For decades, John McCain has championed the deregulation that has led to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Now he can only fall back on declaring that he has better judgment than Barack Obama because, as McCain claims, “The surge is working!” This is akin to a member of a surgical team that has amputated the wrong limb trying to insist that everyone should now focus on how well the stump is healing.

The war in Iraq was completely unnecessary. While most Americans are rightly appalled by the cost of bailing out Wall Street to the tune of $700 billion, that’s roughly equal to what we’ve already spent on the war in Iraq. The total cost of the war, including long-term health care for veterans of Iraq, could end up close to $2 trillion. And that’s not counting the misery of warfare: the dead and wounded Americans and Iraqis and the near complete destruction of infrastructure and social order in Iraq.

If you knew a doctor had amputated the wrong limb of a patient, would you hire him as your surgeon? Given his mistakes on Iraq and the economy, do you really want to hire John McCain as your president?

Deb Suran

Deer Isle