What ties these two articles together is a general tendency of Americans to buy into easy solutions and political leaders to feed us pap. After the attacks of 9/11 there was no call for sacrifice, no suggestion that the use of oil had to come down. We wer told to go shopping and if you wre rich you were given large tax cuts.

Too many politicans led by George Bush act and sound like the United States has a God given right to world leadership. We do if we work very hard at it. We need a call to arms not of the weaponary sort but of ideas. It is time to recognize that we must do things not "beause they are easy but because they are hard."

No amount of tarriffs or quotas will stop India or China or the many other countries that want to raise their citizenry to middle class status. The economic pie can be expanded for everyone including Americans but only if America gets to work. The war on Islamic extremism can be defeated but only if we both work to make Muslims but of the global economy and defund the oil economies of the Middle East.