President Bush addressed a U.S. Chamber of Commerce group recently and suggested the nation is harvesting a failed crop from bad fiscal seeds planted before he took office.

That’s more of the whining that has the nation in its worst financial mess since the Great Depression.

The president said in a more realistic assessment of the economy that the credit freeze isn’t going to thaw quickly.

Bush Republicans fail to acknowledge they had the power to change fiscal policies during their six years in complete control of Congress and prevent this failure.

President Bush also fails to say that Clinton fiscal policies were good but needed continuing oversight, which he didn’t provide. President Bush and Congress let financial institutions run wild and run a good policy of easy money into the ground.

The Nov. 4 presidential election is again largely about the economy, just as it was when Bill Clinton won 16 years ago.

A political science professor once said who the nation elects is not nearly as important as electing a philosophy. There is some truth in that. The next president may appoint as many as three members to the Supreme Court. The next president must decide if the No Child Left Behind education program is a benefit or a wasteful boondoggle.

He’s got to face up to the energy crisis and the crumbling infrastructure.

If you want a change of direction for the nation, it won’t happen under a Republican administration. Sen. John McCain doesn’t represent bold change. Earlier in the campaign he admitted to not having a clue about running the economy.

His supporters say he would keep the nation safer, just as President Bush has after 9/11. But any nation that is energy dependent on foreign oil and has an economy that is in disarray is vulnerable.

The U.S. is not safe because we’ve planned poorly and squandered resources in Iraq instead of focusing on the real war in Afghanistan.

Republicans co-opted the Democrats’ tax-and-spend reputation with their own record federal deficit and corporate tax cuts.

That must change, but Republicans show no inclination to stop the bleeding.

Sen. Barack Obama is young; but he’s four years older than John Kennedy was when voters elected him the 35th president. The Kennedy aura created Camelot, which helped revitalize the nation and give it new goals. The new can-do philosophy won over malaise and man went to the moon.

The nation has more pressing issues now before our astronauts travel back to the moon. Failed policies that litter Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to Capitol Hill must change.

Citizens need their financial freedom back, they need their access to government back, and they need their privacy back.

Most of all they need their hope back.

Sen. Obama represents change the nation wants. He’s toughened up during the long series of Democratic primaries and the grueling general election campaign.

He’s solid, he’s smart, and he keeps a cool head. He is the better choice to be the next president of the United States.