The contrast between the youthful Obama and the elderly McCain simply on the basis of visible physical and mental sharpness and vigor is remarkable.

Every time I see McCain he looks and sounds pathetic. Anyone who keeps repeating an insipid phrase demonstrates a complete lack of mental competence. With McCain it is constant reference to "my friends" along with his cartoon grin.

It is time to stop thanking McCain for his military service and honoring his stint as a war prisoner by giving him credit for being qualified physically and mentally to be president. We have all seen how being president ages all the men in that office. The before and after photographs of presidents convince you that the office inflicts incredible stress, even on someone as brain-dead as George W. Bush. But Bush was a relatively young man in good health. He may have escaped the price of impeachment that he richly deserves, but he has not escaped the physical deterioration produced by the presidency.

Now imagine McCain aging as all other presidents have in office. It is a frightening prospect. Something akin to some horror movie that shows a transformation from a normal human being to some frightening alien life form.

There must be some way out of this.

There is.

It is time for more Americans to face the truth about the two-party plutocracy that has robbed our political system and weakened our democracy. The one important thing that McCain and Obama have in common is that they are both products of and servants to the corrupt, dysfunctional two-party system.

Clearly, the corrupt political system has accommodated itself to only about half of eligible voters actually voting, a disgrace that hardly anyone even bothers to talk about anymore, as if a first class democracy has such a disgusted population. But this is consistent with the fact that some 84 percent of Americans see the country on the wrong track.

Obama is no political messiah. And to simplistically see him mainly as so much more preferable than the decrepit McCain misses the core problem. Obama will do nothing to change the corrupt, unworthy political system. He is a talker, not an agent of change, certainly not systemic political change that requires bucking the elite status quo political powers that pull the strings of the two-party plutocracy.

Make you vote count. Make it a vote against all Democratic and Republican candidates and against the two-party plutocracy that makes a mockery of our democracy, which is as fake and delusional as any in the world. The time is right for Americans to vote for third party or independent presidential and congressional candidates, not because any of them can be elected, but as an action to demonstrate through voting that they reject the two-party duopoly. Nonvoters are ignored, but we need to get on the electoral scoreboard with votes against the two-party status quo.

[Joel S. Hirschhorn can be contacted through www.delusionaldemocracy.com.]

As Reuters reports:

President George W. Bush, asserting executive privilege, has rejected Congress' request for documents on FBI interviews with Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney from a probe to find who leaked the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson.

The Bush administration said on Wednesday that turning over such records would violate the president's rights to counsel from his staff.

And the President has rebuffed Congress' legal demands for a host of other documents, and testimony by the likes of Harriet Meier and Karl Rove. Karl Rove has repeatedly refused to honor a subpoena from Congress to testify, simply failing to show. What makes him different from you and I refusing subpoena to appear? We would be arrested. Why isn't Rove? Government simply doesn't get more elitist than this; not even for Pres. Mugabe of Zimbabwe. But, this is the United States we are talking about.

The Congress has the power to jail Karl Rove, but, in this world of politics, and high priced lawyers, Congress hasn't the courage to flex its own muscle for fear that the response might be overpowering. The response being, no response at all. And the fear is that Congress might lose their case for checks and balances in this tightly balanced Supreme Court.

In all, for us regular citizens, what this amounts to is a government completely out of control and operating outside the rule of law required by our Constitution. This lack of accountability and oversight is to blame for the Iraq War, the current mortgage credit and foreclosure debacle, and the failing economy. This lack of accountability and oversight is responsible for our current oil dependency and gasoline price rise of more than 33%.

It accounts for the illegal immigration problem and unsecured borders wide open to the likes of Hezbollah and al-Queda and drug war lords who are now shooting at our Border Patrol agents and setting up decapitating wire across Border Patrol ATV roads.

And as Lou Dobbs reports:

Mexican drug cartels have infiltrated nearly 200 cities across the U.S. says a recent report by the National Drug Intelligence
Center. That report found that Mexican drug cartels are "the most pervasive organizational threat to the United States," active in every region, where they command U.S. minions to carry out assassinations and other violent crimes.

It accounts for our taxes which absolutely must rise going forward, buying fewer and less quality government services because of the waste and the balooning interest on our national debt. The national debt sits near 10 trillion dollars, approaching double what it was nearly 8 years ago. That national debt and the interest paid on it each year, increasingly to foreign investors, is money that can't, and won't, be spent on schools, border security, crime fighting, more economic stimulus, or public works projects and maintenance.

Folks just don't realize how dearly this lack of responsibility by our White House and Congressional politicians is costing them. And worse, how it is going to cost their children throughout their adult work lives. Our children's taxes may now have to increase by as much as 33% more than what we are now paying if, the American government and economy is to avoid default and failure. That means our children will be that much poorer and in jeopardy.

And the reason our children will be poorer is fundamental. It is because we voters as a majority continue to reelect the same incumbents and kind of politicians over and over again, all the while expecting something better. It is foolish to do this.

If your baby sitter steals from your child's piggy bank, you don't ask them to come back and babysit again. Neither should we reelect these politicians who are robbing our children's future through neglect of their Constitutional duties and obligations. Putting partisan politics first is not what you and I elected them to do.

Ultimately, it is we, the voters who must change the way we vote, before the politicians will change the way they act in Wa. D.C. It really is up to us, the voters to re-create our future into something better than this dark cloud my, and your, politicians are creating.