DISQUS

michael cook · 1 year ago

Touche, Mr. Armerding.
You've once again hit a pretty big nail on the head.
I'm a liberal Democrat who's as tired of all this "identity politics" as many conservatives are.
I don't support Hillary Clinton, but it's not because she's a woman, but because she put her own career interests ahead of the nation's interests out of fear of being smeared as "unpatriotic" and "soft on terror" by the Rovian, GOP slime machine and voted for the Bushies march of folly in Iraq.
She enabled them, with her vote on Iraq, to drop the very legitimate ball in Afghanistan to pursue the Bush/Hussein family feud in Iraq.
The world is now paying a very heavy price, from Palestine to Pakistan, for the Bushies' invasion and Hillary's enabling of it.
And still, she won't say her vote was a mistake.
That's why I don't support her. It has nothing to do with her gender.
Likewise, I am supporting Barack Obama, not because he is a mulatto, oops, did I say that? I meant mixed race, but because he opposed this fiasco in Iraq from the get go and he does seem to have the potential to bring a wide variety of people together. And that is something that's been lacking in this country for far too long.
And finally, I disagree with John McCain on almost every domestic and economic issue he's taken a stand on. But i agree with him on one big issue, albeit perhaps for different reasons. That issue is Iraq.
I don't believe for one minute troops are coming home from Iraq any time soon, no matter who becomes president in 2009.
They can't. It matters not a whit the invasion should never have happened, it did.
the Bushies and their bipartisan enablers in Congress created a power vacuum in Iraq and opened a Pandora's Box that threatens the entire region.
Lest anyone doubt what I'm saying, just look at the current situation in pakistan.
Troops aren't coming home ANYTIME soon, in fact, I'd bet troop numbers are going to increase throughout the region.
John Mccain has the guts to tell the American people those hard truths. To date, Hillary and barack have not, even though I believe they know it to be the case. To do so would irritate and alienate the all important ultra left base of the Democratic party when its support is essential to any candidate vying in the primaries.
That said, I'm not going to vote for John McCain because of his domestic and economic policies, not because of his age.
Age, gender, and race, are really, or should be, non-issues.
It is the ISSUES that should determine how we choose our candidates.
As the first decade of the 21st approaches its end, identity politics should be as passe as the BeeGees, Olivia Newton John, and Happy Days.