Mr. President,

I love my country more than anything but my family. I served for 8 years in the U. S. Marine Corps and was privileged to spend time in about a dozen different countries. Some were western style democracies and some were what we often call "Third World" countries. In each and every one of them I had the same experience. Upon learning that I was an American, someone would approach me and say "I wish I could live in America."

I was nearly overwhelmed each time by Pride. Even now, thinking back, it brings tears to my eyes. Yes, even big, tough Marines can be touched to the point of tears by pride in Corps and Country.

This is still the greatest country in the world. The Last Best Hope of Humanity. The Democratic Experiment unparalleled in history. The moral and ethical standard of the world. The definer of the word FREEDOM and the envy of the world because of it.

We are still all these things despite the efforts of you and your co-conspirators over the last 8 years. It will take a long time for us to remind the rest of the world what is was about us that they so admired and desired. Fortunately, we have one thing going for us to assist in that effort, your absence.

Throughout your administration "We, the People" have watched you trample on The Bill of Rights, lie to us repeatedly, compound lies with other lies to cover up the original lies, enrich your cronies and cohorts at our expense, squander nearly 5000 of our best and brightest in your pointless war, and create the most devastating economic crisis in nearly 80 years.

I was once convinced that this country could not be brought down in only 8 years. Reagan shook that faith mightily, but he failed. Sure, we went from the biggest creditor nation to the biggest debtor nation under him, but "We, the People" still stood tall. Your own father once recognized "Voodoo Economics" then paid the price when Reagan's legacy denied him a second term.

You were handed a balanced budget with a projected $10 trillion surplus and what did you do with it? Even now, with only days left in office, you continue to enrich your 'fat-cat' friends with hundreds of billions of our dollars while completely ignoring the millions of us who must struggle from unemployment check to unemployment check trying to keep a roof over our head and food in the mouths of our children.

Your legacy will be, at best, that of a fool. Historians for the next 200+ years will point to you as the pre-eminent example of how NOT to do it.

There is a small village in Texas that is missing its idiot. They will get him back on January 21, 2009.

I am proud to sign my name to this letter.

James A. Gronek