WhackyNation

If there is anyone out there who still believes Congress should approve legislation mandating a huge bureaucracy controlling all health programs in the U.S., he or she should take a look at the monstrosity of a national health agency that exists in Great Britain. It would be a catastrophe if copied by the U.S.

The British program has virtually come to a standstill because of overcrowded hospitals and clinics and beleaguered doctors, who cannot control the rush of “patients” for minor illnesses or imagined physical problems.

A Reuters report recently detailed the mess the British system is in. Because of the overcrowding, many patients cannot get needed surgery, and they are forced to go to other countries, including the U.S., to get the care they need. Yet, that is exactly the kind of a system proposed by President-elect Barack Obama.

Instead of privatizing its health-care system — as it should have done long ago — the British have created another agency called Operations Abroad. The new agency has developed what is called “health tourism.” It arranges the travel of British patients to hospitals in other countries so that they can get the surgery and medical treatment unavailable at home in the overcrowded hospitals. And the British system picks up all the expenses! Little wonder that Britain’s national health system is breaking down under the heavy costs it is absorbing.

At one point last year, at least 250,000 Britons in need of health care or surgery were on the waiting list for non-emergency operations, such as hip replacements. And large numbers have been transferred to hospitals in other countries, mainly the U.S. They are not being sent to Canada, because that country has an overcrowded problem, too, thanks to adoption of a system similar to Great Britain’s.

In the wake of the terrible conditions in Britain and Canada — and other nations that have adopted state-run health care — doctors have been leaving in droves for the U.S. and other countries that still have a privately run health program. When will the British citizens come to their senses and return to a private system that will keep its doctors at home and bring stability to its health program?

An official at Operations Abroad said it “could offer 200,000 operations a year to British patients via a network of 50 hospitals in 21 countries from Italy to Egypt or Cuba, and including the U.S. Costs are normally 20 percent cheaper than in British hospitals.”

The American system, controlled mainly by private health institutions, looks extremely good compared to the government-operated programs in Britain and Scandinavian nations. The only major improvement would come with the adoption of an idea I have proposed: Turn the entire health-care program over to the medical profession, with the federal government serving only as watchdog.

I’m back from spending some time soaking up some sunshine.  That’s always good to garner perspective.  I’ve thought a lot about things: politics and our president-elect and our dear Washington State Democrats.  I have lots to write about.  I’ll get to it soon.  Thanks, Lou, for holding down the fort while I was gone.

I was rummaging through my old files the other day, and I was amused when I came across the TV commentary I had made, tongue in cheek, in the days the first President Bush and the European members of the United Nations were toying with the security problems posed by the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, in the Middle East.

We were in the midst of the Persian Gulf War at the time, and the U.S. and other countries were deeply worried over Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait and the threat he posed in the entire region. The main worry was that Saddam’s muscle flexing would lead to an ambition to take over the entire Middle East — and, eventually, other parts of the world, a move reminiscent of the aims of the old Ottoman Empire. At any rate, this is the tongue-in-cheek commentary I delivered on January 16, 1991 in a KIRO-TV broadcast — and repeated on KIRO Radio:

“My name is Saddam Hussein At-Takriti. I’m 55 years old. Twelve years ago, I got rid of my cousin. Never mind how. He was terribly busy running Iraq, and I thought I could do a much better job. So, as it happened, I took over, along with relatives and friends in the Baath Socialist Party.

“Your President, George H. W. Bush, said I am like the onetime German leader, Adolf Hitler. It was a great compliment. Adolf hated all Jews, too, and succeeded in putting at least 6,000,000 of them to death in his gas ovens. He had an ambition to take over all nations. But I don’t want to rule the world — just the Arab world.

“You know what I mean. I want to take up where the Ottoman Empire left off. No nations. No borders. Just Arabs. And me as their ruler. Now, I’m not like those other Arab princes and kings. I freed all women in my country from the terrible bondage that had been inflicted on them. They now run most of Iraq and they love me.

“The poor people love me, too, because I have promised to share the oil wealth of Iraq with them. That’s why I seized Kuwait. It belongs to the people — and to me — not the filthy rich royalty. So, what if I’ve had all the Iraq history books rewritten to praise me. The poor and the women will do anything I ask. Even die.

