Dear Editor:

Helloooo... Is anybody there? Do you automatically publish all letters from Ernie Howell no matter how disconnected he is with the real world? (See editorial page 12/10/08). Most of your readers were around 10-years-old when the economy was booming and gas was less than $1 a gallon. We also had a surplus, no matter how you try to measure it.

Mr. Howell has the nerve to mention recession in connection with the Clinton administration. Bush was handed or stole, depending on how you look at it, a robust country with a great future. All he had to do was his job to protect the country, but he opted to take vacations and leave day-to-day operations to his father's cronies Cheny, Rumsfeld and Rice. She totally failed in her job, ignoring warnings right up to the day before 9/11 and was rewarded with the post of Secretary of State.

Reading Howell's letters is like getting bulletins from the cheesy AM talk show guys. He doesn't mention over 4,000 United States soldiers are dead from an unnecessary war because we went looking for and encouraging terrorism in the Mid-East. The country is now basically broke, with an empty treasury trying to bail out a flat economy. No wonder Bush hasn't been seen or heard from in months. Just what "service" to the country are we going to thank the president for? Frank Gangloff Amityville