As the two major political parties stand ready to nominate their candidates for President, a thought suddenly occurs to me. Why would any sane, non-masochistic individual want this job?

Burrowing out the foreign policy Augean stable that Bush and Cheney leave behind will take years, perhaps decades of remedial effort. Just cutting through its baked hard top crust would require the labors of a policy Hercules at the controls of a top-of-the-line Deere backhoe. It’s doubtful that in all of human history a country in such obvious decline would so gratuitously, recklessly, unnecessarily and copiously have gotten itself so tangled up, burdened down and pulled apart in so many places it had absolutely no necessity to be for reasons so obscure and utterly idiotic.

Why would anyone want to lead a country so embroiled?

Then there’s the economy. Oh, yes, that. Watching the frightened little men at The Treasury and The Fed rushing madly about patching leaks, looking tight-lipped for the next crack, wondering glaze-eyed how this next crisis can possibly be managed, abetted in their ever more short-term fixes by a gaggle of congressional nobodies and oblivious Administration officials obviously more concerned with the Big Picture in Georgia, this whole stumbling and bumbling crew all the while oozing soothing sounds to calm the nerves of a populace in slow boil mode, frankly does not inspire much confidence for our economic futures, not to mention our growing unemployment, home devalued and inflation-ridden present.

Who would want to lead a country immersed in this economic mess?

And let’s not forget the deteriorating natural environment. It’s not forgetting us. Indeed, Mother Gaia appears rather angry at the cunning apes she permitted to come fourth in a form that is showing increasing signs of massively inappropriate adaptation to its proper place in nature. From the Arctic to the equator, from Atlantic to Pacific, on land, sea and air, what we hath wrought, alas, cometh back to us in ways approaching crisis levels in many realms.

Why would anyone want to lead the country that should have begun addressing these issues long ago, didn’t, and looks like in the future will do so more rhetorically than otherwise?

So, Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama, I now ask you to consider. To reconsider. Do you really want to become CEO of this company? Lead this national wagon train? Do a “Follow Me” for this 300 million-strong caravan of fractious, frustrated and frightened folk?

There’s still time to back away. And all things considered, a cushy sinecure in a Senate with great job security and benefits to die for is going to feel a lot better in a year or two than what the winner of this election is almost certainly going to be feeling. That, dear sirs, is absolutely guaranteed!