An economic Katrina is shattering the confidence of hardworking, middle-class Americans. The war that should never have been in Iraq is dragging on too long. At a time of huge challenge, the candidate with the intelligence, temperament and judgment to lead our nation to a better place is Sen. Barack Obama.

Obama should be the next president of the United States because he is the most qualified change agent. Obama is a little young, but also brilliant. If he sometimes seems brainy and professorial, that's OK. We need the leader of the free world to think things through, carefully. We have seen the sorry results of shooting from the hip.

As our country lurches from one financial or energy crisis to the next, American taxpayers remain burdened with the cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan — to the tune of $12 billion a month.

Consider the banking and financial morass. Neither Obama nor his opponent, Sen. John McCain, offers a perfect solution. But McCain is all over the map, veering from statements such as "The fundamentals of our economy are strong" to the more obvious "Wall Street is threatened by greed."

Read the full editorial at seattletimes.com.