Obama's Health Care Preoccupation - Because He's Almost AARP Age!

.



I never really understood Obama's obsession with health care other than the union payback stuff. I mean he's only going to be 49 this year. But then I thought about it. He's trying to be distinguished in a herd of obnoxious politicians. To be futurist while surrounded by opportunists. To balance ego with the Messiah stuff. That's cool.



Then I realized, he has the midlife doldrums. He buys all that nonsense about growing old and now that he is on the precipice of 50, well, he finds his own immortality being challenged, because next year he gets a computer generated invitation to proudly join the AARP at age 50. No doubt he sees it as a life changing experience. The fear of getting old radiates from him. I guess that explains why he can't talk about the economy and jobs.



Why is it the older we get, the younger we get older?



I might be wrong, but it seems to me I went through life thinking the older I get, the younger I get old.

Now before you write that off to nonsense, let me explain. It's kind of like watching two trains at opposite ends of the track speeding toward each other to collide.



One train is me, getting older like most everyone who can't afford face lifts, personal trainers and fat eradication spas. The other train is old age, that strange age where one goes to wait to die.

When I was pretty young I thought old age was maybe when you reached 30. By the time you reached 50 more than likely you were on life support.



Then I went to a family gathering with cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents and even great grandparents way back when. I'd look at my great grandmother and think, how can she still be here, alive? I mean if I thought people were fading away at 50, what is my great grandmother doing here being at least 200 hundred years old? She must really be screwing up the average age.

Don't forget, I said I was pretty young, which means about 5 at the time. Still my eyes were wide open back then.



So at that very early age this little kid was already revising way up his concept of getting old from 50 to 80 years old. As I grew older in years I watched television shows and ads stereotype seniors, that's what they called us then, brainwashing us with an incessant bombardment of TV commercials like the pharmaceutical companies helping us understand all the tragic ailments we were to suffer being old if we didn't take their fix.

Then I was told all the wonderful things I could do when I grew old like plant flowers, keep dead leaves in books, go to the salon and get my hair colored and all so I never looked older than 30, and even get a free powered wheel chair since Medicaid would pay for it. Hot damn! I get a customized, golf cart so when I can't walk I can still get around to terrorize people.



Who in the hell do those people think they are running those ads? What gives them the right to tell me anything? I don't need eight prescription drugs every day like you say I do just so you can keep me in a constant state of euphoria.

And no one said retiring meant you had to turn in your brain as well as you went out the door. Besides, if we were really in control of our lives like we dream about being along with being good looking and smart, we would have long ago adopted retirement as something you do two years out of every ten years. Every ten years you get two years off to explore what you want. You sort of spread retirement throughout your life, not just at the end when you least need it.

Anyway Social Security started lowering the eligibility age for receiving Social Security, and nothing represents retirement more than receiving Social Security. I mean the government would know if we are old wouldn't they? But as I continued to age good old SS kept changing the retirement age making people seniors when they reached 70, then 68, then 65 then 62. The world is now so nuts that you qualify for AARP when you reach 50 for Pete's sake.



When I reached the AARP threshold I rebelled like any good Baby Boomer '60's free spirit would do. I refused to join! No way I was going to accept being old at 50.



Well the next chance I was faced with confronting my age would be when I was eligible for Social Security benefits. There was the early opt out plan at 62, or the generous bonus for waiting until you were 67. Still my "60's influence pulled strong enough to save me yet again. After a brief few moments fantasizing how I might be able to pull one over on The Establishment by taking their money even if I knew I wasn't old, I decided to skip the money and be defiant in my refusal to let them tell me when I was old.

I learned a few lessons along the way. Like all those years I watched as the average life span of Americans kept getting older and older, I was thinking it was a good thing, living longer. While the government keeps telling me I am getting older younger.



If you got older younger, like at 62 like Uncle Sugar says, while the average life span kept getting older, that means you now have more years to be older, a senior. Of course if you intend to enjoy these bonus years you will need eight pharmacy prescriptions a day to get by. While it is regrettable that the combined effect of taking the meds over several years are such that you will soon be functioning like a Zombie, at least our drugs should keep you around.



Eventually I stopped listening to the government all together on the subject of getting old, or older younger, or being old longer. In fact I stopped listening to anyone, pharmaceutical companies, banks, politicians or union bosses. What was I to them? Tax revenue? Prescription addict? More dues paid?



