As a general rule, it's unwise to quote someone out of context, lest their original, true meaning be completely distorted. Nonetheless, this quote that I read today is extraordinary in its truth and beauty both within and beyond its original context, and independently of she who spoke.

That said, our current Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, was interviewed this week regarding her thoughts on Senator Obama's recent speech about race in America. As a follow-up question, she was asked today "what Americans had learned about race since the civil rights movement." (I'm quoting from the Associated Press article written by Sue Pleming.) Her response is astoundingly true, far beyond the scope of the question posed:

"You have to work hard every day to make the extraordinary, moving and inspirational words of our founding documents a reality for all Americans."
--Condoleezza Rice

Of all the things that have been said so far during this campaign season, that one sentiment (uttered by a non-contestant, no less) rings the truest of all.

Here are a few random thoughts that have been on my mind of late regarding the national presidential primary season for 2008:

***

I have been maintaining for some time now that this presidential election is the Democrats' to lose, and they are doing everything they can to do just that. This isn't about policy or principles or character -- these races rarely ever are, no matter how much we might like to think otherwise. There are several reasons that the Republicans face a disadvantage this election cycle:

First and foremost, the outgoing incumbent remains very unpopular, so his party will take a little bit of a hit for that.

Second, when the economy slows down, the incumbent's party takes a hit for that, as well.

Third, when the Dems took over Congress in 2006, they were unable to do anything with their success. Voters who wanted to see "change" haven't seen it yet, so they may be more inclined to seek that change in the White House, which again hits the incumbent party.

Yet as circumstances would have it, the Democrats are doing the kinds of things that tend toward weakening their own cause. A bitter and divisive primary season is one obvious example. The cynicism of the candidates' campaigns is another: Sen. Clinton gets choked up just before Super Tuesday because, hey, it worked before in New Hampshire! (That's just one example.) I'm not sure what bothers me more, the obvious cynicism behind such ploys, or the fact that they seem to work (at least, in the short run). Both of the major candidates for the D's are doing this, and both of them are neck and neck in the delegate count.

The Democrats also have failed to learn from past mistakes. Sen. Ted Kennedy helped to split the party in 1980 by running against Carter in the primary, and that definitely hurt his party's cause that year in the general election. He likewise turned against the nominal front-runner this time, and a former strong supporter of his, when he chose to endorse Sen. Obama over Sen. Clinton last week. The former first lady still took Massachusetts in their primary, but did Kennedy's endorsement help to buoy Obama's challenge and further draw out the race? I'm inclined to think so.

History has shown us that the more divided the party as it goes deep into the nomination cycle, the harder it is to unite against their opponents in the general election. Think of what Kennedy's bid did to the Democrats in 1980, or what Reagan's did to Ford's campaign in 1976.

The fact that the Democrats will take longer to pick a decisive front runner than the Republicans is not a deal-breaker for this election. It is *still* theirs (the Democrats) to lose. The Republicans remain divided, themselves. The neo-cons and the religious right of the Republican party are still not sure that they trust Sen. McCain. Here, the Democrats have an advantage: either Democratic candidate is sure to be backed by the Progressive tail that wags the donkey, while the Republican candidate may not get the full support of the neo-conservative tail that wags the elephant.

Nonetheless, if the Republicans do end up choosing a moderate (and nothing would push McCain more firmly into the moderate camp than having the neo-cons abandon him), how well is the neo-liberal platform of the Progressives going to play in the general election? With Clinton and Obama trying to out-socialist each other with promises of entitlements (such as Clinton's promise of a $5,000 grant for every child born) and nationalizing medicine (at which Hillary failed during Bill Clinton's first year in office), they need to be careful not to promise bread and circuses to their base now that could alienate them to the larger public in November.

***

As I alluded above and in previous posts, I'm intensely interested in seeing if the neo-cons and the religious right are truly inclined to abandon their party-of-choice if their party-of-choice nominates someone with whom they are uneasy. Sen. McCain does seem to be headed for the nomination.

If the neo-cons decide to abandon him, and if he wins the general election anyway, he won't owe them any favors. It seems to me that the neo-cons turn their backs on the Republican party at their own peril.

***

Memo to Gov. Romney: Stop whining about "dirty tricks." These exact same dirty tricks were played by Bush's supporters on McCain in 2000 (for example, "push polls" in South Carolina that insinuated that McCain's Vietnamese daughter was actually his love child born out of wedlock, rather than his adopted child, as is actually the case), and they will be used again by supporters of the Democratic nominee in the general election.

For that matter, how confident are you that none of your supporters have used any dirty tricks against your own opponents?

I do not endorse dirty trickery. But whining about dirty tricks won't help your cause. Whining that your opponent tricked you in a debate is also not a prudent strategy. If you can't handle a little sneakiness during a debate with McCain, how are Republicans going to trust you to hold your own in a debate with Clinton or Obama?

C'mon, dude. Get a new debate coach and move on.

