In the glossy pages of The New Yorker, in graceful prose and with good reporting, the dreams and nightmares of the admirers of Barack Obama and his policies lie exposed.

Republican Party of Florida Chairman Dave Bitner's decision to step down for health reasons was accepted with regret by party leaders. Now he wants them to ratify his choice for successor.

Bitner, who was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) shortly after he assumed office last winter, announced Wednesday that he would step aside Sept. 23, during the party's Presidency 5 summit in Orlando.

The chairman recommended to members of the Republican Executive Committee that they elect Vice Chairman Lenny Curry to succeed him as chairman.

Florida Republican Congressman Allen West said in a national interview Wednesday that he is kicking himself over leaving the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) after comments made by U.S. Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., attacking the tea party movement for being racists.

During an appearance on Fox News Wednesday, West, a member of both the CBC and the Tea Party Caucus, took aim at remarks Carson made in Miami at a CBC event Aug. 22.

Mounting fear over the nation's economic health, both in the short run and the long-term, dragged down consumer confidence in Florida, which in August fell to the near record-low posted at the bottom of the housing bust, a University of Florida report indicated Tuesday.

Consumer confidence among Floridians fell to 62 on the UF index in August, a confidence level only three points higher than the record-low 59 set in June 2008, according to data compiled monthly by the school's Bureau of Economic and Business Research.

"Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens."