I like Hillary. There I said it. I think she is moderate enough for me. I am not fond of the far left because although I am very liberal I am not do idealistic that I think that there aren't people who deserve punishment for their crimes or that the country doesn't need a strong military. I believe in social reform and programs but I also think that there is nothing wrong with making people fend for themselves to survive. I am certain that I am not an Isolationist but I think that it is time for the United States to have a very clear outline on foreign policy. Just because the world is more complecated than it was during the Cold War doesn't mean that we shouldn't have clearly defined goals. We are not the world's saviors. Democracy is an ideal not an aboslute.
The far right is just scary these days. They have dragged anyone who is a Republican into this you are with us or against us idealism with no room for interpretation. People have adopted this strong stance on the right that the world is only full of evil people or godly people and there is noone inbetween. What ever happened to separation of Church and State? Whatever happened to "real" family values, meaning that a family, no matter what its make up just needs to have values, morals, love and nutring and not be just Man, Woman, Kids, Dog, Minivan? Even if that Man is a closet alcoholic, deviant and the Woman is a depressed, cold, unattached, overachiever.
For those who forget, Bush Sr. went to war with Iraq to prove that no nation can unilaterally invade a smaller nation without facing consequences from the entire free world. Bush Jr. went to war in Iraq to prove the exact opposite.
In previous wars or "police actions" we had good foundation of justification. Since World War 2 our national policy was to prevent the spread of Comunism throught the world. We were commited to assiting any Democratic nation fight against a Comunist invasion. Hence Korea and Vietnam. We may have been very misguided, or perhaps not, in that policy but it was clear and was backed by a powerful argument. That was that during World War 2 the world sat back while a totalitarian regime marched into country after country with the freedom to set up a systematic institution of slaughter by the millions. We failed to save those people under the thumb of Hitler and the Nazis but we were commited after that to be present on the world stage to prevent Comunism from infecting the world. Japan woke a sleeping giant all right.
I see the tide turning already and the elections of 2006 were a time for all true Americans to rejoice. We have become a nation so afraid of totalitarian regimes with idealistic, fanatical, agendas that we have become one. In the last six years most Americans can't recognize the country they were born into and love. Freedom does not ever just get taken away, it is given by the people. We gave this administration (who I challenge are true Republicans with Family Values at the core of their moral agenda and look more like powerful men who want to impoise their egos on the country) too much power. They did not take it. We gave it.
I would argue that the Republican machine includes some very smart people who know the definition of "spin" despite what Mr. Reilly tries to tell us. It started with a bogus impeachment trial that took our nation's attention away from Iraq, away from terrorism and its dangers in the Ninties. Our Congressmen were too busy investigating what amolunted to a front page story for the National Enquirerer rather than serving the country. The Republican machine started it then and poised itself to make it look like they were saving the country from this evil man called Bill Clinton. All the while, another man who was truly evil was planning to attack us while we were so self absorbed contemplating our own navels.
We had a chance in 2004 to take this country back but we blew it. Kerry was a wimp up there at the podium letting Bush and Rove paint him as a traitor when he was the one who fought for our country and then exercised one of the core Rights in the Constitution, which is freedom of expression. If that were me, I'd have been flaming mad. I would have called Bush out. I would have attacked with fevor. Perhaps Kerry didn't have it in him. He was intelligent and poised but had no passion. That was the key ingredient in the Bill Clinton campaigns. Passion and compassion. Kerry was a block of wood. What was worse, Edwards was allowed to make a monkey of himself. In stead of coming across like a bulldog in the Vice Presidential debates he came off like a thirteen-year-old with a chip on his shoulder. I actually applauded Mr. Chenney when he refused to comment when Edwards brought up his lesbian daughter. John Edwards couldn't get out of his own way and between the two of them they mucked it all up. Perhaps they were listening to the wrong people, or perhaps they just weren't the right people.
There are no moderate Republicans to be found in the entire country anymore. I don't see anyone that can get the entire party together either so I think the Democrats have a good shot of taking the White House back, especially after the last two years of even more incompetance by Bush and his administration. I really thought things couldn't get worse.
The Republican Party has rotten from the inside out so that the only real candidates are Guiliani and McCain. Neither seem to be strong enough to win the moderates or the far right. Neither are as cunning as Bush or as cunning as the team surrounding Bush made him seem.
Here is why. I truly believe that neither candidate is willing or able to go to the depths of moral darkness that Bush Jr. did during his presidency. He called real Americans traitors and stood in front of a country that is supposed to be founded on the idea of equality and freedom and dared us to stop him from repressing our freedoms and equality. He has bankrupted this country, spiritually, intelectually and morally. America, under his administration has become a farce of the real thing or what we used to be. He has made us the punchline of a joke. He has made many proud Americans, embarassed to be associated with a country that can turn on itself so quickly and care so little for the rest of the world despite the rhetoric out of the White House.
No problem is too big to overcome. We can heal the wounds begun on Nine-Eleven and exaserbated int he years after by George W. Bush and his band of merry men. In 2008 we can have a passionate Democrat who will talk to us above what has been hurting and try to sincerely heal us. Hillary Clinton can do it. And if Obama can tag along and learn the ropes, he can continue that mission so that over the next decade America can become something of a great country again. Because this administration has turned more than a hundred years of American greatness into a miserable mess. I hope the eight years he spend in the White House is a small blemish in the history books.
