Sunday, September 14, 2008

Why I have come to believe that McCain is a dangerous choice for president

Let me start by saying that for as long as I’ve been paying attention to politics, I’ve liked John McCain. I thought he would have made a great president in 2000, until his campaign was derailed in my home state by a series of vicious push-polls and a whisper-campaign that claimed McCain had an illegitimate black child. That year, in the first election I was eligible to vote, I voted for George W. Bush anyway because, at least, he wasn’t a liberal. I remember telling someone not long after 9/11 that I was reassured that Bush was our president -- and not Gore, who, as I said at the time, would probably send Osama bin Laden to therapy instead of tracking ‘em down and “smoking ‘em out” as President Bush had promised, as he told us not to stop shopping.

That changed quickly. By 2004, I was lamenting the fact that McCain could not run again, and I voted for John Kerry (a decision for which I got a lot of flack), not because I liked Sen. Kerry, rather because I had come to believe (and still do) that President Bush’s presidency is marked by a tragic lack of understanding about the world, a penchant for opaqueness, and a cold-handed unwillingness to accept his mistakes.

Why do I mention all of this? It’s to qualify everything that I am about to write. Many people who read this site regularly know that I am going to vote for Obama, and, unlike in 2004, I’m not casting my vote for what I feel is the lesser of two evils. I’m voting for Obama because I think he is a once-in-a-lifetime candidate who offers us much more than “not being Bush.” Suffice it to say, I feel that what Obama offers in judgement, vision, ingenuity, and curiosity that make a photo-negative of all that George Bush lacked.

I do not think Obama will walk on water. I know quite well that he has his short-comings, and, more importantly, I realize that voting for him is a risk. What I will show here is that both candidates present a risk, and I feel that McCain is more of a risk, but I have to make one more clarification: by no means do I consider myself an expert. I am not presenting this as a condemnation to those who will eventually, regardless of what I say, vote for John McCain. I have not seen every bit of news about McCain. I have not read all of his books.

Also, I welcome criticism, as long as it has substance.

What I will say though, is that I am a voracious consumer of news. I am confident in the time and effort I have taken to make an educated choice in this election. None of the citations that I am going to cite below are elements I searched for in order to write this – except in the instances that information was something I read in a book, in which case I tried to find something that you could read here. I have a feed reader with feeds from several hundred sites that I try to sift through every morning. As many of you know, I am in the process of applying to graduate schools for programs in international relations, and I read most of this stuff because it is what fascinates me. This is what I intend to spend the rest of my life studying, which is why I keep a list of nearly four thousand bookmarks on my del.icio.us account that are tagged by subject. Right now, I have a list of about four hundred bookmarks saved under “2008 presidential elections,” and it is largely from that that I will be pulling.

Moreover, the only reason I have time to do it today is that typhoon Sinlaku is bearing down on Taiwan right now, and while I’ve got other things to write, I can’t seem to get this out of my mind.

My reasons for writing this now owe themselves to two recent, though significant, developments. The first was sitting in awe listening to Gov. Sarah Palin give her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. Not only was I certain of her talent as a speaker, but I was taken aback by the realization that the campaign as we had known it until that point had been tame. Over a period of about thirty minutes, we went back four years, to the “culture wars” of 2004 that said the liberals are the softies, the “blame America” gang, and the republicans are the patriots willing to do anything for their country.

McCain arguably got this ball rolling several weeks ago when he started claiming that Obama would rather win an election that win the (unwinable) war.

Naively, I had thought this red-state/blue-state idea sank into the quicksand of political expediency under the weight of a world of evidence: taking the focus off of bin Laden in Afganistan, cherry-picking intelligence to make a case for an invasion of Iraq, a contemptible disregard for the Constitution and our civil rights, outsourcing the war effort to private contractors like Blackwater, KBR, and Halliburton who put our soldiers and their own employees at risk, and the list goes on.

(Concerning the latter point about private contractors, there is a great documentary about the purely wasteful and dangerous practices of these companies in Iraq called Iraq for Sale [watch for free on Google video], in which, if I remember correctly, John McCain is interviewed, decrying these abuses. If I’m incorrect, then I’m thinking of the other wonderful documentary called Why We Fight, which I think you can also find on Google video.)

Yet, it turns out that this idea that the Democrats don’t have a stake in the love-for-country market seems to still hold a lot of sway, as Gov. Palin demonstrated to a standing ovation when she proclaimed that Democrats always talk about the Iraq without even mentioning the word victory.

She obviously didn’t realize that Gen. Petraeus himself stays away from the V-word.

The second reason I’ve decided to write this is what has become my precipitous loss of respect for John McCain, the man whose honor and integrity enjoys nearly universal praise. Over the last two weeks, not only has the McCain-Palin ticket released a barrage of unequivocally dishonest and disrespectful ads and statements, but they have also stood by these claims after they have been roundly rejected by fact checks (most notably from factcheck.org, the most trusted name in exposing political lies).

I can’t support this. This undermines the very image of the man many people see John McCain as being: the personification of honor. Up until the last few weeks, knowing was going to vote for Sen. Obama, I took solace in knowing that if John McCain was elected we would still be better off than we are with President Bush. Yet, what McCain has shown is that he is susceptible to the temptation of the very tactics people on both sides of the aisles have been decrying in the polarized climate left in the wake of September 11.

The Ads

Since I mentioned September 11, let’s take a look at the most recent ad from the McCain-Palin campaign, which they posted on Youtube on September 11 breaking a promise they had made with the Obama campaign to lay partisan politics aside during the day of remembrance. Not only that, again dishonoring their vows, the non-partisan watchdog factcheck.org (perhaps the single-most important website for any American voter who’s tired of lying politicians on both sides of the aisle) says that it has also found the ad playing in Denver.

Factcheck notes that McCain’s tactic here is nothing new (they’ve caught Obama doing it twice), what’s new about the ads coming out over the last few weeks is the bitterness of the attacks – which have not once been reciprocated from the Obama campaign. You see, Obama’s not innocent of stretching the truth, or probably even of flat out lying, but I haven’t found one instance of Obama attacking McCain on anything other than policy – unless, in the case of the “Celebrity” ad and Obama counter-ad, McCain attacked him first.