***

It seems lately that now, as much as ever, the campaign is more about the campaign than about anything else. Issues? Character? Bah. According to various polls, people are voting on the basis of how the campaigns are being conducted. In South Carolina, for example, many people said that Bill Clinton's campaigning on behalf of Hillary influenced their vote -- negatively, as a general rule. Solution? Ask Bill to tone it down, and voila! Problem goes away.

No change in message... but then again, the news isn't covering the message. They are covering whether Hillary teared up, or how McCain's campaign overcame setbacks from six months ago, or whether it was wise for a candidate to bank his entire strategy on winning Florida. Floridians didn't reject Mayor Giuliani's message. They rejected his campaign strategy.

To paraphrase a previously successful campaign, "It's the campaign strategy, stupid."

***

Why are Gov. Romney and Gov. Huckabee still in the race, even though they are improbable to win the Republican nomination? Here's a guess: it could be that Romney wants to set himself up for being a viable candidate in 2012 or 2016, or perhaps he hopes Huckabee will drop out and then he'll be able to leverage his support from the neo-cons to still have a shot at winning in 2008. As for Huckabee... by playing spoiler to Romney, he might not only be setting himself up as a potentially viable presidential candidate in the future, but may be trying to win a spot on the ticket as nominee for VP with McCain.

And if Huckabee does end up on a McCain ticket, what does that do to McCain's street cred with the neo-cons and religious right? Or, for that matter, with the moderates of both parties? A McCain-Huckabee ticket has the potential to unite the party better than any other pairing, but it also has the potential to alienate *everybody*. Hmmm.

***

I still think Sen. Clinton is the odds-on favorite to win the Dem's nomination. Then again, I still expected the Patriots to win the Super Bowl, even with only seconds left on the clock and the Pats down by three. So, what do I know?

***

My last thought for the day (and if you've read through all this so far... my proverbial hat is off to you):

It's not enough to vote. If you believe in your candidate, you need to donate money to their campaign. If the stakes are high enough that it matters to you who wins, your donation will make more of a difference than just your vote alone.

Make your checks out to "Friends of Allan Rousselle."

[Memory is fallible. I could have taken the time to look up the details below to be sure I had them right, but what the heck, the following is what I *remember*, whether it's a confabulation of disparate events or an accurate record of the election season(s) in question....]

I was recently asked for my thoughts about Presidential candidate Mitt Romney. My response was:

Mitt Romney was not governor when I lived there, but he did run for Senate (against Ted Kennedy) while I lived in Massachusetts. I was somewhat active in the Republican party leadership at the time, and he phoned me once to ask for my endorsement leading up to the highly contested Republican primary (which he won).

Here's what I remember in talking with him: very little. He asked for my endorsement, I asked what made him a better candidate than the other republicans, and he gave me the standard pat answers that made absolutely no impression whatsoever. If I ended up endorsing him for the primaries, as I seem to recall, it was because, well, he was the only one who asked.

But once he won the primary and went after Kennedy, then I got to see him in action. There were several televised debates between the two, and I watched. Romney was the first challenger in a very long time who had a shot of beating Kennedy, which made it an exciting race.

The debates were a bit unsettling, however. Romney's message was, ultimately, this: I'll do everything that Kennedy would do, the only difference is, I'm not a Kennedy.

Keep in mind that Kennedy's politics still play very well in Massachusetts, even though they voted several Republican governors in a row following Bill Weld's taking the seat away from Democrat Michael Dukakis (remember him?). Romney essentially said, hey, I can champion those Massachusetts-y politics just as well as Kennedy can, but at least I'm not a bloated drunken embarrassment. Nationalized medicine? Sure, why not! (But no one will die in my car, wink, wink.) Etc., etc.

Kennedy was suffering from an image problem even worse that year than usual; he was involved in a rape trial (the alleged rape having taken place in his beach house in Florida, I think, and allegedly being perpetrated by his nephew) and did not look so good; and his nose was glowing even redder than usual in his television appearances for much of that year. But, as he always does for his campaigns, he cleaned up quite well during the debates.

Kennedy's message that year was: well, if there's no difference between Romney and me in terms of politics, you have to vote for me because I'm a senior ranking democrat, and we own the Senate! If you re-elect me, I'll continue to chair important committees, etc. Romney won't be able to do that.

Romney lost (obviously), and deservedly so. There were a few funny ironies that came out of this, however. The biggest irony was that this was the year that Newt Gingrich led the charge for Republicans to (successfully) re-take the House and the Senate, so that Kennedy was no longer a senior-ranking majority party Senator. He was a senior-ranking *minority* party Senator, which means no chairmanships, and his entire campaign was based upon a false premise. Likewise, Romney thought that all he had to do to win was not be Kennedy in name. It turns out, he also needed to not be Kennedy in his politics. He learned this lesson.

As you know, Romney was eventually elected Governor of Massachusetts, and from what I've heard, he did an okay job. As it turns out, he's not as liberal as Kennedy -- his message to that effect when he ran against Kennedy didn't play well enough to win that race, so he modified his positions to be less liberal -- but he wasn't necessarily as neo-conservative as George W. Bush, either. In pursuing the national nomination, he has further moved toward the neo-conservative camp, but that was not how things played during his governorship.

