Sounds like the lowest point of President Bush’s tenure, when Hurricane Katrina left the Gulf and New Orleans in shambles. But it also describes President Obama’s lack of response to the true core of this economic crisis which has left the entire globe in fiscal agony, that being a solution for the banks and their bad assets.

Instead of flying to New York to do the hard work necessary to make headway on the global credit and financial meltdown, the President does a 180, flying to beautiful Downtown Burbank on the Left Coast to crack jokes with Jay Leno. While he’s there comparing his bowling talents to athletes in the Special Olympics, he does a “you’re doing a great job, Brownie” about his Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

I know that I’m supposed to have a tingle down my leg just thinking about the President, and any negative comments about Mr. Obama puts me in the dog house with many of my friends and family, but I fear that he is being influenced by the most cynical of political operatives and party hacks. The troika of Emmanuel, Reid, and Pelosi are taking advantage of an American public in real pain to enact the most liberal tax and spend fantasies conjured up over the last forty years.

I don’t want to make too much of it, but to me the Leno appearance indicates a lack of maturity and seriousness; like the rock star persona has gone to his head. What was he trying to accomplish with his performance on the Tonight Show other than yuking it up with Jay? Support for the stimulus package which was rammed through Congress in 18 hours and is now law? Firing up the faithful in their class envy of tone-deaf Wall Street bankers?

It might be that it’s just more fun. Perhaps the President is finding that governing takes more than filling stadia with quivering fans. It means diving into the details and compromise and conviction. And painful in its own right. Mr. President, time to get serious.

This global crisis was created by the overleveraging of every sector of our economy. From individuals and families, to small businesses and retailers, to large corporations, financial institutions and governments, everyone going into this crash had way too much debt on their books. I was dumbfounded when I heard that defunct Lehman Bros. had only $1 in cash for every $30 dollars they “invested,” which meant that their equity would be depleted with a loss of just 4%.

The prevalence of easy credit can be blamed for the housing bubble that when it burst brought us to a breaking point. In the markets that were greatly affected, some homeowners were taking out exotic interest-only loans, initially-low adjustable-rate mortgages, as well as taking loans that had debt-to-income ratios over 50%, meaning 1 of every 2 dollars was going to pay for the house and other debt. It got out of control.

All of this credit has made everything we buy cost more than maybe it should be. It makes me wonder what a car would cost if only a three or five-year loan was available rather than a seven-year loan. Certainly if the whole cycle of using home equity to pay down credit cards, just to rack them up again needed to stop.

So it is time for deleveraging. This is the kind of hard medicine that money advisors like Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman have been prescribing for years now. The standard outcome is no debt and six to eight months of living expenses liquid in the bank, then start working on the retirement fund.

For small business that means staying off of the line of credit to make payroll, but rather stash cash away to be your own banker in hard times. Governments have to watch costs most closely and brace themselves for lower tax revenue until we turn this thing around.

As I write this, the Dow average is at a near 12-year low, and I’m hoping that we’ve seen or are at least getting close to a bottom. It seems that the doom and gloom advanced by the press is getting to be a bit overstated. I mean, when you have companies that really make things like GE getting hammered to near penny stock status, you start thinking that we may be oversold.

Hopefully, after the pain of lower activity brought on by correcting our overindulgence, we can rebuild our economy on honesty, and intelligent use of credit. I’m not saying that we follow the fiscal policy of It’s A Wonderful Life’s Mr. Potter, who would rather keep the residents of Bedford Falls in his rented slums. But prudent and responsible use of credit could put us back on a strong footing for years to come.

The flywheel that is the massive societal shift is starting to get some momentum. Ignited by the excesses of unbridled corporate greed, untenable bubbles in every market from dot-com to housing to energy, and tin ears on the right who became corrupt as the government ballooned and scandals abound, the pendulum of change toward progressivism is in full throttle.

In a matter of hours since Barack Obama took the “oaf” of office, the government is poised to take over huge portions of our national economy and society. Not only that, we are reaching further and further into each other’s business. We all have something to say to that executive who refurnishes his office, or the corporation who was taking delivery on a jet it ordered two years ago. We even have created a climate where the well-heeled on Rodeo Drive have to hide their five-figure purchases in plain white shopping bags.