I'm going to bet my life on Divine Providence, not Obama, Pelosi and Reid. Thank you very much but I simply refuse to accept your insistence that I am old. I don't buy the old thing and I don't buy your motives. I am not about to get stoned on your drugs and trip out while someone steals my country and all it stands for to the world.



No longer will I watch a commercial for the latest Mega-grip denture glue and have visions of squirting way too much of that stuff on my dentures, and then the first time I shut my mouth it gets stuck together, permanently.



I have no need for an alarm to go off if I fall in the bathtub. If I'm that drunk I won't feel it anyway. The powered wheel chair is kind of cool to someone like me from the birth of the grease monkey age but there ain't no room for the chick so forget it, I'll stick with my '49 Chevy convertible, well it was a convertible after I got done cutting off the roof with a chain saw.



The other day I was talking to my giant Irish Wolfhound, CuChulainn Deo Irie (Warrior Spirit of Ireland). Neighbors call him Coolin, except those missing their dentures who just call him Cu (pronounced Coo), to avoid that awful whistling sound when they pronounce vowels through their missing teeth.

I was asking him how he would feel if he was older like me. After pointing out that he had to put up with the same crap with Vets and breeders, proclaiming when he would be old and most likely to die. Then Coolin gave me another Druid philosophical gem, his is a very old breed, he said to just live like you have always been on borrowed time. In truth, it was never our time to begin with.



Most people don't get that kind of advice from a giant Irish Wolfhound so when I did I knew I better take him seriously. Now I'm waiting patiently for Obama to tell me how to live, not how to keep from dying. When Pelosi and the rest of the scoundrels in Congress figure it out I might listen to them again too. For now I have CuChulainn and they don't.

I want healing, not health care. I want reform, not regurgitation. I want limited government interfering with my life. And I want honesty in government, insurance companies, health care providers, hospitals, unions, Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Is that so much to ask?

.

Coltons Point Times 82nd Academy Awards Picks

.



Sunday is Oscar night, with the best of Hollywood glimmer, glamour and glitz. The golden statues will help us forget the chaos in our nation's capitol, corruption on Wall Street, losing the Olympic hockey finals to Canada for men and women, and yet another resurrection of Obamacare.


So here are my Oscar picks and my admission I have not seen a single nominee for the 2010 Academy Awards. I simply find it no handicap to picking winners. Now make your picks.


Best Picture - The Hurt Locker


Best Director - Kathryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker


Best Actor - Jeff Bridges - Crazy Heart


Best Actress - Sandra Bullock - The Blind Side


Best Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz - Inglorious Bastards


Best Supporting Actress - Mo'nique - Precious

Best Animated Feature Film - Up

Best Foreign Film - Germany - The White Ribbon

Best Original Screenplay - Mark Boal - The Hurt Locker

Best Adapted Screenplay - Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner - Up in the Air

Best Documentary Feature - The Cove


Best Original Score - Up

Best Original Song - The Weary Kind - Crazy Heart

Best Film Editing - The Hurt Locker


Best Cinematography - Avatar

Best Costume Design - The Young Victorian

Best Art Direction - Avatar

Best Makeup - The Young Victorian

Best Visual Effects - Avatar

Best Documentary (Short Subject) - Rabbit á la Berlin

Best Short Film (Animated) - A Matter of Loaf and Death

Best Short Film (Live Action) - The New Tenants

Best Sound Editing - Avatar

Best Sound Mixing - The Hurt Locker


Enjoy the show.

.

The Week in Review - Olympics Closing Ceremony to Chilean Earthquake to Health Care to Hollywood

.



Last Sunday I was sitting and watching my television as the Olympic Closing Ceremony was just getting started in Vancouver, Canada. After a pretty decent presentation by Russia on the next Olympics, we returned to a cornball Canadian Series of mini documentaries with the most bizarre themes, speeches, strange creatures and three legged Olympic flames.



Think about it. Two weeks earlier one of the highlights of the opening ceremony was when one leg of the flame platform jammed in the floor and refused to rise, leaving the torch carriers, crowd, and zillions of TV watchers around the world waiting on baited breath to see how in the world the Canadians were going to get out of this mess. People held their breath while NBC and the Canadian Olympic people seemed to be doing nothing.