My opinion, having seen his career develop, is that he is more interested in holding the office than he is interested in what he can do with it. In this respect, he reminds me of Bill Clinton. He is pragmatic, which is good, and a competent administrator once elected, but he does not appear to me to be a man of strong conviction, so what you see in him may change as the political winds shift. He's more likely to keep his pants zipped; but otherwise, he strikes me as rather Clintonian in his opportunism.

This may not necessarily be a bad thing, but I tend to want my candidates to at least stand for *something*. I think that if he is elected, he'll likely be a competent caretaker of the office, but that's about the best I could hope for from him.

...and THAT is my Mitt Romney story. Let the incendiary comments begin!

I accidentally listened to the radio the other day. In the middle of the day, our local hard rock station airs a talk show (why? I have no idea), and one of my co-workers was listening to it. I think the show is called something along the lines of "The Church of Laslo", and I'm guessing it's a tongue-in-cheek political commentary deal, with the occasional hard rock tune thrown in just to keep it's FM street cred.

The day in question was the day or two after the Iowa caucus, wherein candidate Obama scored slightly higher among the democrat contenders than candidates Edwards and Clinton. (Why are the news outlets reporting this as a decisive victory for Obama? I recall reading in an AP article that he netted 15 electoral delegates, while Hilary Clinton netted 14 delegates, and John Edwards, 13. This is hardly a winner-take-all situation.)

So, this Laslo fellow was playing clips from Barack Obama's "victory" speech and positively gushing about it, and taking phone calls from listeners who were also gushing about it.

Barack Obama is very well spoken, and he clearly has poise, charm, and charisma. But, then again, so does former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who captured the most Republican delegates at the Iowa caucuses. Huckabee is an interesting case. The first time I encountered him, he was a guest on The Daily Show (during a two-week period where I was catching the show on iTunes), and I was very impressed with his poise and common sensical style. I liked him instantly. Even at the time, it was clear he was planning to run for office in 2008.

But for me, charm and poise are not enough. I liked Huckabee until I noticed that he was spouting nonsense about science -- essentially claiming that scientists are idiots who believe that humming birds can't fly, even though they obviously do, so why should anyone take them seriously about evolution? Such blatant, obnoxious, willful ignorance being worn as a badge of honor automatically discredits him as a viable candidate for higher office. In our increasingly science and technology-based society, willful ignorance of reality and scorn for evidence-based thinking is a dangerous character flaw.

So if it's not just how you say it, but also what you say that matters, then what are we to make of this Barack Obama speech that radio guy Laslo was so effusive about? Candidate Obama talked about how "they" said "we" couldn't do it, but "you" (the people of Iowa) made it happen, that "you" showed the triumph of unity and coming together over the divisiveness of the past, blah, blah, blah. That Iowans have sent a very clear message "for change".

Now, the cynic in me says: wait a minute. Candidate Obama, dude, you only got 37.6% of the democrat vote in Iowa. Let me repeat that: 37.6% of the vote of one party. His two strongest rivals, Clinton and Edwards, each took in just under thirty percent of the democrat vote. This is unity? This is coming together? This is a mandate for change?

Read the text of Obama's speech here. Go ahead; it's a quick read. It was, after all, written for the masses.

Now, imagine that Hillary Clinton read this speech. Now imagine Edwards delivering this speech. Now Huckabee. McCain. Heck, even Mitt Romney recently (like, yesterday) called himself the "candidate of conservative change." (Doesn't our current President call himself a conservative?) So go ahead, imagine Mitt Romney giving this speech.

Is there a single item in this speech that is specific to Obama? Does he, in fact, say anything at all that wouldn't be, couldn't be, or hasn't already been said by any other candidate for this office in 2008? And, truly, does any of it make sense?

[Note: yes, there is a brief mention of having improved health care in Illinois, and I'm not sure why or how he can make such a claim, but substitute the name of the state with the home state of your candidate of choice. Likewise, he thanks his wife, the "rock" of his family. I suppose Clinton might not necessarily specifically call out her husband. But, that's just a quibble. And yes, there is a specific reference to the Iraq war that would be said by any Democrat, but that Republican candidates would likely leave out.]

You said the time has come to move beyond the bitterness and pettiness and anger that's consumed Washington.
--Barack Obama

Really? How? By giving a slim lead in the vote to someone who has been using negative ad campaigns against his biggest rival?

While I mentioned being cynical about Obama's victory, I'm not being cynical at all about his speech. I have no complaints about his speech. It is as fine a speech-that-doesn't-say-anything as I've read or heard by any number of Presidential candidates. American history textbooks are packed with examples of this kind of rhetoric, of assuming victory when there isn't even a plurality; of lauding motherhood and apple pie even though "they" don't like motherhood and apple pie.