“I know nothing bout the military, but at least I know as much as Adolf did — maybe quite a bit more. As I look into the distance, I see 620,000 foreign troops and a thousand planes, most of them American, all of them doing their damnedest to destroy me and the nation I have built.

“If I have to die, I will become an eternal hero to all Arabs. But if I relent and give up Kuwait and everything else I command, I will die anyway, and no one will weep for me or care about me and Iraq. My name is Saddam Hussein. What a nightmare seems to be in my future! (I’m really Lou Guzzo, and I have been looking into my crystal ball.”

Clairvoyant? Hardly. It didn’t require the brain of a rocket scientist to imagine what was in store for Saddam Hussein. In fact, one can always predict what will happen to Adolf Hitler look-alikes when the people of the world awaken to their ulterior motives and the threat they pose to decent, free people everywhere. Let’s see… Who’s next? I’ll have to look in my crystal ball and turn to the “D’s” for Dictators and the “T’s” for tyrants. There. Oh, yes. Hmmm. There’s one in Iran, one in North Korea, one in Venezuela, one in Cuba… Wow! We have work to do!

With the rest of the nation, I watched the many tributes paid to the late former President Gerald Ford, just as I had watched similar grand funerals for so many other great Americans, including President Ronald Reagan. And each time I was impressed by the scores of compliments, praise, and good-will sentiments expressed.

Then, I thought, where were all these well-wishers and their high compliments to Ford and others while they were alive and the focus of national attention? Why do we wait until they have died to deliver the high praise they should have had while they were alive and in the public eye — and when that praise could have helped change the course of history?

President Ford’s case is an excellent example of my point. He was called the “accidental President,” because, as vice president, he inherited the presidential office when Richard Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Soon afterward, the new President pardoned Nixon to put an end to the scandal and restore sanity to the Oval Office.

Back then, however, he was castigated by the news media and other quarters for having dared to deliver the pardon — and the media scorn eventually cost him his chance to be elected on his own terms. Instead, he lost to Jimmy Carter, who turned out to be one of the worst Presidents of the century, one who was directly responsible for diluting our security and military defense.

Fortunately for the nation, Ronald Reagan came along and restored the strength and vitality of our defensive posture, the validity of a strong foreign policy, and America’s position as the world’s foremost democracy and military power. Reagan did what Carter had failed to do.

And Reagan did what Gerald Ford undoubtedly would have done, as well. That is, stand up to the Soviet Union and, as a result, bring an end to the brutal Cold War. There is no doubt that Reagan was the prime mover — as Ford might have been — in shattering the bold front posed by the militant Soviet Union.

With that, let me return to the main point of this commentary: Why do we wait until important leaders of our society are dead before we decide to award them the praise we should have bestowed upon them when they were alive and needed such support the most?

Isn’t it hypocritical to lambaste a President, for example, while he is in office, and then heap unending items of praise upon him as he lies there in a coffin — too late to do him and the nation any good? As a prime example, let’s take the case of President George W. Bush.

President Bush led American military forces into doing what European powers and the Useless Nations refused to do — eliminate the Middle East’s murderous tyrant, Saddam Hussein, and give the Iraqi people the greatest gift any nation could offer, freedom and a democratic republic.

However, America’s print and broadcast news media have pummeled Bush mercilessly for his good deed and for his courageous effort to deliver freedom to downtrodden people. Will they wait till he dies to praise him?

What’s in a name?, Shakespeare asked. Taking a cue from the great playwright, I decided to do a little research on the topic, using my local phone books for starters. And maybe finishers.

All right, I decided, let me start with perhaps the most despised name in history — Adolf Hitler. Has anyone been unlucky enough to bear his name, and thereby also borrow the curse that comes with it? Not in this case. My books show nary an Adolf Hitler or even a Hitler in the listings. Is it possible that someone named Adolf Hitler could have an unlisted number? Perhaps, but I would venture a guess that it could only happen in Germany or Austria.

Next among the terrible ogres of the world on my list was the name, Josef Stalin, dictator of the onetime Soviet Union, perhaps just as much despised as Hitler. Let’s see, now. I’m leafing through the “S” pages. Oh! Oh! Here’s a single listing without an address but with a phone number I will not repeat. It’s R. Stalin. Can’t tell whether it’s a male or female. At any rate, I will probe no further, wondering how R. Stalin’s life has been dogged by history. Could be a very nice fellow or woman. I hope so.