Here’s Factcheck’s analysis of the most recent ad:

The ad says "they said she was doing 'what she was told.' " But the Obama adviser who's being quoted didn't accuse Palin of meekly following orders. What he actually said is that she made a false claim about Obama's legislative record and added, "maybe that's what she was told."
It says "they lashed out at Sarah Palin; dismissed her as 'good looking,' " But "they" didn't lash out at all. Obama – who is the one pictured – didn't say anything like that. The only one the McCain campaign quotes is Obama's running mate, Biden, and he actually offered the remark as a compliment. Biden said the "obvious" difference between Palin and himself is "she's good looking."
The ad says Obama was "disrespectful" when he accused Palin of "lying" about her record. But the truth is Palin's claim to have "said no" to the "bridge to nowhere" is indeed a dubious one, as we and many have pointed out.

Even when Obama has attacked McCain on non-policy issues, the claims in the ads are not so baseless. For instance, in Obama’s celebrity counter-ad (factchecked here), he simply points out that it’s funny for a someone who’s been all over TV (on Saturday Night Live, Letterman, Leno, and the Daily Show) numerous times to be accusing Obama of being a celebrity, along with the normal stuff about tax cuts for corporations and McCain’s cadre of lobbyists.

These ads are stupid, especially when the two candidates are trying to win a popular election. I’m not defending Obama on this one. I’m making the point that I have yet to see any evidence that he is willing to sink to the level McCain has sunk in the last two weeks, claiming that Obama wants to teach “comprehensive sex education” to kindergartners (when he wanted programs to protect children from sexual predators) and even deliberately twisting Factcheck’s findings about supposed attacks on Palin to make it seem as though spam e-mails and random bloggers’ musings about Palin were from Obama’s campaign, which they weren’t.

As you may be asking yourself, hearing me asserting that Obama has not made the same baseless and dishonorable claims that McCain-Palin is not dealing, please know that I asked myself if this is in fact the case. I went though Factcheck, Politifact, and even to various conservative forums to see if people could give me examples of personal, below-the-belt attacks from the Obama Campaign. This search rendered nothing. So, I can’t say that no such attacks have been made, but that I haven’t ever personally seen them, and I have not been able to find them. I was, however, surprised by the conservatives that essentially said in responding to my enquiries, “I’m not going to vote for Obama, but I commend him for how he’s run his campaign.”

So, there you have it. This is why I have decided to write this article. Before I get started (nope, haven’t started yet), let me reiterate the fact that I was, up until recently, ambivalent about a McCain win, because I believed in my heart of hearts that he was a good man who would not tolerate his campaign sinking to this level.

The man I once commended for his criticism of the Bush Administration’s conduct in the war on terror, for stepping up to defend John Kerry against the Swift Boat attacks and for promising, even until recently, to run a campaign of honor.

Many in the media (James Carville and Chris Matthews, for example) don’t feel that McCain is capable of this kind of politics. They say more or less than McCain must not be privy to the mud his campaign is slinging. Even if that’s the case, how is he going to run the country if he can’t run a campaign?

It’s not the case though, even Karl Rove thinks the campaign has gone too far.

I can’t say this enough: Three weeks ago, I would not have written this. Though I had my doubts, I still felt that both candidates had a lot to offer our country. However, the attacks coming from his campaign, his running mate and, now, him personally, I have come to believe he is not only a bad choice for the presidency, but also a dangerous one. Not simply because he’s attacking, but for the substance of the attacks and for his choices of late. My worries were summed up quite nicely today by the Obama campaign using a quip that alludes to another McCain’s recent comments, the sort of which is unprecedented in recent history. Here’s the Obama campaign quote:

Today on "The View," John McCain defended his campaign's latest ad campaign, which has been debunked repeatedly as both false and sleazy. In running the sleaziest campaign since South Carolina in 2000 and standing by completely debunked lies on national television, it's clear that John McCain would rather lose his integrity than lose an election.

To the issues.

Experience

Many would probably think me crazy to question McCain’s experience when the conventional wisdom says his opponent has a far more worrisome lack of experience.

That’s what the conventional wisdom says.

I’ve been deliberating this over the last couple of days though. You see, I used to have great respect for McCain’s defiant position against the Bush administration in the face of what many within the Establishment knew to be true: we had gone to Iraq with too few soldiers. Reading Cobra II, State of Denial (I presume Woodward’s newest book The War Within as well) and the One Percent Doctrine, one gets a good idea of the internal debates in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in which Donald Rumsfeld -- determined to realize his dream of a smaller, sleeker military -- insisted the war could be won with a relatively small number of troops. Folks like Colin Powell, Richard Armitage, and John McCain didn’t agree, and they were right.

As much as I commend McCain for his position, though, I stumbled upon a video recently that made me realize something that I had overlooked: I hadn’t gone far back enough.

John McCain was one of the advocates of this war to begin with. He gave a speech on the Senate floor on October 10, 2002, advocating that Saddam’s removal from power. Politifact (an affiliate of factcheck.org) addresses this issue with a time line, starting on September 12, 2001, in which McCain becomes more and more clear in his belief that Iraq was a part of this:

On Sept. 12, 2001, he appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews, where Matthews asked whether the appropriate response should be "a legal matter or a military matter."

"I think it's both," McCain replied. "As — as we stated, the — a nation has the right to defend itself, No. 1. But No. 2, these organizations could not flourish effectively unless they had the help and assistance and safe harbor of these nations. And it isn't just Afghanistan — we're talking about Syria, Iraq, Iran, perhaps North Korea, Libya and others."

That comment was not particularly specific to Iraq. But in an Oct. 18, 2001, appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, with the nation on edge about the anthrax mailings and in the early stages of the campaign in Afganistan, McCain singled out Iraq.

After sharing his views about how events were unfolding in Afghanistan, McCain told Letterman: "I think we'll do fine. The second phase — if I could just make one, very quickly — the second phase is Iraq. There is some indication, and I don't have the conclusions, but some of this anthrax may — and I emphasize may — have come from Iraq."

