You know we are in trouble when the person talking most about the war in Iraq is Senator John McCain.

The Democratic primary has taken a sad twist. Issues are disappearing. Somehow Reverend Wright and travel schedules and misstatements about Bosnia have become more important than Iraq, human rights, Zimbabwe, AIDS, torture, Afghanistan, and the American poor.

With the sinking economy, we see the primary discussions returning to the old 2000 and 2004 themes of tax breaks for the middle class. Don't get me wrong, this economy is taking a terrible toll on the Americans and they are desperate to hear anyone pleading their case. Yet the candidates reaching out to this important voter group seem to have lost their ability to talk in clear, precise terms.

Yet we Democrats champion programs that continually rejuvenate our economy by putting our people back to work rebuilding our nation's collapsing infrastructure. With all the new jobs we know we can expand our tax base and our ability to pay for these projects. Simple in concept, it still has proven to work over the years. Still, much of our infrastructure is in shambles and dangerously close to seriously effecting our ability to do business. In addition, such questionable structures as weakening dams, inadequate levees, etc leave many American lives in serious jeopardy.

However, like walking and chewing gum, we can deal with the middle class and the economy and still talk about other issues. Does anyone really believe that a major part of our economic malaise is not a result of the war in Iraq? We have poured nearly a trillion -- a trillion! -- of wasted dollars into this endless money pit. Not only have we have piled up record deficits, but vital domestic programs are being canceled left and right to finance this disaster. Even our brave troops are not well taken care of financially and the treatment they are receiving when they return home is shameful.

This war and this economy go hand in hand. The fate of America's poor depends on us ending this misguided misadventure. The belief in our own moral value as a nation demands we end the war now. Our ability to focus on domestic issues and actually have the money to pay for them is entirely tied to ending the war in Iraq.

Headlines around the world tell us this war has not disappeared. Lives are still being lost. Our injured -- a human tragedy in itself - are being returned daily to our shores. And our economy is in shambles because of the cumulative tally. Now is not the time to put this conflict on a back burner. In one week, the Reverend Wright non-issue got more play then the war in Iraq by the nation's media. Does this make any sense to anyone?

John Kennedy said in his acceptance speech to the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles in 1960,

" . . if we open a quarrel between the present and the past, we shall be in danger of losing the future . . . Today our concern must be with the future. For the world is changing. The old era is ending. The old ways will not do."

Let us return to real issues. Before it's too late.