Before the election, I knew the winner would inherit a whale of a mess.

Economic recovery appears to have started early due to bank bailouts, but it's OK to blame Obama for associated debt.

However, I suspect the teabaggers would largely be silent had John McCain - a Republican - been elected, even though McCain's economic adviser, Phil Gramm, was the principal architect of the banking de-regulation bill of 2000.

Where were the teabaggers when Bush was doubling the national debt?

Michael Steele, Republican National Committee chairman, is spreading propaganda that Obama and leftist Europeans are injuring the U.S. economy and only Republicans can save it. Et tu, Pinocchio? Glenn Beck, et al!

For years, Bush gave tax breaks to companies to take millions of jobs to communist China and allowed legal and illegal immigrants to overwhelm our job market.

Afghanistan's asymmetrical warfare could last decades longer than Vietnam. Gen. Douglas MacArthur advised against a ground war in Indochina.

Generals don't pay the bills. Our troops and taxpayers do.

McCain doesn't mind adding hundreds of billions of debt by greatly expanding the war. Defending hamlets is no exit strategy.

On health care funding, I suggest that churches be modestly taxed. If we are our brothers' keeper and want church and state intertwined, here's a perfect, Christian opportunity. If President Obama could pull that miracle off, he would have earned a Nobel Prize.

Those Europeans are certainly pro-active optimists.

If Limbaugh is for the Taliban, give him a scarlet letter - T for traitor.

Gary M. Bourret, Bloomington