Category: Politics

I can’t stand to watch President Bush speak, so as with the recent state of the union address, I waited for the audio transcript to see what he had to say. And what do I see but this new, improved rationale for making war on Iraq:

He [Hussein] had used weapons. He had manufactured weapons. He had funded suicide bombers into Israel. He had terrorist connections. In other words, all of those ingredients said to me: Threat.

This to me is NOT any kind of rationale for making war on a country that is more than 3000 miles away from the US border. Where is the clear and present danger? Hussein was, and is, not a nice guy by any means. But for us to go in and kick him out when we let any number of other dictators across the globe do what they want just makes us look bad.

Oh, and in the “unintended irony” department, we have this Bush quote:

See, free societies are societies that don’t develop weapons of mass terror.

There are so many different ways to deconstruct that one, I could be posting all night. I’ll just point out that there’s either a tremendous double standard there, or that America is not truly a free society. Or possibly both.

Bah.

So last night I said that I needed to do more for my candidate, Howard Dean. This morning I wrote a personal letter to 10 Democrats in South Carolina, talking about why I’m for Dean and they should be too.

I excerpted most of it here at my Dean fundraising page, which I also worked on today.

And all this before my morning coffee!

So, Dean came in 2nd, 12% behind Kerry. Not total victory, of course, but definitely enough to keep Dean a serious contender. I also seem to recall reading a statistic that nobody has ever become President of the US without finishing either first or second in New Hampshire. If true, then Dean is still well placed for victory. And as I recall, Clinton won niether NH or IA.

One neat thing that happened tonight – I was watching the election results come in over at the Plough and Stars with a bunch of the SF for Dean crew and during Dean’s speech, about halfway through, he paused, looked down at some people, and said, “wow, there’s people here all the way from San Francisco” (or words to that effect). The entire room went up in a big cheer at that. A reporter from the local ABC affiliate showed up about 10 minutes after Dean’s speech had ended. He’d have gotten much better footage if he’d gotten there earlier, but he interviewed a few folks anyway.

I still have trouble understanding Kerry’s appeal. I watched his victory speech tonight and I found him boring, full of platitudes — in short, a typical politician, with no special fire. And I would really like to know how he can justify voting for both the Patriot Act and the war on Iraq when he did NOT vote for the first war on Iraq.

I’m not going to cut my nose off to spite my face. If Kerry wins the nomination then I of course will vote for him. I may not like the guy but I’ll take any Democrat over the current occupant of the White House.

Still, I want Dean to be the nominee, not Kerry. I haven’t been able to do much on the ground to promote Dean, since the majority of campaign activities take place on Saturdays when I’m at work. But I’m going to try harder to find some that I can do when I do have time off.

Oh boy. So many things that bothered me. Where to start? Every time he talked about America’s “moral tradition” I kept wondering – whose tradition are you talking about? Some gonzo Christian perspctive, not mine.

I’m late for work, so I’ll just hit a few high (or rather low) lights.

And because you acted to stimulate our economy with tax relief, this economy is strong and growing stronger

Yeah right. So where are all the jobs? India and China.

For the sake of job growth, the tax cuts you passed should be permanent.

And our ballooning budget deficits?

So tonight I propose an additional 23 millions for schools that want to use drug testing as a tool to save children’s lives.

Great – make more children into criminals without doing anything about increasing funding for addiction treatment.

Even the good ideas got poisoned. A Prisoner Re-Entry Initiative is a great idea. Most ex-cons get little to no supoort once they leave prison, and recidivism rated are high. But then he just couldn’t resist turning the proposal into part of his plan to ram Jesus down people’s throats by making it part of his faith-based agenda.

Gotta get to work now. Blargh.

So Kerry took Iowa. That was quite a surprise. I was not too surprised that Gephardt faded – there never seemed to be much juice behind his candidacy. Edwards, I think, has floated towards the top becasue he’s gotten enough name recognition to garner interest but not so much intense scrutiny as to increase his negatives. I’m not sure he can go all the way but he’s looking mighty attractive as someone’s VP.

Dean took third – disappointing. It puts the presure on and makes New Hampshire a real do-or-die scenario. Although if I recall correctly, Clinton placed 4th in Iowa and did not win New Hampshire, so all is not lost.

The New York Times, and many other news sources, are reporting today on President Bush’s latest proposal, to earmark 1.5 billion dollars to promote healthy marriages. With 7+ years of marriage under my belt, I’ll be first to admit that healthy marriages take work, but I’m appalled that in such tight economic times this is considered a big priority by The Powers That Be.

“A growing body of statistical evidence suggests that children fare best, financially and emotionally, in married two-parent families,” says the Times. And that’s true. But what this country really needs is not more smarmy commercials promoting being a Dad, but a focus on creating the kinds of jobs that help families stay afloat financially and on improving education so that more Americans are capable of holding down those good jobs.

Most of the press coverage I’ve read focuses on how this plays to the president’s base of conservative voters, and how this may be the first step towards federal regulation or legislation against gay marriage. I find myself wondering whether this is another way to get the much vaunted “faith based initiatives” back into play. After all, the Federal government really doesn’t have much apparatus for family counseling or marriage training. A lot of churches do, though.

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced this is another one of Karl Rove’s political moves. It’s not really about public policy or actually helping people. It’s about having a proposal on the table that you can use to smear your political rivals as being “anti family” if they say anything to oppose it. And to top it off, this proposal appeals directly to the soccer Moms who are key swing votes.

I know this is the sort of thing to expect in an election year. I’m sure more is to follow. But boy, does it suck. This is the kind of blatant political posturing that made me think I’d sooner pick up doggie poo all day than run for political office.
I did want to run for office when I was younger. I thought I would be able to do something good for people. I’m glad I didn’t. I don’t think I would like being the kind of person who can successfully get elected in America these days.