I came to the third despised name on my list — Hideki Tojo, Japan’s minister of war in the early 1940s and the brutal mastermind of the attack on Pearl Harbor, which forced the U.S. to declare war on Japan. Alas, my phone book lists a couple named Tojo, and they live in a very exclusive neighborhood in the Greater Seattle area. I wonder if they have been hexed over their name. I hope not. They are probably a fine, upstanding couple — and good neighbors.

The next despicable character on my list is Dictator Benito Mussolini, who dragged Italy into a terrible alliance with Adolf Hitler and into the Second World War against the U.S. and its European Allies. One name comes close to the Mussolini spelling, but it’s not close enough to repeat. I wonder if there are any Benito Mussolinis in the phone books of Rome or any other Italian city. If not, good.

I could find no phone-book listings of anyone bearing the names of a number of other despised names in history — including Karl Marx, John Dillinger, and Al Capone. Among others on my list was Gary Ridgway, the serial killer of some 48 women in the Green River murders in Seattle. I found five persons bearing that name in the phone book, and I wonder how disturbed they are by the tremendous publicity in all the news media concerning Ridgway’s arrest and impending trial. It’s much too early for them to take any action to protect themselves, since the grisly story has just broken. Maybe they will ride out the storm and hope that time will erase the public’s memory of the murderer’s name. I hope so.

So, what’s in a name? Unfortunately, a real headache. I feel deeply sorry for those who must live with such a handicap. And I wonder how many others among us have decided to change their names to prevent embarrassment or worse. William Shakespeare offered no answer.

Americans have been alerted in recent times to two major dangers that threaten their way of life in this unique republic, which has been the world’s most remarkable democracy for more than two centuries. Those two dangers are international terrorism and the gradual slide toward Socialism, thanks to Big Government.

Now, in view of an alarming trend that has been affecting more and more states, I am duty bound to alert my fellow Americans to a third danger, one that has crept upon us gradually and, because of its link to what is usually referred to as “entertainment,” has escaped notice in society and the news media.

That third danger is gambling and the characters it embraces. Notice how many new gambling casinos have sprung up in various states, including those now operating in Washington State that are operated by Indian tribes. At one time not long ago, the only gambling casinos in the U.S. were those in the state of Nevada.

Today they have sprung up in states on the West and East coasts and many states in between —- and more are on their way, thanks to the voracious appetites of politicians for an easy conduit for taxes. No longer is it necessary for persons seeking the thrill of losing all their savings to travel to Nevada to do it.

Sure, one hears about the occasional winner at the craps tables or slot machines at one of the casinos, but you never hear about the losers, because they are too embarrassed to admit they blew their paychecks or savings at one of the gambling houses. Of course, now and then we read about court cases involving the idiots who committed crimes to cover their losses at a casino’s gambling tables.

If you are one of those citizens who is easily impressed by the stories about the “big winnings” at this or that casino, please don’t be so naïve. The occasional brag perpetuated by the casinos concerning Mary Jane’s or John Smith’s luck at winning a few thousand bucks playing craps or a slot machine are planted purposely as a drawing card.

Don’t be naive. Casinos may pay out a few thousand dollars here and there, but they draw many thousands more in profits from the suckers who simply can’t resist the chance to try their luck at blackjack or some other game These casinos are not in the business of giving away money.

But what is the real damage I’m referring to in the sudden appearance of gambling casinos across the nation? It is this: The characters who build and run the gambling houses are not our “ideal citizens,” who are interested in creating and supporting better schools, better governments, better communities, and better lives for Americans.

They attract the “easy buck” individuals to run the casinos — men who are interested in greasing the palms of politicos with influence, politicos who can be counted on to enact laws favoring gambling casinos. That’s how so many states have permitted the influx of casinos and professional gamblers in recent years.

Ponder this fact: Gambling and gamblers contribute nothing to the public welfare. In fact, they promote grief by luring men and women to lose their earnings and savings. The gambling industry in the U.S. was created many years ago by mobsters with criminal reputations and records. And they’re still at it — and growing in numbers.

Well I’ll be damned! No sooner had the costly third runway opened at the Seattle-Tacoma Airport than the same critters who forced it upon taxpayers began a lament that it wasn’t enough to meet flying customers’ demands — and that a fourth runway will be necessary, preferably at Paine Field in Snohomish County.

