Ladybug, you said, "It's not up to me to decide what I want my president to do as a nation."

If you don't mind, I'd like to explore that statement a bit.

I keep a copy of the Constitution nearby, because I feel it is my document of liberty in this nation. It spells out the basic part of my duties, obligations and rights as a citizen and what my elected officials have as obligations. Much of the document can be open to interpretation and I think the founding fathers (and mothers!) were wise enough to know that times change and they didn't know everything that needed to be done.

The Duties of the President are mercifully brief. They include making recommendations and providing information to Congress, receiving ambassadors and "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

Without getting into a great many details, that is what I expect my President to do, to perform as an executive within the laws of the United States which are created by Congress. Congress has the power to declare war, not the President. Congress declared the Iraq war (whether or not they had all the information they needed is another can of worms I'd rather not get into here). So, if we are poorly perceived by other countries, all of our elected representatives bear some of that burden.

I asked the question because there is so much talk about how the president should NOT act, that I was wondering about the reverse -- being a positive, pro-active kind of person.

Norma, thanks for your reply. I, too, believe that all of us are essentially the same. Mothers everywhere care deeply for their children and do the best they can. I've never met a mother anywhere who wanted to see their child in a place where others were trying to kill them or in a place where the child felt it necessary to blow him or herself up.

Yet that is happening? I have to wonder why?