In January 2002, while touring the flight bridge of an aircraft carrier on the Arabian Sea, McCain shouted: "Next up: Baghdad!"

He fleshed out his views in a speech at a NATO security policy conference in Munich on Feb. 2, 2002.

"Terrorist training camps exist on Iraqi soil, and Iraqi officials are known to have had a number of contacts with al-Qaida.

Now, of course, I’m not implying that Saddam wasn’t a horrible dictator or that it’s not better that he’s out of power (eternally). That’s the first point supporters of the Iraq war always want to make and, frankly, it’s absurd. No one who is against this war thinks that Saddam was anything but a ruthless despot.

He was not, however, an imminent threat to the United States, and certainly not worth us taking our focus off of Afghanistan and the search for bin Laden. Remember, 2008 has already become the deadliest month in Afghanistan since the invasion in 2001.

You can read the entire speech here on McCain’s senate site.

Two quotes stick out to me in this video:

The burden is not on America to justify going to war. The burden is Saddam Hussein's, to justify why his regime should continue to exist as long as its continuing existence threatens the world.

This struck me because it’s not, as the title of the video erroneously suggests, an argument for a pre-emptive strike on Iraq. It’s an argument for a preventative strike on Iraq. This is because, again, there was no imminent threat coming from Iraq to justify a pre-emptive strike. Preventive war is perhaps one of the most controversial elements of the Bush Doctrine, which Sarah Palin will never forget again (yes, I know there are many different definitions of the Bush Doctrine, but I feel confident in saying that any of McCain’s other possible picks could have answered that question more intelligently) Preventive war is dubious because it relieves the attacker of the burden of proof to support its invasion or attack. Instead of having to present tangible evidence of troops and weapons being deployed, an attack can be launch on the basis of that tangible evidence someday being possible and arguing that that deployment is probably.

The next quote is important because it presents the Bush Administration’s line that Hussein and al-Qaeda were somehow in cahoots, despite the fact that they were bitter enemies. Saddam was, after all, the epitome of the sort of secular, bloody-fisted dictators that Osama bin Laden railed against the United States for having supported. That didn’t stop McCain from making the connection:

We live in a world in which international terrorists continue to this day to plot mass murder in America. Saddam Hussein unquestionably has strong incentives to cooperate with al Qaeda. Whatever they may or may not have in common, their overwhelming hostility to America and rejection of any moral code suggest that collaboration against us would be natural.

To his credit, he was cognizant that they might not have much in common, aside from their disdain for the Western world. That was more than most people (even myself at the time).

It’s important here to clear up another myth that would exculpate for having advocated the invasion of Iraq (despite it being a distraction from our fight in Afghanistan): the idea that the decision was an intelligence failure. It was sure, in the since that the intelligence community did appear to believe that there were WMD in Iraq, and there’re demonstrably weren’t. The oft-forgotten flipside of this coin is the fact that the intelligence community also warned that an invasion of Iraq was probably not a good idea and could cause an insurgency that would destabilize the country. The Bush Administration – and apparently, McCain – for their part took the intelligence that suited their case and made it into a case for war. Every book I’ve read about this (the one’s mentioned above, for the most part) lead one to the conclusion that every single person, perhaps foremost among them being Bush, believed wholeheartedly that invading Iraq was a necessity, that Saddam needed to be taken out. They did, though, willfully twist and misrepresent their case for war.

That’s how we Southerner’s say, “They lied.”

So, McCain, with his experience and his honor, was sucked into a scheme to invade Iraq and distract us from winning the war on terror in Afghanistan. In his defense, he only had twenty years of “experience” at that time. Now, he has twenty six, which has probably made all of the difference.

You’ll see later why I say “experience.”

Ever wonder what Barack Obama said in his famous speech about Iraq? The one that has been referenced in his campaign against Hillary Clinton as well as his present run against McCain, while it has been talked about quite a bit, it’s rarely ever been detailed. Eight days before the above speech by John McCain, Barack Obama said this:

Now let me be clear — I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.

He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn’t simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance, corruption and greed, poverty and despair.

The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not — we will not — travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain.

This is what many people have passed off as “just some speech” Obama gave in 2002. Some have also said that this speech is not that important because he was not yet a U.S. Senator, so it carried little risk for Obama. Contrarily, he was an Illinois Senator at the time and speaking against the war was a very unpopular position at the time.

This speech was prescient and stands in stark contrast to McCain’s, even with two decades of foreign policy experience. Remember at this time, we were being told that the war would cost next to nothing, would only take a couple of months at most, and would see our soldiers greeted as liberators. For Obama to say what he said was unpopular is one thing, but this all also proves that the number of years one has under his belt is not the only indicator of his ability to lead. Obama new that Saddam posed no imminent threat, that an invasion of Iraq would require a long and costly occupation, and that it would “fan the flames” of Middle Eastern anti-Americanism – thus, rendering us less safe than we were before. Mccain, needless to say, disagreed.

This is why I referred earlier to McCain’s “experience.” What is experience if your record proves you still don’t get it right. I’m not saying that McCain hasn’t ever gotten anything right. Yet, the invasion of Iraq was perhaps the most significant, game-changing decision made in the last decade, and McCain was on the wrong side of the fence. Moreover, recent events don’t vindicate McCain’s attacks on Obama’s experience. This was most evident during Obama’s trip to the middle east and Europe. Not only did the trip go off without a hitch and prove that Obama can hold his own with world leaders. It showed that he knows his policy and that Maliki likes his policy (much to the chagrin of the Bush administration, which tried to pass it off as a translation mistake).

McCain didn’t like it…

Notice Sen. McCain’s insistence that he knows Maliki and that he’s met Maliki numerous times. It’s certainly true, and McCain does it to show but it doesn’t change the fact that the two men appear to be at odds on policy.

Gov. Palin did this in her interview with Charlie Gibson, saying she had the opportunity to call Georgian president Mikheil SAAKASHVILI.

