Dale said: Personally, I've always believed "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

I take it then, Dale, that you would agree that providing health care to the uninsured (so they can have regular checkups as opposed to emergency room visits) qualifies as "an ounce of prevention"? It's far more cost effective to catch an illness early rather than deal with it later. Similarly, isn't it better to require higher fuel efficiency standards and thus conserve oil, and reduce pollution to the environment (and all of the health woes that will follow). And of course there is the ballooning national debt that the Republicans are largely responsible for. This fiscal mismanagement can only cause greater misery down the road. These examples (and many more that I could cite), demonstrate that the Bushies don't live by your credo. So why do you stick by them so tightly?

And one more Iraq War response if I may, you stated:

 This whole thing was a gamble; do we do nothing and hope for the best? Or do we remove a dangerous tyrant and eliminate any chance of tens of thousands of deaths and at the same time creating a democracy in the middle east?

My response, Dale, is that we did not "do nothing". Saddam was thoroughly contained, a threat to no one but his fellow citizens. We had no-fly zones in place, vigorous inspections, and economic sanctions (to name a few). Would you agree that we were not doing "nothing"? Would you agree that there exists a possibility that Iraq might dissolve into a civil war and that that would be a far greater problem than what we faced prior to the war?

Thanks,

Peter T.