression.

The overwhelming global condolences and expressions of sympathy following the horrific September 11th tragedy were squandered by the unilateralist policies of an elitist neo-con administration which duped and misled the gullible American populace by waging an unnecessary, costly and senseless wrong time, wrong place pre-emptive war for the wrong reasons and wrong ambitions, with serious long-term negative consequences for the U.S. Vested interest powerbrokers and immoral crusaders, fomenting anti-Arab biases, hate and fear, subjected those of us advocating peaceful or diplomatic solutions to petty denigrating labels, arrogantly dismissed as anti-American unpatriotic saboteurs.

Previously, I was rather apathetic about politics, but the importance of this election has made me become a progressive rebel with an honorable, just because cause. If we want to put an end to curtailed uncivil liberties, torture abuse horrors, ghost detainees and the mindless humiliation pranks of the past four years, we must restore a rainbow of hope and trust, renewing passionate belief in the American Dream we still hold dear by re-defeating clueless Bush and reprioritizing insurance claims for a safer, saner, more secure future by electing a more intelligent, aware and perceptive Kerry. Pax vobiscum.

Dr. Charles Frederickson (Bangkok)

Quagmire In Iraq

George Bush said, John Kerry's comment about Iraq hurts the "soldiers" who are now serving in Iraq and his comments also hurts the "U.S. economy." I reply that Bush's action against Iraq not only hurts the soldiers, hurts their families, and also hurts and kills the "family of innocent civilians" caught in the crossfire. His action against Iraq not only hurts the economy of the U.S. but also hurts and kills the economy of the world.

It's not Saddam who really poses a great threat to peace and stability of the world, nor Iran nor North Korea. In reality, it's George Bush, after Osama bin Laden, who now poses a great threat to peace and stability of the world. Another four years for Bush will put the whole world in an unstable and intense situation and will bring a negative impact on U.S. and world peace and stability.

Maria Aurelia Del Rosario

The President has made a grievous mistake in launching the war on Iraq. Not only did he launch war unilaterally, but he declared victory prematurely and unilaterally, too. Peace always requires that both sides agree.

By abruptly changing the status quo within the existing Iraqi civil war, the opportunity for peace that existed in Iraq has been destroyed. Ten years of sanctions had isolated the regime from a growing opposition, to the point that even Saddam's own family members had turned on him.

America has re-politicized the existing factions in Iraq by asking them to adopt our justifications for war, just as we have politicized the rest of the world. After masterfully getting inspectors back on the ground in Iraq, the President set an example of disingenuous negotiation by preventing them from taking their course. A lack of patience and understanding of opportunity has made this war hot for ourselves and without purpose. The declaration of victory without the surrender of the losing side is further indication of hubris, not stewardship.

That $200 Billion in armaments to feed our hungry soldiers is a fool's errand. We could have sent aid to promote a peaceful transition of power with the ending of sanctions. Political reforms have been tied to aid with many other nations in the region. In fact, we wasted aid money by using it to bribe neighboring countries to launch the war.

It is time for America to unilaterally declare peace. Money can buy war, temporary victories and cooperation and lots of death, but not commonsense. To secure the long-term peace one must be willing to renounce war as a solution. Man kills too easily for the love of money and pride. President Bush has fallen victim to both and encouraged the Iraqis to do the same. The Iraqis need their sovereignty to solve their problems themselves.

Steve Consilvio (Auburn, MA)

Talk Radio Moderates Lose A Legendary Voice

I had listened to Ken Minyard since he came on in 1969. I like him and had no idea whether he was liberal or conservtive. However, I stopped listening about 10 years ago when he went into full liberal mode especially that leftist elitist trait of condescension. We checked in from time to time and he just got worse. You're right about the Lords of Loud, however I'm not sure that when you use that term that realize you have to be talking about the liberal leftist loud mouths who to nearly a person use the tactic of overtalking those they don't want to be heard. Check out almost any panel discussion or guests on TV and radio and without being identified you can easily oick out the loudmouthed droning liberal and the patient and polite conservative.

"Tom O."

60 Minutes And Dan Rather

I have been watching "60 Minutes" since I was a young man of fourteen. While most of my friends were playing touch football in the streets on Sunday evenings I was glued to the television set for one hour. This television news magazine has been a prime source of information for me over the years and in my opinion they offer the best investigative reporting in the United States. I could write pages about the stories reported on this program, but I would like to mention one to the American people as a reminder to let them decide just how well this program has served them.

It wasn't too many years ago when "60 Minutes" discovered that the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company was deceiving the American public on the harm that cigarette smoking caused. Their guest that night was Dr. Jeffrey Wigand (Former Vice President of Research and Development) for Brown & Williamson. It was disclosed that his company was placing a known carcinogen in its tobacco products that enhanced the intake of nicotine within the human body. This disclosure was made after all the major tobacco companies had testified before Congress that they believed tobacco was non-addictive.

Prior to airing this story, "60 Minutes" was threatened with a lawsuit if it pursued this story any further. With the vast financial resources of the tobacco industry there was a real threat that Brown & Williamson could literally end up owning CBS. CBS aired the story anyway because they strongly felt the American public needed to know the danger these tobacco products posed.

Dan Rather made a serious mistake because he didn't do his homework before airing a story. Now Republicans want him out. George W. Bush made a serious mistake because he didn't do his homework before going to war. Now Democrats want him out. Which mistake has cost American lives?

Dan Adams

Billions Missing From U.S. Indian Trust Fund

John Echohawk and the Native American Rights Fund should be applauded for the efforts now underway to right this injustice that has been ongoing for over a hundred years. An audit of all accounts is well past due and will show more than simple mismanagement. However, as great as this move is there is something that should be done in the interim. A separate accounting body needs to be set up to handle all trust funds immediately, one in which native peoples control all trust income, for clearly the government has no seriously demonstrated interest in correcting this injustice.

Leans Too Far

Incurious George

Is it true that George W. Bush had never visited or travelled in Europe prior to being elected to the Presidency? These comments were aired on British television when I was visiting Europe, just prior to his visit to Great Britain.

Steve Stein

[As far as anyone knows, Bush apparently was not in Europe prior to his first official visit in June 12- 16, 2001 (during his missing year of 1972 he could have been anywhere, of course). In the five short months of the Presidency before that trip, Bush had already angered most of Europe. "It's amazing," a veteran foreign service officer said at the time. "It's like the whole lot of them are children on their first trip abroad without mommy and daddy, doing what typical stupid American kids do -- acting like they know everything and projecting America onto everything and everyone" (MORE). Bush's first stop was Spain, where he ruffled feathers by mispronouncing Prime Minister Aznar's name as "Anzar," the Spanish word for "goose."   -- Editor]