What this all comes down to is the fact history shows experience itself is not a presidential indicator (this goes for all occupations). Some of our worst presidents have been those who boasted the longest record previous to entering the White House, Richard Nixon comes to mind. Whereas, Abraham Lincoln and JFK are among history’s least “experienced” presidents. What many people have concluded from these facts is that “experience” itself is not, perhaps, as good a judge of success in a president as temperament and judgement are.

The experience issue in a double edged sword. McCain obviously has more policy experience, but what does that mean? Many people see voting for Obama as a risk, but the truth is the risks are equal. I see it as the ultimate choice about what makes you feel safe. I’ve been thinking for sometime that we have two choices when it comes to Iraq, neither of which guarantees the Iraqis or us ultimate solace from the threat of attack.

The first choice is obvious. We can “stay the course” in Iraq. This entails fighting the fight we went there to win. While this could end in a more peaceful Iraq, we don’t know when or at what costs. We also don’t know to what extent this will continue to stoke anti-American sentiment in the Middle East, as it is not pretty much roundly accepted as truth that the Iraq war as been the best recruitment advertisement for terrorist networks we could have possible offered.

Just as staying in Iraq offers no guarantees, neither does leaving. The damage has been done, and leaving a country in shambles isn’t likely to create stability in the immediate future. Both Iraq and Afghanistan are failed states, which we now well know serve as magnets for terrorist organizations can plot with relative freedom, often gaining favor with the locals by providing what the government can’t.

What I often find myself asking (myself) is why we don’t try to default towards the option that is the one we can feel better about. Bring those troops home, let them recoup, and get them back to protecting our borders. At home, let’s get back to fixing our economy, education system, and healthcare system. Abroad, let’s rebuild our national image, take on the unfair business and governmental practices that are impeding globalization, and continue the good work that George Bush has done in Africa.

Most of all, let’s take the lead in becoming the source of green technology, create thousands of green-collar jobs around the country wean ourselves off of foreign oil. Offshore drilling has some part in that, but it is not the centerpiece, as the Republicans seem preoccupied with. After all, the US Energy Information Administration says that “access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030.” Starting an intensive campaign to create renewable energy sources, equivalent to the program to get a man on the moon, would lower gas prices significantly once the demand for oil decreases.

What I’m saying is that while nothing guarantees an end to the threats we face, the two approaches we’re being offered right now offer considerably different possible benefits.

It appears that many troops might agree with me. Obama has raised six times more money money from active-duty troops than has McCain:

Here is the study cited in the story.

But how can this be? The surge has worked, right?

First of all, it’s important to understand that, as many people have latched on to the fact that Obama said he still would not vote for the surge, that his point was two-fold, and his decision puts him in line with top military officials who also didn’t support the surge. First, he had also proposed a plan for withdrawal during the debate about the surge. His plan was not the one chosen, so no one knows how his plan would have worked. The second part of his argument is that people seem to have lost sight of what the surge was meant to accomplish. It was not meant simply to lower violence, but to create conditions to allow for political reconciliation in Iraq. This point is arguable, and I am led to believe that Obama has more ground under his feet than does McCain. I believe this for three reasons:

As Bob Woodward’s new book The War Within suggests, and the White House has confirmed, that new, secret technology is largely responsible for pin-pointing insurgents and killing them.
The magnitude of the effect the surge had is immeasurable in that the aforementioned weapons, the Anbar Awakening, and several other factors play a mitigating role in determining whether the surge deserves as much credit as McCain gives or whether another program would have succeeded as well.
Michael Ware, who is one of few Western journalists to remain almost continuously in Iraq since before the war started and doesn’t support withdrawal, says that McCain doesn’t understand the reality on the ground in Iraq.

I want to start with Ware’s claim that McCain “has no idea what’s going on in Iraq.”

What has delivered the successes we’re seeing now as – drops of eighty to ninety percent in violence – and who doesn’t welcome that? – began two years ago, or more, when the US began engaging with its enemy, the Sunni insurgency, when it started bringing in al-Qaeda, and putting htem on the US government payroll, setting them loose on hardcore al-Qaeda elements, and setting them loose on Shia militias.

Paying former Insurgents? Indeed, one of the biggest changes came when the US started paying $10 a day to former insurgents to become “temporary” allies:

Creating a New Force

Some 70,000 former insurgents are now being paid $10 a day by the U.S. military. It costs about a quarter billion dollars a year.

It's a controversial strategy, and Macgregor warns that it's creating a parallel military force in Iraq that is made up almost entirely of Sunni Muslims.

"We need to understand that buying off your enemy is a good short-term solution to gain a respite from violence," he says, "but it's not a long-term solution to creating a legitimate political order inside a country that, quite frankly, is recovering from the worst sort of civil war."

That civil war has subsided, for now. It's diminished because of massive, internal migration, a movement of populations that has created de-facto ethnic cantons.

"Segregation works is effectively what the U.S. military is telling you," Macgregor says. "We have facilitated, whether on purpose or inadvertently, the division of the country. We are capitalizing on that now, and we are creating new militias out of Sunni insurgents. We're calling them concerned citizens and guardians. These people are not our friends, they do not like us, they do not want us in the country. Their goal is unchanged."

Macgregor, a decorated combat veteran and a former administration adviser, articulates a view that is privately shared by several former and current officers. It's not that they believe the plan isn't working. It's that they see it as a dangerous one with potentially destructive consequences.

But McCaffrey argues that at $10 a day, the gamble is worth taking.

"We can pay them that for 10 years if we had to," he says. "Better we provide an infusion of cash where we're keeping a local night watchman for us on duty than we conduct combat operation. Money isn't even a factor we ought to take into account."