We’re not thinking about all of the normal people it took to create that fine furniture or Gulfstream or Coach bag. We are building the “pain society” and whether you like it or not, we are all going to feel it together.

At the same time, through his unprecedented stimulus package, President Obama wants to give you a Bufferin for any pain you feel in this recession. Lose your job and want to keep your health care? The government will pay your COBRA premiums, or put you on Medicaid, no matter how wealthy you are. Your school starting to look rough? We’ve got $150 billion to spruce that right up.

It’s going to be painful and it’s going to be hard, but the government will take care of you. The ironic thing is that in the mood of the country, most people see anything wrong with that. We’re no longer encouraged to pull up from our bootstraps; our caretakers in Washington will take care of that. And our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will be paying for it.

Just another indicator of this tectonic shift to this new and very scary progressive era that will probably last for another forty years. How long will we be able to sing “and I feel fine?”

The story starts right after college when my high school buddy Joe took a job in Florida, taking his new bride, my high school buddy Jackie with him. They had their first child about a year later and invited me and a few of our other high school buddies to join them for Thanksgiving. I remember that first trip quite well because it was only the second time I had been on a plane, and I ended getting stuck in Cincinnati for several hours because of a mechanical breakdown. That’s back in the day when they would give you a voucher for a hotel room and meal vouchers. I ended getting rerouted to Atlanta where I met up with some of my other buddies who were on their way to the same get-together.

On that trip we all helped to make the turkey dinner, took care of the new baby, played games, drove to the beach, swimming in November, and took my first trip to Disney World, living a kid’s dream at 23. With that get-together we set a precedent that would follow our group of friends for many years to come.

That trip to Orlando was in 1985, and the next year we scheduled a Thanksgiving gathering in Northern Virginia, where Mike lives. That was an easy nighttime 6-hour drive to DC (although I was really sleepy driving on the George Washington Parkway!). By 1987, I had moved to Tennessee and friends joined me for turkey, the Country Music Hall of Fame, and a tour of Jack Daniels distillery based from my bachelor pad in west Nashville.

What was cool about most of these trips was these were the times we met new girlfriends or fiancés and they instantly joined into the fun.

As a newly married couple we went back down to Orlando in 1988, DC in 89, and stayed close to home in Erie in 1990. By 1991, kids were coming along and those of us living in the north rented a big 15-passenger van and drove from Erie, picking up our friends in DC and made our way down I-95 back to Florida. What a wild trip with my 7 month old son, taking turns driving down the gas tank, stopping at South of the Border, and all the other sights through the south finally arriving at 3 AM in Orlando.

As what happens when you have kids, your season of life changes so much that pre-child traditions begin to die. We did get one more trip to DC in 1992, and got the gang together in Erie in 1993. But life began to take over and the Thanksgiving tradition ended.

We did do one reprise of our group getting together in the summer of 2002. It just so happened that all of our birthdays in this group were within weeks of each other, and 2002 was the year almost all of us turned forty, so we gathered back in Northern Virginia for a great reunion, with kids and walking the Mall, and the new Star Wars movie, and fireworks over the Washington Monument. A most excellent time.

Those nine Thanksgivings meant friends and fun and adventures, celebration and catching up, watching movies and listening to music…doing life together. I have such fond memories of those times. To my buddies and to you, have a joyful Thanksgiving!

• McCain is the pro-life candidate. He has a voting record that supports unborn babies
• McCain will nominate constructionist justices committed to upholding the Constitution to the Supreme Court
• McCain will provide conservative balance to the agenda of the far-left leaning Democrat Congressional leadership of Pelosi and Reid
• McCain is a war hero and has solid credentials for national defense and foreign affairs
• McCain will finish the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in victory, not retreat and defeat
• McCain is a strong fiscal conservative and promises to curb spending and balance the budget in five years
• Often to my chagrin, McCain has a record of crossing the aisle and working with Democrats on issues of importance; he is an independent leader
• Palin embodies the achievement of today’s woman; raising five children while working and keeping what’s important, family and faith, foremost

I don’t have to run down McCain’s opponent, Barack Obama, to present McCain’s credentials. The list is long; McCain’s love and sacrifice for country is unquestioned.

In the end, forget about the crooked pollsters, the demoralizing pundits, and the massive amounts of money. Look at the man, what he’s done, what he believes in, and what he’s proven he can do.