Lost in the shuffle and never considered by local planners was the proposal advanced by me and many other observers to build the third runway over the waters of Puget Sound just a short distance from the airport — and easily reachable by bus, rail, or car. It is the same over-water idea San Diego officials have been studying for a dozen years.

An over-water runway should pose no problems, and it would even satisfy the demands of environmentalists, because the Sound’s sea life could easily maneuver under the floating runway. As is the case in San Diego, a floating runway would have many advantages, besides easing air traffic. One of the advantages concerns safety and ideal flying conditions.  Air traffic coming in and going out of a floating airport would encounter better weather than the overland airport, a factor already advanced by the airline and weather-agency people I talked to several months ago.

In addition, airliners and other aircraft utilizing the floating airport would pose absolutely no danger to dwellers in case of accidents to incoming and outgoing flights. And they would reduce air traffic substantially, something the new, adjacent runway certainly does not do.

The technology and over-water construction problems of over-water building have already been met and solved in Washington State by floating bridges that have become models of safety and have also become national trademarks. Creating an over-water runway would pose no problems for engineers or construction crews.

Linking a floating runway to the SeaTac Airport would be easy. Passengers coming or going would be quickly moved by overland or underground roads or tunnels the short distance from the Sound to the airport. And, in the process, they would have averted the crowding the new third runway will bring.

Some individuals and agencies are now promoting the use of Snohomish County’s Paine Field as the “fourth runway.” That would be an inconvenience for incoming and outgoing passengers. Seattle is the business and commercial hub, not Everett or Snohomish. The ride to and from Paine Field is far longer than it would be for travelers bound for Seattle or from Seattle.

Politicians should get out of the way and let expert planners determine the best and cheapest ways to build airport runways and other projects. Apparently the politicos are also the problem in San Diego, where the proposal for new airport runways over water has been bandied about for so long. As is always the case, delays invariably cost taxpayers a lot more. As an example, the third runway at SeaTac was originally designed more than ten years ago to cost about $431,000,000; that’s less than half of the $1 billion price tag of the third runway.

Was the first Thanksgiving dinner much different than yours will be? Well, let’s take a look at history. The first one took place at Plymouth Colony in New England in 1621, 387 years ago.

Despite severe illnesses and many deaths, the remaining Pilgrims invited Chief Massassoit and 91 of his Wampanoag Indians to be their guests to give thanks to God for their survival.

The menu, reported by author-historian Robert Hendrickson, consisted of venison stew, spit-roasted wild turkeys stuffed with cornbread, oysters baked in their shells, sweet corn baked in its husks, and pumpkin baked in a bag and served with maple syrup. Sounds like your own dinner, I’ll bet. But wait.

There’s a surprise feature they enjoyed that we don’t associate with Thanksgiving. After the dinner, the chief and a few of his warriors went into the woods and soon came back with a bushelful of something the settlers had never tasted — freshly popped popcorn! Who said the American Indian was behind the times? Happy Thanksgiving!

Wait just a minute. I have more to say. I have ten things I’m thankful for as Thanksgiving approaches. Here they are in reverse order, from the last to the first:

Ten. Very thin pizza, with lots of pepperoni and tomato sauce and cheese. Hmmmm!

Nine. The end of the political campaign and all the promises we know won’t be kept in this great “Promised Land.”

Eight. Four kids who never ask for money. God bless! And they’re not kids any more.

Seven. More women in politics. That may at least clean up the language in the caucus rooms.

Six. A good barber, who doesn’t repeat all the old jokes about baldheaded men.

Five. The satisfaction of knowing that almost every fourth November, we’ll still have a chance to throw the bums out of office.

Four. An end to the news media’s campaign of hate against George W. Bush.

Three. An end to all the tired old political scandals. Let’s have some new ones.

Two. Headache pills! I’d never have made it without ‘em.

And finally….

One. I looked at the newspaper obituary columns this morning, as I always do, and once again my name wasn’t there!

Happy Thanksgiving!