The second element of this is the division that resulted from the ethnic fighting in parts of Iraq. Essentially, there are fewer people left to kill. Again, Ware brings up the “ethnic cleansing.” Talking to Think Progress, this is what Ware said about ethnic cleansing and the surge:

The sectarian cleansing of Baghdad has been–albeit tragic–one of the key elements to the drop in sectarian violence in the capital. Now, the US military says that violence has fallen by as much as 97 % over the past year, and it’s certainly true that we’re not finding the dozens of bodies on the streets tortured and mutilated, each morning, that we once were. Now, there’s a number of factors, but the cleansing of Baghdad is definitely a part of it. It’s a very simple concept: Baghdad has been divided; segregated into Sunni and Shia enclaves. The days of mixed neighborhoods are gone. They are literally protected by either Iranian backed or U.S. backed militias, who night and day guard those neighborhoods to prevent rival death squads, be they in government uniforms or be they under al-Qaeda banners - coming in and taking victims. They are also walled off — LITERALLY — by massive concrete blast barriers that the U.S. forces put in place. So, what’s happened is that the cleansing of Baghdad means there’s simply less people to kill and of those who remain, they are much harder for a death squads to get to - it’s as plain as that. […]

And it started - this segregation — was consolidated; was entrenched when the Americans started funding the Sunni militias. Now, that was done for a multitude of reasons and there are very positive benefits to that, but there are also deep costs and consequences to that. So, in very many ways, if anyone is telling you that the cleansing of Baghdad has not contributed to the fall in violence, then they either simply do not understand Baghdad or they are lying to you.

This all points out that, while the surge probably has had a positive effect on levels of violence in Iraq, it is not by any means the sole or leading factor.

And I haven’t eat touched on McCain’s experience in other conflicts. The funding of these “militias” in Iraq, for example, worries me because I know how the “freedom fighters” in Afghanistan in the 1980s became al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists of the twenty-first century. McCain was one of many politicians during the eighties who lauded the “Freedom Fighters” of the mujahideen, many of whom later became the Pakistan-backed groups known as the Taliban and al-Qaeda. I’m willing to let McCain slide for his support of the mujahideen against the Soviets. What’s interesting is that McCain a long history with dictators in Pakistan, and this, at least tacit, support has provided a boost for the terrorist groups – the Taliban and al-Qaeda – that they funded, as Middle East scholar Juan Cole pointed out in this long post on his site.

The first dictator was President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who got Pakistan’s nuclear project started, provided funding and training for mujahideen in Pakistan. He may have also played a large part (along with the US) in the radicalization of fighters being sent to Afghanistan, who would later become early al-Qaeda:

Firstly, the Afghan jihad against the Soviet troops. The intelligence agencies of the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan used the madrasas for radicalising the Muslim youth and motivating them to join the Afghan Mujahideen in their jihad against the Soviet troops. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) got a number of text books prepared with the help of Wahhabi clerics of Saudi Arabia projecting Communism as anti-Islam and calling for jihad against the Communist evil in Afghanistan, had them printed in printing presses in the US and distributed to the madrasas. According to Mr. Ishtiaq Ahmed, Associate Professor of political science at the Stockholm University:

The second dictator was General Pervez Musharraf who took power in a coup in 1999. Musharraf’s power grab nixed a plan to assassinate Osama bin Laden agreed to by his successor Nawaz Sharif:

The clandestine operation in 1999 was sponsored by the Clinton administration less than 12 months after US cruise missile strikes against Bin Laden's training camps in the country, according to the Washington Post.

In return, the newspaper said, Pakistan was promised economic aid and the lifting of sanctions imposed after it tested nuclear weapons. The assassination plan was abandoned later in 1999 when the Nawaz Sharif was ousted by the military as Pakistan's prime minister. According to the Washington Post, the plan was part of a more robust effort by the United States to get at Bin Laden and his al-Qaida network.

Musharraf, then, refused to act when it was well known that Abu Zubaidah was operating in Pakistan and only reluctantly stopped supporting the Taliban after September 11.

Before you tell me about how fragile Pakistan is and how badly we needed Musharraf to maintain some sort of stability, I know. I have mixed feelings about this.

As president, McCain would probably have no choice but to support someone like Musharraf. Speaking out against Musharraf as president would end his cooperation with the war on terror and likely further destabilize Pakistan, the country that many foreign policy experts say is far more worrisome than any other country in the region. Yet, surely the “maverick” senator in the party that seemed to be particularly unmiffed by Musharraf’s military rule could have taken a harder line.

The conclusions I’ve drawn from this are that McCain’s experience offers the same level of risk – by virtue of his judgement – that Obama’s supposed “lack of experience” does, and I’d rather take the later risk, because Obama has proven to have a good grasp of how the world works.

Taxes and the Economy

Back to present campaign lies. McCain has been touting his tax plan for quite some time, boasting that he would continue the Bush tax cuts, while his opponent would raise them. People like Romney and Giuliani recited the mantra almost foaming at the mouth during the Republican National Convention. It’s just simply not true for eighty percent of Americans. Most of us will pay lower taxes under an Obama administration.

Let’s get started:

Here’s the non-partisan Tax Policy Center’s numbers that are cited in the above video.

So many people, though, have no idea that this is true, and Obama has himself to blame for that for not drilling it into people’s heads as the Republicans have the, albeit false, idea that Obama will raise their taxes:

Here's the problem: Few voters know that Obama would cut the taxes of the vast majority of Americans by far more than McCain would. Few know Obama would guarantee everyone access to health care or that McCain's health plan might endanger coverage many already have. Few know that Obama has a coherent program to create new jobs through public investment in roads, bridges, transit, and green technologies.

The Obama campaign is apparently finally addressing this:

It gets worse, though. Under Obama, we’ll have comprehensive health care reform, make health care available for the millions who can’t afford it (like me). Yet, under McCain, not only will we pay higher taxes, many people will also pay what the McCain campaign has admitted twice “would have the effect of increasing tax payments for some workers, primarily those with high incomes and expensive health plans”:

To do so he is proposing a major tax change that he hopes will make the insurance marketplace more competitive and less expensive in part by encouraging more people to buy health insurance on their own instead of receiving it from their employers.

The 71 percent of insured Americans who get their health coverage through their employers now enjoy a significant advantage because the money spent by employers on their health coverage is excluded from their taxable income. If employers chose to pay that share of a worker’s compensation as wages rather than benefits, the income would be taxable.

This wouldn’t necessarily only effect those with “gold-plated” policies:

health analysts point out that middle-income workers with conventional coverage could conceivably pay more in regions where insurance costs are high.