Rather, what concerns me is when people gobble up reheated french fries (or, if you're a neo-con, "freedom fries") and rave about it as if it were el Gaucho filet mignon. Pardon me for saying so, but where's the beef?

When all candidates claim to stand for "change", how are they not interchangeable?

What's the best way to pick your President? What criteria best serve you to make a decision during primary/caucus/election season?

Public Statements and Debates: There's an interesting site at http://www.myelectionchoices.com/ that lists a number of statements made by presidential candidates, with the statements grouped by category. The idea is that you check the boxes next to the comments you agree with, and then when you're done, the site tallies up which candidates' stated positions are most in line with your own.

It's a fascinating idea, but once you go through the process, you realize just how flawed the premise is. The notion that we are most moved by what a candidate claims to represent turns out to be pretty much bunk.

Problem 1: all statements are weighed equally when the site tallies hits, but in reality, some issues are more important to me than others. The same is true for you, dear reader.

Problem 2: there's no consideration of statements you disagree with. Sure, Candidate Z may have made the most statements I agree with, but Candidate Z also made statements in favor of eating babies, and that's a show stopper for me. All it takes is one show stopper to cancel out all the good will of previous sympathy.

Problem 3: This one is the real killer -- they may say it, and they may even mean it, but that doesn't mean that they're going to do it. George W. Bush, in the run-up to the 2000 election, stated quite firmly that he was opposed to foreign adventures for the sake of "regime change". Bill Clinton, in 1992, promised to "end welfare as we know it." Bush the elder, before being elected in 1988, had promised "no new taxes." And so on. You may agree with what they say, but even if they mean it when they say it, presidential candidates don't always follow through.

Record of past performance: In ads for mutual funds and stocks, we are reminded that "past performance does not necessarily indicate future performance." The same goes for presidential candidates. Reagan was a fiscal bulldog as governor of California, overseeing tight, balanced, lean budgets. As President, he oversaw budget deficits that made Carter's look like, well, just peanuts. (Recall that, until the Reagan administration, Carter was universally lambasted in the press for running record deficits.) Clinton, as governor of Arkansas, was notorious as a philanderer, but as President... okay, okay. Sometimes past performance *can* be an indicator of future performance.

There's also the problem that there are few (if any) positions that one can hold that would give any real insight into what a person would likely do upon becoming President. How much foreign policy experience is a governor likely to have? How "executive" is a legislator likely to be? How sensitive to the subtleties of politics and compromise is a war hero likely to be? For all that, former governors and war heroes do have a tendency to make better Presidents than former Congressmen and Senators, but even if you take this as the trend, how do you select among multiple candidates who are all governors or generals?

Character: How well can we really know the character of a presidential candidate, and how relevant is their character to their candidacy? On the surface, it would seem like it *should* matter. And yet... Reagan, a divorcee, was arguably a more effective President than Carter, a born-again Christian -- assuming, for the moment, that divorcees have a defect in character that born-again Christians do not, and I concede that to be a faulty premise. (For that matter, if Reagan was slightly above-average or even average in intelligence, Carter was arguably the most intelligent man to hold the position in the 20th Century... and yet, again, we are faced with the interesting fact of who was more effective in the office.)

A more stark contrast can be seen in comparing Carter, a paragon of integrity, with Clinton, his antithesis. And yet, who was the more effective President? By how much? I contend that superior integrity did not a superior Presidency make. FDR might be an even better example of a man whose personal integrity left a great deal to be desired, and yet was one of the most effective Presidents of the 20th Century.

That said, there are some character issues that do seem to make a bit of difference. Confidence matters, as does decisiveness. Personal conviction and charisma certainly can contribute to a President's effectiveness. Although, as our current administration reveals, conviction is not an adequate substitute for occasional thinking.

Quick: name a candidate this year in the top three or four of your party of choice who is wishy-washy and uncharismatic.

So, what criteria works better than these?

Skip the debates. Forget about trying to figure out who is "best". Instead, I remind you of a quote I've posted here once before. I am increasingly convinced that Robert A. Heinlein had it right:

"If you are able to vote, then do so. There may be no candidates or issues you want to vote for... but there will certainly be someone or something to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong." -- Robert A. Heinlein

Wouldn't primary/caucus/election season be so much more interesting if we periodically voted a candidate *out* of the race, instead of always having to choose only one to nudge forward in the race?

Thanksgiving Considers Move to October

by ALLAN ROUSSELLE, Permanent Press Writer

NORTH POLE - Saint Nicholas and the Fraternal Union of Christmas and Kwanzaa Elf Machinists (FUCKEM) announced today that Christmas this year would be held on November 25th.

"The union is still considering what to do about Kwanzaa, but Christmas definitely had to move," said the jolly old elf. "It's bad enough with the ongoing War on Christmas, but now having to contend with the US Presidential primaries is just too much."

