Columnist Last didn't belong in G-T

While I appreciate having some fresh voices in the columns, too many of the second- and third-rate entries have been included.

The latest inadequacy comes from Jonathan Last about the exotic and strange Democrats in Denver. To the extremely narrow-minded Young Republican Neocon Last, people engaged in politics become weird.

He obviously belongs among the clone cult meeting this week in Minneapolis where he can march in order with other ideologues. Why his commentary about Denver is wasting valuable space on the editorial page eludes me.

He has nothing to say about anything substantial, and his fashion taste sucks. The feeble GOP attempt to smear and belittle those who see through their disaster capitalism and war on the Middle Class, and then there is Iraq.

He stupidly asserts things that are not true about Obama and wonders why some do not think he is liberal enough. Obama is nowhere near the most liberal thinker in the Democratic Party, but don't talk about facts: Just make them up.

May this be Last's last column in the G-T. Try David Sirota for someone with real ideas.

Don Caughey, Corvallis

Obama's thin resume won't do for office

Well, the Democrats went and did it, they officially nominated Barack Obama as their candidate for president. Mr. Obama himself said just days after being elected to the Senate in 2004 that he wouldn't be comfortable running for president in 2008 because he would be lacking in experience. Nevertheless, the Democratic Party has chosen a man who, with a net 143 days of service in the Senate, later decided he really did have enough experience to be president and he aimed for the White House.

Sen. Obama has no executive experience, no military experience, and no business experience. In the Illinois Legislature he was best known for voting "present" and he has no significant legislation in the U.S. Senate. Mr. Obama's pick of longtime Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate only emphasizes Mr. Obama's own thin resume.

His inexperience might be excusable if Mr. Obama were exceptionally brilliant. Let's see, at a campaign stop in Beaverton he said he had campaigned in 57 states - with one to go. In his Memorial Day speech he claimed to see those being honored standing in the audience. When asked about when life begins and when babies deserve the protection of the law, Mr. Obama said that answering would be above his pay grade.

Would a Fortune 500 company consider promoting a summer intern to CEO? Barack Obama clearly is not qualified to be president. Come Nov. 4, don't expect the electorate to extend a job offer to the intern from Illinois.

John Jones, Philomath

Obama, McCain and the existence of evil

I listened to the Aug. 17 television broadcast of the Saddleback Presidential Candidates Forum, then obtained a complete written transcript so I could study the answers Sens. Obama and McCain gave to the questions by Pastor Rick Warren.

I am particularly interested in the responses of both candidates to this series of questions: "Does evil exist? And if it does, do we ignore it? Do we negotiate with it? Do we contain it? Do we defeat it?"

McCain responded by saying, "Defeat it." Later he said, "Of course evil must be defeated." And later, "We must totally defeat it." He never answered the basic question, "Does evil exist?"

Obama answered the basic question immediately, saying, "Evil does exist." It is an important question because there are people who believe that evil has no real existence.

Obama said that evil "has to be confronted squarely," but it is "God's task" to "erase evil from the world." He also said that it is very important for us "to have some humility in how we approach confronting evil." Thinking that our intentions are good doesn't always mean that we are doing good, according to Obama.

McCain's response to the questions on evil leads me to think that the only evil he recognizes is the evil that he thinks can be eliminated by military power. Apparently, that is what he means when he says, "We must totally defeat it." For one who may exercise presidential power, it's a dangerous viewpoint.

David R. Prichard, Corvallis

Don't allow Obama smear as 'celebrity'

Let's not be bullied out of our enthusiasm for Barack Obama with taunts of "celebrity." It is an easy "spin" when we have a president who has only appeared in front of cherry-picked audiences since his first inauguration. We may have a right to our skepticism about politics given the results of the last two presidential cycles, but I ask you, what do we have to lose by dropping our well-earned cynicism and looking at Obama through pundit-free eyes?

McCain was smeared by the Rove machine when he ran against Bush, but now he is using Karl's stink-tank of spin-doctors in an attempt to maintain Republican control of the White House. We have to take the country back from these people before even Republicans will have a chance to do their own thinking again.

My first choice for president was based on what I knew then. My choice for president now is Barack Obama. Remember, just because we have a president who can't two sentences together without help doesn't mean that a man who speaks well in front of a crowd of thousands is not telling the truth.

Jeanene Louden , Corvallis