As fall spills into winter, I’m always reminded of one of my favorite commentaries, to wit: It was a gorgeous spring day in God’s country, the place we call Seattle. I walked out onto the deck of our home with beautiful Lake Sammamish reflecting its blue waters on the horizon. The warm sun coaxed me to doff my sweater and cap and to flex my arm and leg muscles, as if I had just awakened from a deep sleep, much like the bears do upon emerging from hibernation.

As I drank in the warmth of spring, my mind took me back to a very different experience I had had the previous winter. For reasons I cannot explain, I remember looking out the kitchen window one morning after eating breakfast and gazing at the new-fallen snow that had turned everything a stark white.

I don’t remember who wrote it, but the memorable line came to me: “How beautiful is the new-fallen snow.” And my mind moved happily to the many unforgettable tributes to the white crystals in literature — like, for example, the immortal words of Robert Frost in his Dust of Snow:

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree.

Or like the glamorous words of Lord Byron in Manfred:

Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains;
They crowned him long ago
On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds,
With a diadem of snow.

Or like, inevitably in such cases, this familiar offering from the Bible’s Book of Isaiah:

Come now, and let us reason together….though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.

Or like that greatest word magician of them all, Shakespeare, who wrote in his Cymbeline:

As chaste as the unsunned snow.

Or like Sarah Josepha Hale’s classic rhyme:

Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow,
And everywhere that Mary went,
The lamb was sure to go.

I remember it all so well. With all those inspiring thoughts in my mind about snow and stuff, I got into my car and headed for work that December. An hour and a half later, I finally made it through all that miserable white stuff. And I thought: “Aaah, whatinhell do poets know about snow anyway! I was the frozen Lou Guzzo. How I relished that spring sunshine!

Democratic Party regulars — read that Liberals and Ultraliberals — would never acknowledge it, but Barack Obama’s victory in the November election probably cost the party an opportunity to take a deep look into its past and its future and undergo the reorganization it sorely needs for America’s sake.

Stay with me on this, because it will take some serious thinking and profound understanding of the party’s path in the past half century and where it is headed in the 21^st Century. A key character in this political melodrama is one of the most courageous political figures of the day, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

Lieberman dared to disagree with the Demo regulars a couple of years back and declared himself to be an Independent, mainly because he dared support President George Bush on his policy concerning the future of Iraq and America’s stock in that nation and in insuring peace in the Middle East.

Then, in a bold move to disagree with the hate-Bush faction in the Democratic Party, Lieberman dared to throw his support to his good friend in the Senate, John McCain, and bravely appear as a speaker at the Republican convention to appeal for the election of the G.O.P. candidate.

I don’t remember a similar case in American history — and it is doubtful that it will ever happen again. But let’s analyze this historic incident and understand what Lieberman’s intentions were in his courageous action and what his purpose was — even though the senator himself may not have realized fully what his intention was.

The Democratic Party has been sliding toward Socialism since the days of FDR and LBJ. It has been doing it with action after action in support of Big and Bigger Government. As a result, the American people have seen their private rights taken away from them and ensnared by the federal government.

In the process, the two-party system that was the key to progress and political harmony in the U.S. has been scuttled, with the Democrats piling on the Socialist-tainted measures. And now, with a Leftist President-elect about to take over in the White House and a new Democratically controlled Congress about to convene, the rush toward Bigger Government will proceed.

Lieberman saw it coming, and he was determined to stop the mad dash toward Socialism. Had McCain and Palin won the election, the senator from Connecticut would have had a chance to help reorganize the Democratic Party and return to the tranquil two-party system the nation enjoyed for two centuries.

With Lieberman’s help, the Democrats might have recognized the danger involved in its dash toward Bigger Government and the assault that has been made on private rights in the past 50 years. Now, with Obama calling the shots from the Oval Office, the Demos will be encouraged to speed the slide toward the Socialism that will destroy the American dream.

A commentor on WhackyNation poses a question: Who is the GOP going to run against Patty Murray in 2010?

Excellent question.

I can think of three names who have good statewide name recognition who might be willing: Rossi, McKenna and Sutherland.

Any ideas?

What goes on — or doesn’t go on — in the minds of political leaders in Seattle and King County as they make decisions these days in the City Council and County Council? Is it possible that they are unaware of the economic crisis that is costing millions of jobs and of the fact that so many families are pinching pennies to make ends meet?