Moreover:

But make no mistake: this plan will do little or nothing for those who do not have insurance now--unless they are young and healthy--and it may well hurt a fair number of workers, especially unionized workers, who get gold-plated benefits from their employers.

It will certainly do nothing for families with members who have pre-existing conditions or children with special needs--because it makes no provision to regulate the insurers, forcing them to cover all comers at "community" rates that don't discriminate against the people who need health insurance most.

So, it essentially doesn’t address the problem faced by the millions who have no health insurance.

Health is an integral part of the “pursuit of happiness.” I believe in small government, and I certainly don’t believe it is the government’s business to make sure you are comfortable and content. Yet, the government should be required to provide the tools – education and healthcare, for example – so that everyone is able to take part in that pursuit of happiness, fail as they might.

Despite all of the evidence, McCain has continuously lied about Obama’s tax plan. Factcheck has three McCain ads that have distorted his opponents tax plan, in the most recent of which McCain asserts that Obama proposed “painful tax increases” for working families.

In speaking of the economy in general, it has been interesting to see people try to describe Obama, along with his economic advisor Austan Goolsbee. People don’t tend to know where to place him, on the right, the left, or libertarian. This team has garnered praise from conservatives and liberals alike, as well as criticism. The fact that Obama spent time at the University of Chicago, which has spawned many a conservative and neo-conservative, and Goolsbee is a professor there has had an effect on these “liberals.” They’ve become “‘University of Chicago’ Democrats.”

It’s because of this, perhaps, that George Will, the conservative commentator, had these “praiseworthy” comments for Obama’s adviser:

Economics is the only academic discipline that in recent decades has moved in the direction that America and much of the world has moved, to the right. Goolsbee no doubt has lots of dubious ideas -- he is, after all, a Democrat -- about how government can creatively fiddle with the market's allocation of wealth and opportunity. But he seems to be the sort of person -- amiable, empirical and reasonable -- you would want at the elbow of a Democratic president, if such there must be.

It very well may be why there are so many “Obamacans” who have drifted to Obama for economic reasons, such as the son of conservative Economic guru Milton Friedman (who is also a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, as was his father).

Palin

[This is a good video to watch as a lead-up to all of the lies in this section. I’m not posting it, because it plays automatically]

Here's I fear the worst harm that may be done by this selection. The McCain campaign's slogan is "country first." It's a good slogan, and it aptly describes John McCain, one of the most self-sacrificing, gallant, and honorable men ever to seek the presidency.

But question: If it were your decision, and you were putting your country first, would you put an untested small-town mayor a heartbeat away from the presidency?

That’s conservative columnist David Frum at the National Review.

As I said before, her nomination, and her subsequent fire-tongued speech at the RNC, was what brought me to write this. Had she not had such a positive, invigorating effect for the McCain campaign, I would not be wasting my typhoon holiday writing this.

Governor Sarah Palin bring nothing to the McCain campaign. I cannot stress how strongly I feel this, and the fact that so many people are energized by the lies that the McCain-Palin campaign has been spewing, to me, is disheartening.

Before I proceed, let me remind you that until two weeks ago, I thought McCain would me a great president and would have voted for him without hesitation in 2000 and 2004.

First of all, it is no small accomplishment for anyone, man or woman, to become governor. I don’t discount her successes. It’s just that (1) I don’t think that any of her accomplishments make her ready to be president. After all, she’s been governor for less time than McCain has been running for president, and, no, she was not in government when Obama was a community organizer, she was a sports reporter.

The fact that the McCain campaign would try to compare her experience to Obama’s is laughable. It is to be noted that during the RNC when the likes of Giuliani and Palin herself mocked Obama’s work as a community organizer (the kind of thing an advocate of small government and faith based programs should laud) they were comparing Palin now to Obama as a twenty-something.

Foreign Policy

One of the most poignant and precise analyses I ever heard of why George W. Bush was so bad at foreign policy was that “he has a tragic lack of curiosity.” He never seemed to care about the world. In coming into the White House, he new next to nothing about the world outside ‘mairka. As a presidential candidate he asked his unofficial forieng policy tutor, Prince Bandar from Saudi Arabia why he kept getting briefings on North Korea, wondering why he was supposed to care about them.

Palin, to me, screams George Bush. Not only does she have no foreign policy experience (no being close to Russia and Canada doesn’t count and neither does spending two days in Kuwait), she doesn’t appear to have an interest in it. She’s never gone to see the world. Her first passport was issued in 2006, and the McCain-Palin campaign has twice revised the details about her two-night trip to Kuwait in 2007:

Following her selection last month as John McCain's running mate, aides said Palin had traveled to Ireland, Germany, Kuwait, and Iraq to meet with members of the Alaska National Guard. During that trip she was said to have visited a "military outpost" inside Iraq. The campaign has since repeated that Palin's foreign travel included an excursion into the Iraq battle zone.

But in response to queries about the details of her trip, campaign aides and National Guard officials in Alaska said by telephone yesterday that she did not venture beyond the Kuwait-Iraq border when she visited Khabari Alawazem Crossing, also known as "K-Crossing," on July 25, 2007.

Asked to clarify where she traveled in Iraq, Palin's spokeswoman, Maria Comella, confirmed that "She visited a military outpost on the other side of the Kuwait-Iraq border."

It was the second such clarification in as many weeks of the itinerary of what Palin has called "the trip of a lifetime." Earlier, the campaign acknowledged that Palin made only a refueling stop in Ireland.

To make things worse, she dug up the corpse of the Bush-Cheney lie that got us into the war in Iraq to begin with when she sent her son off to Iraq on September 11, 2008, saying “"You'll be there to defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the deaths of thousands of Americans." It’s been a while since we heard that one, since, well, it’s been proven to be a lie.

Spending

Let’s start with the pork and the earmarks.