Seconds before the torches held by NHL legend Wayne Gretzky and others went out, and long after the millions viewing had started breathing again, someone decided to light the three legs that did show up and hope no one noticed the drama around the missing fourth leg and torch bearer with no torch to light.



That was two weeks earlier. Now as I sat watching the flying moose and massive beavers show up and listened to what those Canadians were saying and doing on the boob tube, I was certain I went through a time warp and was back in the crazy '60's. There was Star Treks' Mr. Priceline while you were going Back to the Future with Michael J. Fox of Family Ties.



Thank God Neil Young was there, all alone, just Neil and his guitar, and he played a wonderful version of Long May You Run and showed all those Olympic kids what real music and stories sound like. They loved him and it was the last recognizable thing I saw during the abbreviated closing ceremonies.

The time machine kicked into high gear and the stage or rink or whatever became an assemblage with the weirdest conglomeration of characters, reminding me a little of an afternoon with Timothy Leary. As we watched there seemed to be a Canadian cultural collision showing all the different aspects of Canadian settlers and civilizations and Hollywood actors while interruptions from NBC anchors and reporters further distracted me from figuring out what the Hell the Canadians were doing on that screen.

Then quite unexpectedly anchor Bob Costas pops on the screen, quite awkwardly I noted, saying that the closing ceremonies would be back. First there would be an hour of a new weekly TV series called The Ref, a quite stupid show I thought, and then local news. If you survived that show and news the Olympics Late Show would then broadcast a taped version of the closing that you were just watching.

What was this?

I wait four years to see this event and NBC pre-empts it with another mindless program about the flaws of Americans. Didn't NBC pay $800 million for the right to broadcast the Olympics then cut off the closing ceremonies just as it was getting interesting? This was just the beginning of the week.



So then came wave after wave of strange stories like follow up on the Chile earthquake that hit the night before the Olympic Closing debacle. Obama was talking about health care yet again. Hasn't Congress been trying to figure out what to do about health care for over a year? Don't tell me the president just noticed we had a problem with health care. Funny he still ignored the number one worry of the people, the economy and our national debt. Congress and the media seemed clueless as well.

During the week the Democrats were trying to figure out how to ignore the people and circumvent the legislative process on health care. There was the day long, great, Pacific tsunami watch which started after the tsunami had already hit Chile and wiped out villages killing hundreds. The multi-network watch ended when no one could tell the tsunami hit them beyond Chile. Hawaii reported a two foot rise in the water lever. Big deal. We get more than two feet change twice a day from the tides, every day, and we are just in the tributary backwaters of the Atlantic.



Then came the scandals, reality news instead of the old political innuendoes. A governor, congressman and another congressman from New York all got sucked into abuse of powers scandals, tax evasion, even alleged sexual misconduct. Those Democrats sure do know how to have fun, at our expense. Okay, Greece was collapsing, Toyota was in the midst of the worst recall in history, Ford was selling cars like mad. No one could figure out what Chrysler was doing. We did know Congress was still doing nothing. Kentucky men lost a second basketball game and Bebraska women remained unbeaten.



Three more people told me they now know how to play curling and asked me where was the nearest curling alley. I never knew they existed. There are 131 curling clubs in the USA but do they all have their own curling alleys? If there are 131 curling alleys then there is one curling alley for every 62 Wal-Mart stores in America. Good luck finding a curling alley to go shove a 46 pound rock they call a stone down some ice with two broom-carrying people sweeping up a storm as the rock slides down along it's way.

I have Scottish blood and curling was invented by the Scottish in the 1500's but I prefer to remember the scotch whiskey and those long haired cattle of Scotland. Besides, if you want your own curling game it costs $32,000 for just the 16 stones you need. That is for just two people in one game. I mean in America you can find a ball, bag and bowling shoes for about a hundred dollars.



I'm just glad this week ends with the most glorified awards ceremony of the year, the Academy Awards, to help us forget what we just lived through. There is nothing so soothing to a nation sinking in debt as statues of gold, glitz and glamour. I hope you had an interesting week as well and I share your concerns that given the climate in Washington, we hope next week can continue to divert our attention away from our nation's capitol, leaders and news media.



.

Obama's Health Care - Check or Checkmate?

.



