AMERICA RIPE FOR TAKEOVER

Former presidential contender and billionaire Ross Perot is worried that America is a sitting duck for an unnamed foreign invader. In an interview for his new autobiography, Perot said the nation's weak economy has left us open for a hostile takeover—and neither presidential candidate is the man to save the country.

Citing an impending fiscal cliff,  Perot warned of disaster. "If we are that weak, just think of who wants to come here first and take us over," the former CEO of info-tech company Perot Systems told USA Today on Monday.

"The last thing I ever want to see is our country taken over because we're so financially weak, we can't do anything," Perot says.

When asked for his take on the presidential race, Perot added, "Nobody that's running really talks about it, about what we have to do and why we have to do it. They would prefer not to have it discussed."

However cryptic he may be, this is the first political reckoning by Perot in years, ever since he withdrew from the political landscape after the fall of his Reform Party in the 2000 election. The man who ran the most successful third-party campaigns in contemporary American politics also expressed optimism about the current tea party activism and its efforts to "wake up" both Washington and the electorate.

"Our president blames Congress, Congress blames the president, the Democrats and Republicans blame each other. Nobody steps up to the plate and accepts responsibility for anything," Perot said -- in 1992. Reminded of those comments, he nods knowingly.
"It's like the guy who's drinking -- sooner or later, he's got to put a cork on the bottle, right?" Perot says. "You have to have the will to do it."