The world's most famous toy distributor referred to the cascading effect that the 2008 US Presidential elections are having on scheduling. When California moved their state primaries to February 5th, 2008 in an effort to increase their influence on the candidate selection process, the South Carolina GOP was compelled to move up their primary to January 19th. This led to New Hampshire setting their primary for early January in turn, and then Iowa, in accordance with state law, rescheduled its state caucuses to mid-December 2007.

"How can toy ads and good will toward men prevail against negative campaign ads and mudslinging political debates?" a flustered Saint Nick said. "Besides, nobody really knows when Jesus was born, anyway, so it's not like December 25 is set in stone."

Butterball and similar stocks have dropped precipitously on speculation that, in order to maintain its standing as the official start to the Christmas shopping season, Thanksgiving will likely have to move to the fourth Thursday of October. "There's no way we'll be able to meet the demand this year if the holiday season is pushed up," said company strategist Valerie Plame, who spoke only on condition of anonymity.

A spokesman for Halloween indicated that the popular October closer was taking a wait-and-see attitude. "It's too soon for us to pick a new date, although you can be sure Halloween won't come after Thanksgiving," he said. "But Nevada still hasn't weighed in on their plans, and California may choose to retaliate against South Carolina. Until the primaries are set, I don't think the fall and winter holidays can be locked down."

But while the shopping season is relatively short for Halloween, the nation's economy is heavily affected by the run-up to Christmas. "Wouldn't it be ironic," lamented Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly, "if California's Republican governor and the South Carolina GOP were the ones who killed Christmas?"

Canadian pop star Alanis Morissette could not be reached for comment.

A few years ago, I posted an essay here about specific problems that arise when the highest elected officials of a political party abandon their espoused principles. Specifically, I called the current President a Bad Republican as well as a bad President.

I also acknowledged that, by saying as much, I was being a bad Republican, myself.

If you want to know why I consider the younger President Bush to be a bad Republican, check out the link above to that essay. The list, unfortunately, is too long to repeat here. As for why posting it made me a bad Republican, it all comes down to Ronald Reagan's so-called "11th Commandment": a Republican shall not speak ill of another Republican who is running for office.*

But a better explanation is found in Robert A. Heinlein's little treatise, Take Back Your Government. As I mentioned in my previous essay:

I'd never heard a compelling argument for voting for the party as opposed to the person until I'd read this book. Heinlein's point is simple: your party's choice of candidates represents a compromise. You and your fellow local party members agree on many things, but not everything, and it's your points of agreement that form the foundation of choosing one candidate over another. This means that you will occasionally choose candidates with whom you agree less than other candidates, but that's the nature of the game. Once you get to the general election, you are in a very real sense obligated to vote for your party's candidate, if only because he or she represents the best compromise that you and your like-minded fellows could arrive at -- even if he or she wasn't *your* first choice. To not follow through and vote for your candidate is to renege on your agreement with your fellow party members. It weakens your party, and the very structure of the political system within which you are working.

But if I'm a bad Republican, then the neo-conservatives who have hijacked my party are substantially worse. In an Associated Press story attributed to Liz Sidoti (and repeated, for the time being, at Yahoo News), a "prominent Christian leader said Thursday that 'my conscience and my moral convictions' prevent him from voting for Rudy Giuliani should he win the Republican nomination."

The "prominent Christian leader" in question is James Dobson, Founder of Focus on the Family, and his big beef with Giuliani is that the former New York City mayor does not believe that Roe v. Wade should be overturned by the US Supreme Court.

Dobson has a conservative radio show that, according to the AP article, enjoys a listenership number around seven million people. If I'm a bad Republican for voicing my discontent to tens of people, then Dobson is an outright traitor to his party. He is not just saying that the Republicans should nominate a candidate other than Giuliani (which is a perfectly acceptable thing to do during the nomination phase of the election); he is telling his listenership that it would be better to allow a Democrat to win than to support a Republican who differs with the Religious Right on this particular issue. He is not just advising a handful of readers; he is appealing to millions of his followers.

These are the very tactics that have allowed the neo-conservatives to hijack our party. They are dedicated, organized, and tenacious. They can get out the vote when they want to. And by golly, you'd better kiss their ideological ass if you want them to want to help you. McCain didn't kiss their ass in 2000, and they exerted their influence hard and fast to get his strongest opponent onto the top of the ticket. And if the rest of the Republican party doesn't kiss their collective ass this time around by selecting a candidate who drinks their particular brand of Kool-Aid(tm), then by golly, they'll abandon the Republican Party until it comes around and remembers what to kiss, and when.

Don't get me wrong: I don't know that Giuliani is the best this party can do. Truth be told, I have yet to see a candidate for either party who really appeals to me. (McCain, my candidate of choice in 2000, is grimacing a lot these days as he puckers up for the neo-conservatives.) But to preemptively announce that you'll abandon your party (and, by strong implication, take your millions of listeners with you) if the party doesn't follow your dictates on a particular issue, well, that's hardly bargaining in good faith now, is it?

