Opinion

Newspapers have a long, honorable tradition of playing a vital role in the important debates and dialogues in this country.

Financial fears not seen since the savings and loan crisis in the late 1980s, maybe since the Great Depression, have swept the economic landscape. The world watched as Congress intensely debated and reluctantly passed an emergency plan to stop the financial meltdown in its tracks. The $700 billion authorization gives the Treasury the resources to purchase the bad mortgage-backed securities from the balance sheets of financial institutions.

Thursday

The impact of tacking the generally common-sense Sarah Palin onto the bottom of the GOP ticket has clearly not been enough to rescue John McCain from himself.

I don’t wish to overstate my powers, but it must be said — and I’m just the guy to do it! — that my last two Sunday columns have been, well, downright ouija-like.

Washington is throwing so many fiscal lifelines to so many sectors of the economy, taxpayers are growing numb to the numbers involved.

To the editor:

You don’t need a Gallup or Rasmussen poll to know that regular people on the street — you, your family and your neighbors — are disgusted with politics today. The treatment of Gov. Sarah Palin is Exhibit A to illustrate that point.

They are important sideshows in an otherwise circus-filled election cycle.

Which do you feel more strongly: that Barack Obama scares you or that the Republicans disgust you with the unholy mess they’ve made?