The President threw down the gauntlet and now seems intent on forcing Congress into submission. It is quite a role reversal from his year of allowing Congress to decide what would be done and it is bound to upset those who still believe in the separation of government functions, the executive and legislative branches, and the legislative procedures of the House and Senate.



Obama and the White House gang are desperate and believe this is the only thing they can get done before the fall elections that might stop the Democrats self-destruction and potential loss of leadership of the House and Senate. In truth it could do a lot more harm than good.

For one, he is counting on his somewhat tarnished vision that people can be strongly influenced by the president of the USA whether they be moderate Democrats, Republicans, Iran, North Korea or the Olympic site selection committee. So far his track record of being heard is dismal at best. The long year Congress has been debating the health care bill just adds to the frustration.



Now his two week timetable to get this done before, well I guess Armageddon, seems a bit ambitious but Obama, if nothing else, has demonstrated that his inexperience in leading has been his greatest fault. Now that the Republicans are out of the picture, and in truth Obama's problem has never been the Republicans but his own party since the Democrats have decisively controlled the House and the Senate, we shall see if he can lead his own party if not the nation.

Which leads us to the second part of the puzzle, the legislative process. What Obama has done is circumvent the legislative process. He had the House pass a health care bill. Then he had the Senate pass an entirely different health care bill. Now he has presented his own bill containing some elements of the House and Senate bill and other things.



Normally a Conference between the House and Senate would be held to work out the differences between bills and present it back to the House and Senate for final approval. Obama has eliminated that step by saying, after a year of legislative hassle, he doesn't want either bill but now wants his own. To give it to him means the Democrats must do the following.



1. The House must pass the Senate bill as is.
2. The House must pass a new bill clarifying changes they want made to the Senate bill they just approved.
3. The Senate must pass the new House bill under Reconciliation which is supposed to be used for only budget and deficit issues.
4. Then the president must sign both bills setting up the health care reform and then changing the health care reform before it is even started.



Of course not all the things the Democrats will want to change can be included under Reconciliation. For example any restrictions on Abortion, and there are some in the House bill but none in the Senate bill, are a matter of policy and not budget so should be excluded from reconciliation. That means Obama will lose the support of all the House Democrats who are Right to Life, all of whom supported the House bill the first time. Not good for the President.

The House and Senate do not even agree what should be in the final bill or two as the House also wants the public option, Andy Stern and the unions want control of all health care workers in America, Goldman Sachs wants nothing that might hurt the stock value of companies they represent on Wall Street, and Obama will take anything so he can say he did accomplish one thing his first two years as president.



Then, of course, there are the deals that will have to be made to get the House to agree to the old Senate bill and the Senate to agree to the new House bill. We already saw how far both the House and Senate went to cut deals for the first bills. The second will be much harder and closer thus opening the door to pork barrel, favoritism, legal bribes and ferocious lobbying to an extent never seen before.



Don't be surprised if wheel barrows full of money are moved into the political campaign funds of those Democrats sitting on the fence. Self-survival seems to be the greatest motivator of our Washington establishment.



With all this confusion, Congress and the president will be operating in a fog, both to keep each other confused as well as the voter and taxpayer who will pay for this mess. Media analysts on both sides of every issue will no doubt expand their standard fare of hyperbole and exaggeration to outright lies and deception as no one, from the president to the Secretary of Health to the leaders of both the Democrats and Republicans and including every person hired by the media to give us the facts has ever let truth get in the way of making a point.

If Obama brings about a checkmate and no health care bill gets through, every person in America worried about the economy, out of work, or having trouble making ends meet should wonder how they can support any longer a president whose own ego and arrogance keep him demanding a win in health care while our economy keeps seeking into the abyss. His failure to address the economy, the Wall Street debacle, the foreign policy crisis and everything else he failed to do the last year will prove he is too inexperienced to be trusted as president.



When the people standing behind him are Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and they all contributed to the obsession with health care and ignorance of the economic problems we face then we should realize there is only one way out of the mess, to change the balance of power by giving the Republicans control of the House and Senate so someone can keep him from destroying the country and it certainly is not the Joe, Nancy and Harry show currently leading the Democrats.

Right now the nation stands at check with the failure of the President and Congress to complete work on a health care bill after a year of nonsense. Checkmate stands about two weeks away when Obama tries to force the House and Senate Democrats to do his will while ignoring the will of the public. Just who are the pawns in this classic chess match? Stay tuned.