Here is what Dobson is saying to me and all of the other Republicans:

"Selecting a candidate means compromise. No candidate will ever completely satisfy any one of us. If, by means of caucuses and primaries, we select a candidate that you agree with on some issues and not others, well... you should still vote for them, because that's the compromise we reached. But if you select a candidate of whom I don't approve, well, then fuck you, buddy, you'll just have to go along without any help from me."

The Republicans are not the only party to have ideologues on the tail trying to wag the whole dog (or, in this case, elephant). The Libertarian Party has been completely bereft of any hopes of ever having any kind of real representation in the government because the "big L" libertarians refuse to compromise with any "little L" libertarians who acknowledge that dismantling the entire government might be impractical. And as for the Democrats, they've got the self-styled "Progressives" whipping their party apart in exactly the same way as the neo-conservatives are with the Republicans.

Here is my question for Dr. Dobson: if you are not duty-bound to actively support, in good faith, the candidate chosen by your party, then why should I, as an active member of that same party, bargain in good faith with you to select a candidate at all?

...the system yet works.

I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment that the American system of government is the worst system around, except for all of the other ones out there.

Last week, voters in America turned up at the polls and turned out the majority party from the legislature, just as they did twelve years ago. Some good people who were working hard for their constituents found themselves without a seat when the music stopped playing, as happens every year at election time, but the national trend toward cleaning political house this year was both necessary and, on balance, good for us all.

As I've commented elsewhere, I'm very much a fan of the system of checks and balances built into our government. Last week, some checking and balancing was brought into play. Good for the Democrats. And good for the Republicans. Good for America.

I am under no illusion that the Democrats will prove any more far-sighted, beneficent, or prudent this time around than they did during their last legislative majority. But so what? It seems to me that both of the major parties in America have done their best work when they have had to negotiate the checks and balances posed by a healthy and well-matched adversary -- both within the legislature and in the other branches of government. Their victory reminds the Democrats that they are not the marginalized victims they've been despairing themselves of late to be; and their public spanking at the polls, I hope, will take the arrogant edge off the neo-con tail that has been wagging the Republican elephant these past several years.

On Election Eve this year, the future Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said, "The American people voted to restore integrity and honesty in Washington, D.C., and the Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history."

Good words. I like them. They remind me of what the Bush administration promised to do when they aimed to take the White House. Quoth Dick Cheney in August of 2000: "On the first hour of the first day, we will restore decency and integrity to the Oval Office."

We all know where that led, and we all know that Pelosi has already endorsed a fellow for House Majority Leader who has a cloud hanging over his own reputation for ethics (Rep. Murtha, who has a decades-long trail of dubious ethics when it comes to awarding military contracts. Quoth the Associate Press: "Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a Democratic-leaning watchdog group, accused Pelosi of compromising her ethical standards by endorsing Murtha.")

So yes, I suspect it's politics as usual. And please do not misunderstand me: I abhor unethical behavior. But if the Democrats fail to live up to their lofty rhetoric on this occasion, as they and the Republicans have done so often in the past, we are at least left with this consolation:

Though imperfect, the system still works. Our nation may not be living up to its best potential, but we're still trying. We're still striving to move forward, to get closer to our ideal. The fact that our nation's checks and balances keep working bodes well for us all.

Thanks to Brian Harriss who posted a count of how often the country went as Ohio went. (See the comments for my entry ...So Goes the Documentary.) As went Ohio, so went the nation all but twice in the twentieth century (and seven times in the 19th century). Yowsa.

See, now *that* is an interesting angle to use as the launching point for a documentary.

My other beef with the trailer for the documentary "...So Goes the Nation" is the fact that the various clips that were presumably taken from the movie show the Republicans as being all about strategy -- what is the best way to campaign so as to win -- while the Democrats were all about getting the right man in office. The impression this creates is not only false, it is unfair to both sides.

I say that the implication is false because in both my observation as an historian (and a former radio station news director) and as a participant in the political process (having attended rallies for both parties, and doorbelled for the party of my choice), *both* parties are *equally* attentive to the strategy of winning and are also equally believers that their own particular slate of candidates and planks (party platforms) are the better choice.

And the implication is unfair because it denies the Republicans any sense that they care about what they are doing (and believe me, they do care) and it makes the Democrats look like naiveniks (which, believe me, they are not).

The Democrats completely dominated both houses of the Congress for most of the modern political era (say, World War II and beyond), this past decade or so notwithstanding. To paint them as naive idealists whose heart is in the right place but, gee whiz, they just can't hold their own against those tough, smart, and heartless Republicans is, itself, a naive position to take. The Democrat Party Machine has been notorious for pulling strings, making and crushing careers, and even stealing a Presidential election.

This is my main beef with the trailer for this movie. It paints a picture of how the two parties approached the Presidential election in 2004 differently where, I believe, the two parties were rather the same. The movie may be more balanced than the trailer. I don't know.

Here's a thought that just occurred to me: Rush Limbaugh, after years of struggling, led a vanguard of conservative radio entertainers (infotainers?) that has continued to dominate the airwaves on the AM dial, despite several attempts by liberals to challenge. Liberals have found an equally compelling outlet in the form of movie documentaries, where conservative documentarians have likewise failed to successfully challenge.