Rick Davis tries to defend it all on Fox

Here’s McCain making a very good point about how the people who died in I-35W bridge collapse might have been saved if the government had invested money in existing infrastructe instead of wasting the money on “pork barrel, earmark projects” like the one his future running mate was advocating in Alaska.

via videosift.com

Of course, the bridge to nowhere wasn’t the only pork that Palin sought. Here’s a pdf from Senator Ted Stevens’ website (Stevens is the less than savory politician who made the bridge to nowhere famous). This document outlines all 39 of Governor Palin’s the earmark requests.

Here’s TPM talking about it:

Still not finished with the sloppy spending. It seems that not only did she ask for tons of earmarks, but in 19 months as governor, she’s gotten the taxpayers to pay for 312 nights at home.

That’s not spending we can believe in Sen. McCain.

The Liberal Media

McCain, who has been a media sweetheart for at least a decade – despite his complaints over the last two months – has now allowed his campaign to

The “media” is back on the opposite team, because they “did stuff to this family” that was unprecedented. Even though the McCain campaign has yet, to my knowledge, to explain what media outlets or democrats were causing the Palin family so much pain:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin sent out a fundraising solicitation today that charged that "the Obama/Biden Democrats have been vicious in their attacks directed toward me, my family and John McCain."

I asked spokespeople of the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee just which "Obama/Biden Democrats" they're referring to.

The response I got was that Obama spokesman Mark Bubriski erroneously attacked Palin as a supporter of Pat Buchanan.

That's it. That's the evidence.

An attack on Palin herself.

Since accepting the nomination, Gov. Palin has done all of one interview (with ABC’s Charlie Gibson), and her next interview is with Sean Hannity – who can hardly be expected to push her on the issues.

This begs the question: if she’s ready, why hide her away?

Put it is also a demonstration of just how unfair this is to all of us. We do not get the opportunity to see how Palin will react to the barrage of questions she’ll be subjected to if she is indeed the president of the free world, which she could feasibly be in a little over four months if the oldest man elected president, God forbid, were to pass.

I was amazed at how well Obama handled Bill O’Reilly’s questions recently, and I’d be interested in seeing Palin sit down with, say, Keith Olbermann or Chris Matthews, and see how she holds up.

Executive Experience

Palin has executive experience. That’s undeniable. However, as with my previous comments on the idea of “experience” in general, I take this with a grain of salt. Palin’s judgement in places of power shows more about what kind of president she would make than does the sheer fact that she has “executive experience.”

The issues above and below should present plenty of valid questions about Gov. Palin’s judgement.

I’d just like to note that it’s really strange of McCain to claim that part of Palin’s “executive experience” was heading up the Parent Teacher Association, which she didn’t. If she had been, though, would that really be a qualification for the White House? Yes, it may be relevant in showing that she cares about education and she’s a good parent, but (1) it’s not true and (2) that’s hardly the “executive experience” people are looking for.

NOTE: The McCain campaign’s response to Politifact for researching that issue:

“Of all the smears you could look into against Gov. Palin—that she supported Pat Buchanan (we actually ruled that False ), that she was a member of the Alaska Independence Party, that her baby was really her daughter’s — you all want to investigate her career in the PTA? Don’t waste our time.”

Yet, the claim made by McCain was, after all, a lie.

Finally, let me just note that with all of the talk about “executive experience,” you’d think that the McCain-Palin campaign were switching the ticket to Palin-McCain, since by their own definition, she has more valuable experience than he does.

Note that McCain repeats several blatant lies and exaggerations in this interview.

She is not the “commander-in-chief of the Alaska Guard.”
Obama thinks Iran is a minor irritant.
Surge (talked about above)
Traveling to Kuwait
20 percent of our energy comes from Alaska
“When she was in government, Obama was a community organizer.”
Obama voted present 130 times in Illinois

Let’s go down the list:

1. She is not the commander-in-chief of the Alaska Guard

Maj. Gen. Craig Campbell, adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, considers Palin "extremely responsive and smart" and says she is in charge when it comes to in-state services, such as emergencies and natural disasters where the National Guard is the first responder.

But, in an interview with The Associated Press on Sunday, he said he and Palin play no role in national defense activities, even when they involve the Alaska National Guard. The entire operation is under federal control, and the governor is not briefed on situations.

2. Obama never said Iran was a minor threat. McCain made an ad saying that, and factcheck debunked it:

Strong countries and strong presidents talk to their adversaries. That's what Kennedy did with Khrushchev. That's what Reagan did with Gorbachev. That's what Nixon did with Mao. I mean think about it. Iran, Cuba, Venezuela – these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying we're going to wipe you off the planet.

3. Surge above. Long story short, there is no way anyone can say the surge worked because no one knows exactly what the surge was supposed to do.

4. She traveled for two nights to Kuwait. They lied twice about where she went. She just went to Kuwait for two nights. Hardly a foreign policy qualification.

5. Twenty percent of our energy does not come from Alaska. According again to factcheck, 3.5 percent of our energy comes from Alaska:

Palin claims Alaska "produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy." That's not true.

Alaska did produce 14 percent of all the oil from U.S. wells last year, but that's a far cry from all the "energy" produced in the U.S.

Alaska's share of domestic energy production was 3.5 percent, according to the official figures kept by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

And if by "supply" Palin meant all the energy consumed in the U.S., and not just produced here, then Alaska's production accounted for only 2.4 percent.

6. Already mentioned above. She was a sports reporter when he was a community organizer.

7. This the only one of the seven comments that really has any teeth, but it’s still not that great of an attack:

Obama says some of his votes were part of intricate parliamentary maneuvering, not just avoiding political heat. The New York Times examined the issue in December and found a mixed record: "Sometimes the 'present' votes were in line with instructions from Democratic leaders or because he objected to provisions in bills that he might otherwise support," the paper reported. "At other times, Mr. Obama voted present on questions that had overwhelming bipartisan support. In at least a few cases, the issue was politically sensitive."

Moral Issues

Much has been made of allegations that Gov. Palin banned books. She didn’t.

However, she did ask about the hypothetical possibility of banning books, then fired the librarian who didn’t give her the response she wanted.

Wouldn’t anyone be worried about the mayor asking about banning books? Even if it’s a hypothetical, why would a major ask that?

