My husband was a NYC firefighter, working on 9/11. I thought he was dead all day. He was okay, but then got sick from the poisonous air down there that the EPA told us was fine. I knew it was NOT fine, and berated him to wear his gear, flimsy as it was, and he still ended up with asthma.

So when the administration began beating the drumbeats of war, I could not stand the thought of something terrible happening, such as a mushroom cloud, to my city, or another city. I just could not survive it. So when I thought about a nuclear weapon from Hussein's WMDs being used, I said, "Well, I don't like it, but I think we have to do it." I was not alone in this. Many of my family and friends bought into this lie also. We could NOT imagine the administration lying to us about something as important, and deadly, as a push to war. It never occurred to us that anyone in this country could be so evil as to use the tragedy of 9/11, the tragedy of my husband and thousands of others who were even worse off than we were, to push for a war based on a lie. I was stunned and ashamed when I found out, bit by bit, what had occurred.

Was I uninformed? Of course I was - I was a Republican. But more importantly to me, personally, is that I saw the truth when I found out they lied about the WMDs and about the air at Ground Zero. They allowed those rescue workers down there to clean up so they could get Wall Street open again. I firmly believe this. These workers lives were sacrificed to keep the gears of money oiled, and then they bought them off with some money from the infamous "Victim's Compensation Fund." From that conclusion, it was an easy step to look at the lies that got us into Iraq. The lies that many of our Democrats echoed, and supported, and created. And the lies that I, as an American, have supported for most of my life.

So why am I telling this story once again, when I am sure some of you who have heard it before are rolling your eyes. Because I see that many of our candidates for '08 seem to not have learned the lessons that I, a dumb civilian, have learned. This is the reason why I am so uncomfortable with Hillary Clinton. Her reluctance to admit she was wrong, using the personal pronoun "I," makes me feel she does not deserve my vote. Her support by big money candidates makes me uncomfortable as well, as I live with the rush to get Wall Street open when it was not safe for the rescue workers to be down there.

John Edwards, at least he has admitted his error, but he seems to not have learned to apply his lessons to Iran. I, a dumb civilian, have learned much more, it seems, when Iran is discussed. I know that any attack against Iran will harm us just as much, and that we may have to learn to live with a nuclear Iran, much the same way we lived with a nuclear Soviet Union. We tell them, "You bomb Israel, or anyone else, and we will destroy every inch of your country." Even the Iranians would see no benefit in harming Israel. This is what kept us from killing each other during the Cold War, and we can do it again if we have intelligent leaders.

So with some of our top candidates seemingly beholden to military solutions and big business, is it too much for the Democratic Party to tell the big corporate donors, the media and the powers that be to buzz off, and let us pick our own candidate? And more importantly, how do we do that? How do we get rid of Clinton, and Mr. Bankruptcy Bill Joe Biden, and any other pro-war, corporate-owned Democrat? I find myself nodding in agreement with OPOL all of the time now, which is remarkable, since less than 3 years ago, I was a nonthinking republican.