With conservatives holding the older technology, and liberals holding the not-as-old technology, the battle for the moderates is being waged where? Newer technologies like the internet (in the form of blogs and viral videos)? Not-as-new technologies like cable news outlets? Way-old-school technologies like, well, the schools?

As goes hyperreality, so goes the nation.

Both sides of the aisle in our national political arena have many, many legitimate issues to bring up regarding the conduct on the other side. So, it bothers me when one side finds it necessary to make stuff up about the other.

I happened to see a trailer for a movie called "...So Goes the Nation", which alleges to be a documentary following the campaigns of the two major candidates for President as they were conducted in the state of Ohio in 2004. ("As goes Ohio, so goes the nation," was a quip that was often repeated while votes were being counted in that year's election.)

While the blurb describing the documentary makes it sound like a (presumably balanced) assessment of both sides, the trailer makes it very clear where the movie stands with the bold white-text-on-black-background graphic proclaiming:

And then, in bigger type, we see:

Sounds pretty ominous, doesn't it? Sounds like something's afoot, eh?

Except, the assertion is wrong *and* grossly misleading.

Forty-two years ago was 1964. Here are the Presidents who have won elections during the last 42 years:

Lyndon Johnson (D)
Richard Nixon (R)
Jimmy Carter (D)
Ronald Reagan (R)
George Bush (R)
Bill Clinton (D)
George W. Bush (R)

I count three D's elected, and four R's elected.

So the answer to the movie trailer's ominous pronouncement is, quite simply:

Nothing more ominous than that.

I absolutely love this line. Raymund Eich, on the advantage of having an Independent candidate to vote for:

"It's great. I get to throw my vote away without having to waste it on the Libertarian."

I'm laughing just thinking about it.

For decades during the Cold War, the Democrats held dominion over the US federal legislature. They abused their power from time to time, bullied their adversaries from time to time, but the loyal opposition nonetheless had a few tools to help them balance the fight. They used certain little tricks in the bag that historians refer to as the “checks and balances” built into our Constitution (some put there intentionally, some accidentally). They could filibuster here, or pocket veto there (when a Republican held the White House). Famously, when a Republican abused his power in the White House in the early 1970’s, the Democrats themselves used some checks and balances to mitigate the problem.

I love checks and balances. They have helped to make this country great.

The Republicans became expert at using what leverage they could to keep from being overwhelmed by their adversaries. Alas, when the loyal opposition Republicans came to dominate the legislature themselves, their membership likewise abused their power from time to time, and bullied their adversaries from time to time.

And when the Democrats, who were not accustomed to being on the short end of the power balance, grasped clumsily at these checks and balances that the Republicans had used so well over the preceding decades, the Republicans got a little testy and started to dismantle some of those checks and balances. They threatened to take away the filibuster (even at the time, this was referred to as “the nuclear option”, and I agree with that term), they endorsed and ratified into law Presidential powers that had previously been held in check by the Congress.

I suppose that this is a decent strategy if you believe that the system is fundamentally flawed, and/or that your side is unfailingly right (so that checks and balances are no long beneficial to the system), and/or that you believe you will hold onto control of both the White House and the Congress for the foreseeable future.

I maintained at the time these events were taking place (but I’m not sure I published these thoughts to my public blog) that this was not a well-advised strategy. I felt that passing into law a bill that allowed the President to forgo the modicum of Congressional oversight that was previously required for wiretaps, and threatening to eliminate the filibuster as a tool, and similar such measures were wrong on four grounds.

First, these actions were unbecoming. The Republicans had earned control of the Congress and of the White House, and to try to further strip the Democrats of any modicum of influence in the government was unnecessary, undesirable, and untoward. We (for I count myself as a Republican) earned our seat at the head of the table, so let’s act like we belong there. Let’s act like grown-ups.

Second, these actions were aimed at dismantling a system of checks and balances that had served our country well for over two centuries. Our political system can always use some improvement, but this is the one feature that has done more good for the system than any other. Tinker with the checks and balances as need be, but be very careful with wholesale changes.

Third, these actions reflected the sheer height of arrogance. They assumed unerring and infallible leadership on the part of the party in power, and ignored the value of the loyal opposition to the shaping of national policy. I’m aware of only a few experiments in single-party governance in world history, and those did not turn out well.

Forth, it was the height of folly to assume that the Republican Party would retain control over both the legislature and the administration indefinitely. Here, I think (and I thought, even as these events were transpiring), is (was) the biggest flaw in Republican thinking: even if you trust your Republican President to never err in his role as Commander-in-Chief (a trust that I did not share, my party affiliation notwithstanding), what happens when the Democrats take over the White House? As, inevitably, they must. Even if you view the filibuster as an annoying impediment to the victorious majority of Congress asserting its will, what happens when the Democrats once again assume leadership of the legislature? As, again, they inevitably must.

