Maybe you meant Canadians. I blame the Canadians.
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Oh, they are interested. They poll and do focus groups constantly. Then the focus groups and polls told them that people like a president who doesn't focus too much of the poll of the day.

As for having the President listen to a novel idea or discovery in a speedy fashion - now that's a tougher nut to crack.

There are tons of polls that one can take or leave.

There is no question that Iraq is the number one issue. The human cost both dead and survivors. The Hundreds of Billions we have borrowed and will borrow. Our loss as a World moral leader.

The Dem candidates are split. Hillery and Biden remain the Hawks. On the Republican side it is a little more vague. After all our President is a Republican yet these candidates are hesitant to invoke his name.

Health care costs are important as they just keep rising.

Immigration is an issue of concern both the real and imagined.

Job and pension security...

Political Corruption and hypocrisies in both parties.

The belief that rich politicians in both parties are so removed from how most of us live.

An increasing narrow mindness where we are too hesitant to admit maybe "the other side" might have a point.

I think the problem is clearest by Rudi and Hillery. Two candidates that try to be all things to all people.

All we can do is demand or look for specifics.

Good luck to that....

And we are surprised that candidates don't listen to us? Why? Heck, they don't even listen to each other.

Case in point from today's news:

The foreign affairs panel is warned by President Bush NOT to pass the Armenia genocide resolution. But they go ahead and do so anyway. What happens? Turkey recalls their ambassador to Ankara saying ""Unfortunately, some politicians in the United States have once again sacrificed important matters to petty domestic politics despite all calls to commonsense..."

And why did the House Panel do it? Let's let Queen Pelosi explain:

"I've been in Congress for 20 years, and for 20 years people have been saying the same thing" about the timing being bad, she said.

"Why do it now? Because there's never a good time and all of us in the Democratic leadership have supported" it, she said.

I can just see her stomping her foot like a five-year old because mommy didn't buy her the sugar-coated cereal she wanted.

Thanks for listening there, Queenie. Nice work! Way to truly inflame the Arab street AND a (hopefully still) strong M.E. ally.

There can be only one possible explanation for all this: Earwax build up. And a lot of it.

Y'know, about that whole Armenian Genocide thing...mebbe if Turkey had acted like ally in this war, allowing us to use the bases we maintain and so on, mebbe this whole thing might not have come up.

And the fact that Turkey denies there ever WAS a genocide is par for the course. They have been saying that since Great Grandpa Jundanian, and Great Great Aunt Bordossian were forced to flee to the Levant ahead of the Janissaries.

So, yeah, it happened.

DJ said:

"Not a single one of our elite field of Presidential candidates in either party strikes me as interested in the slightest about what the majority of Americans think. Not one."

Fred Thompson. He asked some Conservative bloggers to as their readers to submit questions for him to answer. The bloggers coordinated and pared down their questions to the most timely and pertinent, and submitted them to Mr. Thompson's campaign staff.

As far as I know, Fred Thompson has answered the first one via video, I think at YouTube (which I, unfortunately, can't view since I have a painfully slow dialup connection).

I'm very discouraged about the lack of real discussion of issues and problems. The public discourse has been hijacked by party apparatchiks and media weevils who spew hyperbole and disinformation. I'm getting sick of this dance. I like Newt's ideas on getting back to real bipartisanship and principled discourse; see American Solutions.

Wee vil overcome.
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DJ,I always wish you the very best. I hope your health continues to improve as well.

Fortunately fixing a car is just not as painful as fixing yourself. After my sudden unexpected August 2 motor scooter crash due to a pothole, only days after my father died of a stroke at home, my 18 assorted physical injuries took days to heal. One knee was the worst and the joint real bad. But I fixed myself and my bike and got right back on.

The best you can do in life is to get right back on and deal with the pain as best as possible. Certainly the sudden death of my father is still the toughest injury to deal with. Emotional pain always seems to run far deeper than physical pain.

As excellent as a writer as your are DJ, your obligation to your family always remains your most important job. For me, job #1 is taking care of my mother who is in failing health. My dad would expect that from me.

Listening is not a skill; it's a discipline. All you have to do is shut up. ---Peter Drucker