As Seattle’s mayor and the county executive prepare new budgets for the coming year, both are asking for increased rates in many services that will jar those city and county dwellers even more. The only recourse the residents of the city and county will have is to make the mayor and executive pay the piper the next time they seek re-election.

The same goes for those city and county council members, who seem also to be oblivious to the economic problems that are being felt at the national, state, and local levels and who seem to be content to go along with the many increases being proposed by the mayor and executive as they prepare their budgets.

Is there some mechanism in government that could flash a red light of danger when political leaders ignore economic warnings? I can think of a few such warning mechanisms that could come into play when these leaders go off the deep end and propose increases, when they should be thinking of decreases.

The one that I like best is an automatic provision that I’ll bet would draw immediate favor with every taxpayer and rate payer in Seattle, King County, and, for that matter, every state in the Union. It’s this: Suppose that whenever a political official or lawmaker voted in favor of a raise in taxes or service rates, he or she would automatically receive a cut in salary.

I can already hear the cries of anguish over such a provision. But I’ll bet it would solve the problem created by spendthrift politicians. If the cut in salary wouldn’t be enough to bring spendthrift politicians to attention, maybe an additional cut in pension funds, vacation time, or some other freebies would do the trick.

I have another idea — one I have proposed for many years without fulfillment. In fact, it’s my pet proposal. I have appealed often for constitutional amendments at the federal, state, and local levels to make the terms of all elective offices six years, with no re-election permitted, based on the premise that political office should be a privilege, not a career.

In addition, I would include in such a proposal that the voting public could recall any office holder at any time upon submission of petitions with a required number of signatures and at a special election. I’ll bet that would make a politician think twice before raising taxes or service rates!

Oh, yes, one parting thought. Suppose we got a law passed that would require that every lawmaker voting for a tax or rate increase would simultaneously have to propose how that income would have to be matched by a subsequent cut in some other phase of government law or service.

Call it tit-for-tat. Whatever it is called, I’ll wager it would have a most beneficial effect on governmental conduct — and a godsend to tax and rate payers across the land.

The critical financial dilemma in which the Big Three American automobile companies — General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler — find themselves today certainly didn’t begin this year or even in the past decade. It began more than 30 years ago, when they refused to produce smaller, cheaper, and better cars than those produced by foreign firms.

Obviously, the Big Three failed to meet the new competition because they didn’t think Americans would buy the foreign brands. How wrong they were! And, now, because they took no action to meet the competition, the American auto makers are in deeply serious trouble and are seeking to be bailed out by federal government dollars, or, in reality, the money of American taxpayers.

GM, Ford, and Chrysler executives and auto-union leaders are demanding billions in bailout dollars to rescue their industry, although such a rescue will not happen as long as the Big Three refuse to produce cars that appeal to Americans because they are better than foreign brands and are much cheaper.

Apparently, the U.S. automakers want those billions as an outright gift, which is the reason Americans across the land are raising hell. A much smaller loan program is already available to the industry, but it is not as appealing to the automakers because the bill passed by Congress requires prompt payment.

What action should the President and Congress take to resolve the crisis? I think they should first make several demands the auto industry would have to follow to become eligible for large enough loans that would save the Big Three from the collapse they say is threatening them.

First, the car industry must honestly produce smaller, gas-saving vehicles that will more than match those that have come from Japan, Germany, and other foreign nations — not the few models Detroit has been bragging about but which are neither smaller nor save as much gas as the competition.

Second, the car industry must make a determined effort to price those smaller vehicles below the amounts the foreign makers are asking — or at least at the same levels the foreigners seek. That will mean the Big Three will have to make some important sacrifices in income, but they don’t really have a choice.

And speaking of necessary sacrifices, action taken by the President and Congress should include in their demands that all three of the U.S. automakers chop those ridiculous salaries many top executives are receiving in a financially troubled industry — and also prune or eliminate the golden parachutes the executives receive when they retire.

In fact, the critical changes I have just suggested should have been made by the Big Three in asking the federal government for financial help. Why not? Is it possible they have not realized all these years that the foreign car makers were gradually winning over American car buyers with their smaller, cheaper, and gas-saving autos?

I hope Congress does not capitulate and give the Big Three the billions requested without demanding a quick return. President Bush has already said he would veto such a bailout, but many Demos are in favor of giving Detroit a free ride. Now is the time for American citizens to make their voices heard.