.

Save Savannah Guthrie from NBC & MSNBC

.



Why we must Save Savannah before it is too late.



There are not many reporters out there in the media wonderland whose careers seem worth saving as there are not many reporters left period. Most have chosen to get sucked into the television ratings game and have lost their objectivity as they now play a variety of roles from reporting to speculating to advocating positions to biased news analysis.



Now there is nothing fair and balanced about it and anyone from Fox, MSNBC, CNN or even PBS that claims to be fair and balanced has clearly lost their marbles or ability to tell the truth. The truth is the media business is all about sensationalism, partisanship, making someone look bad or good depending on that person's conformance to the network party line, and even manipulation of truth.



Why the bizarre behavior of cable network and even major media reporters would drive a journalism purist to suicide if they took them seriously. Yet after all the exposure of so called news celebrities it seems as if the people of America have got better things to do. Of course that's not what you would think listening to the ego maniacs on the air pontificating on what you need to believe.

However, facts are facts and these are the facts. On a typical weekday on cable TV news, which includes Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, HTN (CNN Headline News) and CNBC, Fox has the 13 top ranked shows on cable news. In a dismal response by the liberal MSNBC, viewership and target audience numbers are both down from last year with Keith Olbermann, the flagship of MSNBC, losing 29% of average viewers and 43% of the target audience the past year. Perhaps people are tiring of the nonsense.

Base on average number of viewers, the top morning and prime time shows at Fox are O'Rielly 3.5 million viewers, Beck 2.8 million, Hannity at 2.5 million, Baier at 2.5 million and Shep at 2.1 million. At MSNBC Olbermann is 963,000, Maddow 802,000, Matthews 580,000 and Ed at 500,000. Fox and Friends has 1.1 million while The Morning Joe show has 340,000. The news isn't much better off at CNN as the Rick Sanchez and Wolf Shows have lost 52% of their target audience and 43% of average viewership the past year.



So Fox has been increasing while the other networks decreasing. A typical show at Fox gets 4 times the audience of the MSNBC show at the same time. Does that mean America is 4 times more conservative than liberal? What it does mean is that while 20 million or so watch cable news shows every day about 295 million Americans don't so maybe there is hope for America.



Then there is Savannah Guthrie, named NBC White House correspondent not long ago who was recently given a show, The Daily Rundown, by NBC on MSNBC following the Morning Joe Show. It is too bad that MSNBC had already lost a chunk of the morning audience before they gave it to her and that just 340,000 out of 315 million Americans are watching Morning Joe. What kind of promotion is that?

Truth is she was put on MSNBC to increase the ratings at a time when NBC, including MSNBC, was being sold by General Electric to Comcast Cable. What in the world will a profit driven owner like Comcast do with MSNBC? At least GE stood to make millions of dollars off Obama and his Green America programs so they had a reason to take the liberal position and support him.



As Obama collapsed in his ratings this past year so did MSNBC and it was no accident Obama's liberal agenda was not what America wanted or expected to hear from him. Yet he seems oblivious of the polls, the lack of support for his agenda, and the beating liberals are taking in the elections since he was elected. That does not bode well for MSNBC who attached their hopes to a falling star.

Savannah Guthrie has great credentials as a trained journalist and lawyer and has done an exceptional job of avoiding the tendency of NBC reporters to take the liberal slant to everything. You can bet MSNBC will be trying to mold her into one of their liberal mouthpieces like Olbermann, Maddow and Matthews. It could ruin her career.



So I want to start a Save Savannah campaign to get her out of MSNBC and NBC before Comcast takes over the networks. Fair and balanced is a phrase used by all these cable networks but none can really live up to it. She still does. Help Save Savannah before it is too late. Write NBC and MSNBC, and tell them to not make her into a liberal puppet. Better yet, write Savannah and tell her to get out before it is too late.

By the way, to be fair and balanced and fully transparent, let me say the fact she was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona and graduated from the University of Arizona has nothing to do with it. The fact I went to the University of Arizona and played basketball there also has nothing to do with it. The fact I used to go watch Linda Ronstadt sing in Tucson, met Sonny and Cher there, got to sing with the Kingsmen of Louie Louie fame, was a frat brother with Gary Lewis, watched two other fraternity brothers perform on the ABC TV hit show Hootenanny, and dated the Queen of the Rose Bowl parade who was in my class had nothing to do with it.

