Somebody beat me to the punch and was quoted on CNN about Al Gore stepping in. I missed the name of the person who said it. I had thought about the possibility that Al Gore can clean up this mess for the Democrats. With McCain gaining momentum while Clinton and Obama are hurting each other, Al Gore may be the savior. With the war and the economy there should be no way the Republicans can win this election. The Democrats can lose it, however. The same can be said for Clinton; there is no way she can win the nomination but she stays in just in case Obama loses it with a huge mistake or more pastorgate. If it turns out that McCain is shown to be beating both of them in the polls because neither can win the nomination, then Al Gore can come in and be the compromise candidate. He can name Obama as VP and groom him for down the road and that can satisfy the black voters. It is a long shot but that's what I am hoping for.

I don't know if Gore will be a great president but he would be better than the 3 choices we have right now. He is now well known all over the world. Even in China and India he is well-respected. This will bring some credibility back to us after the Bush years. Obama is too inexperienced even though I think he is the best of the 3. Clinton is too divisive and will probably lose to McCain given the likely defection of the black voters if the super delegates nominated her. McCain is getting senile. He gets confused about al qeda, Shiites and Sunnis. Now that the violence has increased again because of Shiites militias are fighting the Shiite army, the Republicans are blaming Iran. I can see another war brewing if McCain is elected. Plus the economy is in trouble and he claimed that he does not know much about the economy. If the Democrats can't win this year, I wonder if they ever will win again.

The protests and violence in Tibet was predictable. There has been relative quiet in the past 20 years but the oppression of freedom in Tibet continued during that time. With the Olympics this year and China's plan to take the torch up Mount Everest, it was predictable that the activists would try to cause trouble for Beijing. I guess the Chinese plan was simply to use overwhelming force (after it was caught short-handed in the beginning). There is no creative strategy to meet this expected situation.

As I have pointed out before, I don't know why China wants to hang on to this piece of land. It is a money loser. There are no natural resources worth stationing lots of soldiers there. It just causes bad international publicity. China keeps pointing their fingers at the Dalai Lama as the voice of the independence movement. In reality the Dalai Lama is a voice of reason, advocating nonviolence and is willing to compromise. Most of the problem is with the young who wants more economic improvement. They see many parts of China getting richer and they feel that they are being exploited. Of course, Tibet was backward economically before China took over and without China it would be more difficult for it to improve economically. Nevertheless it is true that China denies Tibetan religious rights and is an oppressive presence.

China is counting on the rest of the world not to boycott the Olympics. They are right about this since China is an economic power and nobody wants to anger it. But if violence lingers it would hurt China's prestige enormously. If I run the Chinese government, I would invite the Dalai Lama back to visit this homeland and discuss Tibet's future. No treaty needs to be signed. Just this gesture would ensure the Games will go on and make China look good. Of course a communist government will never think of a creative solution like that.

Five years of war, the country is in a recession, gas prices approaching $4 a gallon and all we are talking about is some crazy preacher's words? If we let something like this influence our selection of a president then we deserve to have poor leaders. Obama's speech was right on. I had my doubts about his inexperience before but I feel more strongly about him with the way he handled this Wright episode. There is not much one can do except tell it like it is. It is absurd that this prevent us from concentrating on what the real important issues are.

I don't see how this whole thing is worse than McCain embracing Pat Robertson who had said that 9/11 was God's punishment against us for embracing abortion and homosexuals. To me both Wright and Robertson are religious lunatics. The only difference for Christian right is that they think Robertson is more patriotic because he has conservative views. But according their understanding of the Bible's teaching since both Wright and Robertson accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior, they will both go to Heaven. So there is really no difference between them in the eyes of their God. On the other hand if a Muslim American soldiers dies fighting in Iraq, he will go to hell even though he is patriotic. So I ask you what does patriotism has to do with anything?