John McCain deserves our vote.

9:00 PM – The pundits keep saying that the debate is Obama’s to lose. They are wondering if McCain will lose his temper. Jim Lehrer from the NewsHour on PBS is the moderator and began his introduction at 9:01.

9:03 PM – The candidates are introduced and step on stage…applauce is polite but not robust, the candidates shake hands, each wearing a slightly different shade of blue suit. Lehrer’s first question is where do the candidates stand on the financial situation.

9:06 PM – Obama gave his bullet points, throwing all of the blame for the crisis at President Bush’s feet. McCain sounds more conciliatory in touch with the felt pain in the audience. Obama in the response came forth with that “shreded regulations” accusation. McCain brings up a history lesson from World War II about accountability.

9:13 PM – McCain talks about his fundamental belief in the strength of the American worker, which is what he meant a couple of weeks ago when he said that the fundamentals of the American economy were strong.

9:24 PM - The candidates are going back and forth on earmarks. McCain calls them a “gateway drug.” Obama talks about cutting taxes for 95% of Americans and poo-poos the $18 billion in earmarks. McCain makes a strong case for lowering the high business taxes, and wants to double the dependent tax credit to $7000.

9:32 PM – They are talking about what priority changes for their administrations because of the bailout costs. Obama wants more money for alternative energy, education, infrastructure (roads, bridges, and rural broadband?!). McCain talks about Obama’s liberal voting record, which made Obama chuckle. McCain wants to go after subsidies and overspending in the defense budget.

9:33 PM – First mention of Iraq, by Senator Obama, complaining about $10 billion a month being spent, while Iraq sits on an oil surplus.

9:36 PM - A half-hour into the debate, there is no clear winning candidate. Obama sounds like he’s yelling, while McCain is soft and intense.

9:44 PM – Lessons from Iraq, McCain reminds us that he was first to push for more troops to win the war, not defeat. Obama reminds that he opposed the war six years ago. Makes a statement about the war costing $600 billion, “soon to be a trillion.” A trillion? Only if the war blows up in our face. McCain points out that Obama was invested in defeat, and never met with the General until recently.

9:50 PM – With the discussion over the Iraq war, Obama is starting to lose composure and over speak, which is what the pundits warned against. It’s not McCain losing his cool, but Obama.

9:53 PM – I must say, even with the distractions of the week in Washington, both these candidates have a strong grasp of the issues surrounding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

9:56 PM – I don’t know if Obama’s regionally accurate pronunciation of Pakistan is going to fly with the “bitter clingers” in the middle of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. It feeds into that Obama is a Muslim myth.

10:05 PM - An hour into this debate, and I got to think that there is a slight advantage to McCain. McCain talks strongly from his experience, with a comprehensive understanding of the issues. This foreign policy talk is right in his wheel house. All Obama can do is complain and disagree, without any positive sounding foreign policy agenda points.

10:11 PM - This talks about whether or not we will talk to rogue countries is kind of boring.

10:22 PM – Talking about Russia and the recent agression against Georgia. Both candidates scoring points. Obama is wary of the nukes, McCain properly explains that the use of power was about the oil pipeline running through Georgia.

10:25 PM – Obama is off the reservation when it comes to his enviromentalist supporters. He just articulated support for off-shore drilling, and nuclear…the greens can’t be happy.

10:26 PM – Last question: the likelyhood of another 9/11 attack on the US.

10:29 PM – McCain reminding that he reached across the aisle to enact the recommendations of the 9/11 commission. Doing a great job now, still a long way to go. Obama concerned about nuclear proliferation, and Al-quida, wants to restore America’s standing in the world.

10:32 PM – McCain reiterates that Obama was wrong on Iraq. Obama points out that the focus on Iraq has kept us from working on problems in other parts of the world.

10:37 PM – Lehrer calls the end to the debate. The candidates said “good job” to each other and to Jim Lehrer, and then went to their wives.

10:43 PM - Anchors are harping on the fact that Obama kept saying “I agree with Senator McCain, I agree with Senator McCain.”

10:49 PM - Networks go to commercials, and I’m signing off. All in all, a great spirited debate. I’ll give the nod narrowly to McCain, although I’m not sure he pulled a ton of people in his camp.  Obama meanwhile didn’t implode. Thanks for reading, good night!