Most will agree that actions by current and recent White House occupants and the U.S. Congress are at least partly to blame for the current abominable situation in America.

From obscene gas prices to the continued exodus of American jobs to foreign countries, and from pretending to care about "national security," while giving no more than lip service to the Swiss cheese once-sovereign American borders, "Houston, we have a problem."

In the same breath, Congress and the current administration continue to play what amounts to footsie with the United Nations and "leaders" of countries from Mexico and Canada to China and other "developing" nations.

It's an "election year," which apparently means that "elected leaders" can simply leave their jobs (and constituents) blowing in the wind while they "run for office," each making the same old tired political promises -- promises that hold about as much water as a sieve.

It seems long past time for a law that forbids current elected or appointed office holders from engaging in "running for office." Should the foxes be guarding the henhouse?

Would you hire someone to do a job that he/she utterly abandons when it's time to go politicking? Who's minding the store (America's business) while 3 U.S. Senators run for president and half the rest appear to be jockeying for position as possible running mates?

Surely someone should be sounding the alarm that we have no actual choices for the presidency. The Emperor truly has no clothes. America needs a statesman, one immune to buyoffs, political pandering or the lies that masquerade as "political promises."

If the presidential job pool excluded everyone currently employed in the District of Columbia and all fifty states' capitols, imagine how refreshing this election year would be -- and maybe, just maybe, we'd get someone to set up housekeeping in the White House that would actually stand for, as Benjamin Franklin uttered in Philadelphia on September 18, 1787, "... a Republic, if you can keep it."