The fact Arizona is one of my favorite places in the world and I remain close to the Hopi Native Americans of Arizona also has nothing to do with it nor does the fact the Grand Canyon is one of the wonders of the world. Okay, the fact I have worked with the National Park Service exploring ancient and sacred Native American sites, some thousands of years old, also has nothing to do with it.

I admit that riding on horseback four hours up a deserted canyon above the Grand Canyon with Park Service archeologists and my crew to film one of these sites also had nothing to do with it. I mean I had a coyote, the trickster, cross my path and soon after got thrown from my horse, broke three ribs, was hours from medical help so I kept riding and filming for 8 more hours. How could that have anything to do with it?



No bias on my part. In spite of our University of Arizona and Tucson ties I've never met Savannah. But I have seen her work and we need her to report the truth to America about what is happening in our nation's capitol. Not the NBC liberal truth but the honest truth like she does. I say Save Savannah and there is hope for the future.

.

Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dum - Look out Democrats Here We Come - Paterson & Rangel

.



Just in time for the fall elections it seems as if the new bad boys of the Democratic party are not going away nor going to get booted by the Democratic leaders. As Obama and the Democrats circle the wagons for a tough fall campaign their problems are compounded by the fact Governor David Paterson and Congressman Charles Rangel are refusing to resign from their posts thus keeping both in the public limelight and reinforcing to the public that our political establishment is corrupt.



Paterson started out bad enough when he took over as New York governor for Eliot Spitzer after a prostitution scandal cost Spitzer his governors office. Then just after taking the oath of office Paterson admitted to affairs while he was married. But the people of New York seemed to forgive him. Then he tried to use the power of his office to silence a woman who was beaten up by one of his aides.

This abuse of office would not go away and Paterson multiplied his problems by first sending two state troopers out to talk with her, then personally calling her the day before she was to testify on the beating. In the end their threats to get her to drop the charges scared her off and she refused to go to court. It was an abuse of authority that may not be forgiven by the New York voters. Paterson refuses to resign. Yet President Obama, the national and state Democratic parties refuse to condemn the actions.



Rangel today asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to give him a leave of absence as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, one of the most powerful positions in Congress, in order to fight charges from the House Ethics Committee that he took numerous trips financed by corporations, a violation of House rules.



However, it is widely known that this is just the tip of the iceberg of corruption with Rangel as other investigations are underway including IRS inquiries into failing to pay taxes on apartments in NYC and foreign owned property among other issues. These will soon be added to the first House ethics charges and will make the most powerful tax Chairman in Washington defend himself from not paying taxes.

Of course Pelosi knows about all the investigations even though she has only commented on the first minor revelations and she could remove him permanently from being Chairman, or even ask that he be thrown out of the House which should happen if IRS files charges. Pelosi has defended Rangel, one might presume because she appointed him Chairman of Ways and Means, and continues to allow him to remain in the House. Obama, though both Paterson and Rangel were supporters, has refused to say anything as if this institutional corruption has nothing to do with him.



Since Obama campaigned against the Washington establishment and corruption in our nation's capitol and throughout politics it seems odd he would not comment on the cases. Notwithstanding their support for his campaign, there comes a time when one must disassociate themselves from corruption. Once again the Democratic party has had no comment as well.

If these two politicians are not thrown out of office before the election it will be yet another albatross for the president and example of how he said one thing during the campaign and did another once he was elected. Protecting potential crooks or abusers of power does not seem like a defensible position when it comes time for the people to vote again.



It is actions like these by our Washington and Wall Street leaders that caused the formation of the Tea Party Movement and that will further empower that movement this fall. Not to be overlooked is the role the media played in not covering these issues nor pressing for the facts when they started to leak out. Now, of course, the media are writing about it but for a long time they have known about it.



In one of the ironies of politics it was just a short time ago that Rangel called on the public to let his friend David Paterson finish his term in office. The New York Daily News headline shouted Rep. Charles Rangel, Congressman Gregory Meeks and Rev. Sharpton: Let Gov. Paterson finish his term. Now he has to worry about finishing his own term.

.