The New York Times has an extensive five-page article out today about Palin’s penchant for censorship and secrecy in which the banning of books is talked about:

The new mayor also tended carefully to her evangelical base. She appointed a pastor to the town planning board. And she began to eye the library. For years, social conservatives had pressed the library director to remove books they considered immoral.

“People would bring books back censored,” recalled former Mayor John Stein, Ms. Palin’s predecessor. “Pages would get marked up or torn out.”

Witnesses and contemporary news accounts say Ms. Palin asked the librarian about removing books from the shelves. The McCain-Palin presidential campaign says Ms. Palin never advocated censorship.

But in 1995, Ms. Palin, then a city councilwoman, told colleagues that she had noticed the book “Daddy’s Roommate” on the shelves and that it did not belong there, according to Ms. Chase and Mr. Stein. Ms. Chase read the book, which helps children understand homosexuality, and said it was inoffensive; she suggested that Ms. Palin read it.

“Sarah said she didn’t need to read that stuff,” Ms. Chase said. “It was disturbing that someone would be willing to remove a book from the library and she didn’t even read it.”

“I’m still proud of Sarah,” she added, “but she scares the bejeebers out of me.”

Another moral issue that I know is very touchy is the issue of her daughter’s pregnancy. Right off the bat, let me clear that I am not judging her daughter. I have no problem with their decision.

What I do have a problem with is the fact that Palin (like Bush) supports abstinence-only sex education. Again, let me be clear that I think abortion and pre-marital sex are wrong and dangerous, but I also think that abstinence-only sex ed and prohibition of abortions is dangerous and unrealistic. I went to a Baptist middle school and a Catholic high school, both of which offered sex-ed courses. They worked perfectly, stressing abstinence, but teaching us about what would happen how to be safe. Even at my Catholic school, we learned about contraception, only after learning the Catholic churches view of it.

Abstinence-only education is a farce, and it’s rife with double-standards:

What's galling is this: When the subject is a pregnancy to an unwed, minority teenage mother growing up in some (presumably Democratic) urban area, that pregnancy becomes fodder for lectures from conservatives about bad parenting, the perils of welfare spending and so on. But when the subject is a pregnancy to an unwed, white teenager from some small town in a Republican state, that pregnancy is...a celebration of the wonders of God's magnificence--and choosing life!

It’s also been proven horribly ineffective:

Programs teaching U.S. schoolchildren to abstain from sex have not cut teen pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases or delayed the age at which sex begins, health groups told Congress on Wednesday.

The Bush administration, however, voiced continuing support for such programs during a hearing before a House of Representatives panel even as many Democrats called for cutting off federal money for so-called abstinence-only instruction.

“Vast sums of federal monies continue to be directed toward these programs. And, in fact, there is evidence to suggest that some of these programs are even harmful and have negative consequences by not providing adequate information for those teens who do become sexually active,” Dr. Margaret Blythe of the American Academy of Pediatrics told the committee.

This brings me to something that Obama said at the Saddleback forum with Rick Warren. In talking about abortion, he said there are certain issues many of us will always disagree on, like abortion and abstinence-only sex ed, but there are certain things we can always agree on, like the need to lower the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. He has a point. We need a president who is going to support common sense initiatives like that.

Alaska Independence Party

I can’t believe this hasn’t become an issue. Did I miss a memo, or was Sarah Palin’s husband really a member of an organization that supports Alaska’s secession from the United States? Whose leader said, “The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government”?

No. I didn’t miss the memo, but apparently the press did. The same party and press that railed on Michelle Obama for her statement about being proud of her country for the first time seeing her husband run for president is mum on Palin’s husband’s membership in and her close involvement with the Alaskan Independence Party, which seeks the independence of Alaska.

Where is the party of patriotism on this one? And where is the media that loves so much to ask rhetorically “Do the Obama’s love their country?”

In the end…

It’s now been two days of typhoon here in Taiwan. I’ve spent, probably, ten more hours than I had planned on this essay. As I mentioned, I’ve got plenty of other things regarding my marriage, my graduate school applications, and our move back to the United States.

That is probably a good point to note. I’m writing this, not because I think my country is a bad place. I’m writing this because I feel that my country can always be better and I’m frustrated by the people who seem to contented by the fact that United States is, in so many ways, the best. Few of us would ever doubt that there are ways that if could be better.

I will soon be bringing the love of my life back to the United States to settle down after four years and three continents together. We plan on starting our life and our family together in the United States. I want to do my part to always make sure it’s on the right track, and I’m frustrated that I’m not there right now, because I would do all that I can to get Sen. Obama elected.

I’m not there, though, so I can’t. In my frustration, though, I figured I could put this out there on the “intertubes.” Maybe other people who once respect John McCain would see this and, perhaps, change their minds and pass it on. I’ve tried to be as honest as I can be in writing this, and the only way it will be effective is if people get those close to them to read it.

What I’d like to say in closing is that there is on overriding point that encapsulates all of the points made here: the Republicans don’t deserve this win. I was willing to push this to the back of mind, believing that they had nominated perhaps the most honorable man possible to reform their party. Yet, he’s proven too weak it. It pains me to say that, but I’d be lying if I said otherwise. He’s caved to the religious right, he’s caved to the politics of fear, he’s caved to the “Washington tactics” that put winning before country.

So, now, they don’t deserve it. They controlled all three branches of government for years, and they’ve succeeded in curtailing our civil liberties; straining our military; outsourcing the effort to greedy companies that overcharged the people and put our soldiers in dangers; staining our national image and, in doing so, empowering dictators who could point to America and say “If you can do it so can I”; destroying our economy; facilitating Enron; telling a grieving nation to go shopping when they should have told us that we were going to become the leaders in renewable energies; raising an uproar over Terry Schivo; bothing Katrina; empowering China and straining democracy in Taiwan, one of the freest, most democratic countries in Asia; putting cronies in high places; and the list goes on and on.

The don’t deserve it. Not just Bush and Cheney. The whole party. They don’t deserve it. The sad truth is, though, that with their latest deceitful tactics, the might win.

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