Great piece by New York Times op-ed columnist, Thomas Friedman, “Who Will Tell the People?”

Much nonsense has been written about how Hillary Clinton is “toughening up” Barack Obama so he-ll be tough enough to withstand Republican attacks. Sorry, we don-t need a president who is tough enough to withstand the lies of his opponents. We need a president who is tough enough to tell the truth to the American people. Any one of the candidates can answer the Red Phone at 3 a.m. in the White House bedroom. I-m voting for the one who can talk straight to the American people on national TV - at 8 p.m. - from the White House East Room.

Who will tell the people? We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.

I don-t know if Barack Obama can lead that, but the notion that the idealism he has inspired in so many young people doesn-t matter is dead wrong. “Of course, hope alone is not enough,” says Tim Shriver, chairman of Special Olympics, “but it’s not trivial. It’s not trivial to inspire people to want to get up and do something with someone else.”

Mr. Friedman is more optimistic than I am. I believe our country would have to suffer a total and complete “tear down” to ever regain any amount of glory. Greed and religious hate/bigotry have too tight of hold on us to ever recover from.