The news that Bear Stearns needs bail out and may be bought out is not all that shocking. There will probably be more companies that will go under over the next year. Tax payers will be saddled with more debt as a result of the risks that these companies took. This points out that we are not in a true capitalist system where you are rewarded for your victories but punished for your defeats. The punishment for the Bear-Stearns executives for sinking the ship? No bonuses! They should be fined for the outcome since they were richly rewarded when the market was doing well. When companies get so big they can take risks that people in retrospect would condemn. But since the government doesn't want the economy to go into a depression, they will always bail big companies out. If you know that someone will always give you money if you fail but you can keep everything your investment brings in, wouldn't you go for the investments with the biggest reward and don't care about the risks? This is like the Chinese banks which loan money as fast they can to help the economy grow without worrying about defaults because they believe that the Chinese government will always bail them out. This is the communist system and yet we are doing pretty much the same thing. In fact it is worse in some respects because wall street executives will not go to jail for making dumb investments, only if they committed fraud. With the Chinese executives they would lose more than bonus money if they failed. So perhaps the Chinese executive would be more careful about risks than his American counterpart.

Ultimately unless we can figure out how to not accumulate debt, all the bailouts in the world will not save our economy. From individuals who have more debts than savings to our government which is running record deficits, we all have to do our part. I don't agree with candidates when they say that trade agreements hurt our economy. Just because the products are cheap it does not mean we have to buy them. We all should live within our means. The conservatives are right about personal responsibility when it comes to one's finances. Yet Bush's idea of helping the economy is to make the tax cuts permanent. I like lower taxes as much as anyone else but I don't see the logic that prosecuting a war that is costing us billions and creating a greater deficit everyday is a good idea. At best all this is going to be passed on to our children. At worst it is a national security risks. China and other countries are controlling our treasury bills. The dollar is sinking fast in value. If a company like Bear Stearns is up for sale, who do you think may bid for it? It will either be another investment bank with the help of the government (nobody would or could do it on their own since everybody is losing money right now) or it will be an Arab country or China. How is that for national security risk?

I am sticking with my prediction from a few weeks ago that unless Obama makes a huge mistake, he will win the nomination. My math was a little off last time but the conclusion is still the same. Even with her victory in Ohio and Texas, Clinton cannot win the nomination even if she wins Pennsylvania as expected. Even if she wins all the remaining states by 10% point each she will be behind on pledge delegates. And there is no way she will win them all, certainly not by 10% point each. As I said before if the super delegates throw the nomination to her with Obama ahead in pledge delegates, then the Democrats will lose the black vote and the election. I think all the Democratic leaders understand this point.

The 3 a.m. ad was credited with helping Clinton win Texas and Ohio. If it did then we have more morons in the Democratic party than I thought. I can understand that some people think that Clinton is more experienced but if someone had not thought of that before the ad, why would he think that after the ad? Just because someone says that she is more capable of handling a crisis, it does not make it true. If experience alone gives you better judgment, then McCain would be better than Clinton by that logic. This would come back to haunt her if she wins the nomination. I always said that Obama is a little green and going against the war from the beginning does not mean that he will be great in foreign policies. But the truth is that one positive record is better than a negative for Clinton. And it is much better than the poor judgment McCain has shown in this war. So I would be dismayed if this ad actually hurt Obama significantly.

I think a legitimate reason to vote against Obama last week was the story of an adviser talking to the Canadian officials about NAFTA. I think that both Clinton and Obama are wrong to speak out against NAFTA. I don't think either one would do much to it if elected. They were just saying what people in Ohio want to hear. But it is a huge mistake for Obama if he had sent a representative to the Canadians. He is not the president and had no reason to talk to foreigners about policies that he is not enacting now. He did not have to placate Canada. If he did not send the consultant, then he is guilty of not controlling his staff well. That is not a major minus but a minus nevertheless. Unlike the 3 am ad which was a negative tactic by Clinton, the Canadian episode was Obama campaign's own doing. This was not fatal but if he makes a worse mistake then it gives the Democratic establishment a cover to give the nomination to Clinton by saying that Obama is just too inexperienced for the general election.

A good thing for Obama is that if he comes out of this and play mistake free ball for the rest of the primary season he will win the nomination and be toughened up for the general election. People believe that this long fight for the nomination will hurt the Democrats. I think if Obama turns out to be the nominee, this long fight would actually help him against McCain. The Clintons are formidable politicians and they will hit hard. Obama needs to be tested against the best and if he survives it, he can handle on what the Republicans will throw at him. If Clinton wins with the super delegates and negative ads, then I think she will lose the general election. Even before this long fight Clinton was loved by 50% and hated by 50% of the people. Losing the black vote will doom her. And forget about the dream ticket. It is difficult enough to elect a black or a woman. To have both on the ticket may sound interesting but the country is not ready for that.