Cobb

Who exactly would you have replace him? Howard Dean, of all people? If you aren't a Dean fan, I don't see that you have much choice than to either stay home on voting day, or hold your nose and vote for GWB.

God knows Bush has been a disappointment, but if it comes down to a choice between him and Dean, there's no way in hell I'll go for the latter. Dean is a guy who stands for the opposite of nearly everything I believe - he doesn't like free trade, he doesn't like school choice, he wants to nationalize healthcare, and he hasn't a clue about military matters; nevertheless, he's already looking a certainty to clinch the Democratic Party candidacy.

We could do much worse than Kerry, and I don't understand at all why people are counting Clark out.

I don't have any tactical reasons to vote for Bush, and any that I might have depends entirely on the VP.

Why is McCain so quiet?

Whoever the next President is, they will represent a shifting of weight and resetting of the feet to move in a somewhat different direction than we're currently going in. At the cost of the war and the cost of the impact on the USofA we could buy the Middle East. Worse, a second Bush term and four more years of this plan will solidify a significant fraction of the world against us…a world that WILL be able to challenge our physical power before our children die.

Even if you want to stay the course in the Middle East, you have to admit the current attempt is poorly conceived and executed. And the tax cuts have been mindless (though not purposeless).

The next presidency isn't going to be about advancing or recovering. It's going to be about recuperation.

Well, the career diplomats are saying that Clinton did better in North Korea than Bush. So if Iraq goes completely bad, it cannot be worse than if North Korea goes completely bad. I say this because I don't see that Western interests in Iraq and Iran as so very substantial.

That said, I think that eventually, Iraq will work out. It may take longer than Russia, but looking back 10 years from now, everyone will agree that Iraq was an Evil Empire.

What surprises me these days, now that I think about it, is how little is made of April Glaspie and our history with Iraq. The Left had, for a long time, painted Saddam as a monster of our creation. Wasn't he? Back in the days when the world trembled in fear of the Republican Guard, much was made about how the US was responsible for the bad thing that Iraq had become. We let them invade Iran because we hated Iran. It was payback for our 241 miserable Marines. We let countries go to war for years because we hated that big old Ayatollah. Remember when he was public enemy number one?

I don't believe the American public has a good reason for opposing Iran for any reasons other than that history and because George Bush's Axis of Evil rhetoric. Which underlies my general opinion that we are lousy citizens when it comes to imperial duty, even as mercenaries for democracy under the best of all circumstances for the best of all reasons. So I don't give a lot of credence today to the ENDLESS posturing over a war that's over.

I'm not doing my duty in talking about some other spots on the globe, so I am a part of this conspiracy of ignorant distraction, but I do believe that the world historical right thing was done in deposing Saddam, and one of the reasons I say so was because I do believe he was a monster of our encouragement if not creation. But I'm not going to rehash the Western line drawing parties of the postWW2 days.

Like it or not, Republicans have demonstrated in very much the same way Clinton has, that we can do right as a superpower, but American partisans don't feel warm and fluffy about it. I can live with that tension. But it does get tiresome to hear the back and forth about the 87 Billion.

87 Billion are our taxes, part of our responsibility as world citizens to police places we don't live. If the Left doesn't see the exact parallels between their carping about that and nimby tax abatement & white flight, I don't know what to tell them.

Opposition to the war…which is NOT over, and given the situation on the ground, it's kinda absurd to even suggest it is…can be based on a lot more than just objection to rhetoric. And money is only one of the terms I factor into gauging the cost of the war.

But the point of my post was that no one, Conservative or Progressive, should be satisfied no matter who wins the next election.

Just because there's a pattern doesn't mean there's a purpose.

Don't worry that other people don't know you; worry that you don't know other people.