Leadership involves taking responsibility, taking charge, and moving forward. Only the pettiest among the custodians of power would squander their advantage by spending their efforts on holding down others rather than moving themselves and the nation forward as a whole.

While I was disappointed to see my party behave so poorly on a national level, I figured that the books might not be balanced for many years to come. I worried (and still worry) about whether the Democrats would/will behave with equal obnoxiousness when they resume power in either the executive or legislative branches. But I nonetheless have always felt that the Democrats coming back to power is inevitable. The evidence now suggests that this may happen sooner, rather than later, in the Congress.

It is unfortunate, both for the Republican party and for the nation as a whole, that the current leadership wasn’t a better group of winners.

All is not lost, however. The pendulum continues to swing, and it is foolish to think that if it swings one way today that it will not swing the other way again tomorrow. It is my hope that the Republicans will be better winners next time around. (Who knows? If we are very, very lucky, perhaps the Democrats will be better winners the next time *they* sit at the head of the table, be that this year or down the road.)

Here is an excerpt from a document written on July 2nd, 1776 by Thomas Jefferson and then slightly revised and endorsed by a collection of radical Americans at a clandestine meeting two days later. Mr. Jefferson was far from a perfect man or even a perfect leader, but the guy sure knew how to write:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence indeed, will dictate, that Governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.

Still resonates, does it not?

So, this dude in the US House of Representatives (allegedly) has been caught taking money in exchange for political favors -- that's a crime, by the way -- and the FBI gathered evidence not only from his homes in his district and in Washington DC, but also from his office in the Capitol.

Because taking records from the Representative's office could be construed as interfering with his work as a legislator -- a no-no according to the Constitution -- members of the House on both sides of the party dividing line are now in an uproar over the Executive Branch's apparent disregard of the Constitution.

Speaking as a private citizen who is trying to figure out what the hell happened to his political party, let alone the government:

Where were you short-bussers while the writ of habeas corpus was being shredded in Guantanamo? What were you NFL-referees-in-training thinking when you decided to give the administration a pass on the domestic spying program, rather than censuring those involved for not following protocols that were already in place for just such situations? And what the intercourse did you think the Patriot Act was all about?

"Oh, you mean *those* civil rights!"

It's a little late to be whining about separation of powers, don't you think? Give me back my Constitutional government, you hypocrisy mollycoddlers.

When it comes to politics, at least, there is an odd sense of "win at all costs" that seems to be coming from the White House these days. A recent instance that leaps to mind (but merely one from a wide variety of available examples): the issue with wiretapping conversations between persons in the US and persons overseas who may have ties to terrorist organizations. The White House had the ability to execute such a program as long as it received the blessing of a secret court managed by the judicial branch of the government. Instead, the White House allegedly chose to circumvent this check / balance, and initiated the wiretapping without seeking this consent.

When confronted about this, the White House and/or its supporters appear to have put pressure on Republican members of Congress to pass a new law that codifies this new behavior as legal -- effectively short circuiting any possibility that the White House acted illegally.

Now, this is a rather over-simplified summation of events, and the story is far from over. However, this kind of scenario keeps playing itself out, and it poses a question that I find problematic:

Do these Republicans not realize that the checks and balances that they remove today because they are inconvenient will continue to be absent tomorrow when the Democrats eventually take back the White House and/or the legislature?

Not too long ago, when the Republicans were concerned that the Democrats might successfully filibuster the President's nominee(s) to the Supreme Court, some members of the ruling party suggested that they might exercise "the nuclear option" of removing the ability to filibuster. Did they not realize that, had they done so, the filibuster would no longer be available to *them* when it is once again the Republicans' turn to serve as the loyal opposition?

If one wants to enjoy the maximum benefit of winning the game for the longest amount of time possible, one must occasionally allow for strategic losses. It would be better to fight a filibuster today than to lose that potential tool forever in the future -- a tool that the Republicans have used quite effectively when they have been the minority party in Congress.

The Republicans may well continue to hold majority power in both houses of the legislature for another two to four decades. They may also lose it later this year. As long as the US remains a democracy, the Republicans can rest assured that someday they will be unseated in the White House, someday they will lose the majority in Congress, and someday they will not hold as much sway in the Supreme Court as they currently enjoy. In order to enjoy their current position of power, they are well advised to employ all political tools at their disposal to accomplish their goals -- but not at the expense of dismantling the checks and balances that keep our democracy robust.

Sure, those pesky checks and balances may seem inconvenient when you want to push through your legislative agenda, but you'll miss them later when you need them. If the Republicans felt the Democrats were ruthless during their forty years of political dominance in the latter half of the twentieth century, how much less ruth will the Democrats show during their next period of dominance, unfettered by those same checks and balances that the Republicans currently seem to be dismantling?

In the summer of 1988, I studied Russian language and linguistics as part of a study abroad program at the Institut Stal y Splava in Moscow. I don't think any of us -- neither the visiting Americans nor the resident Soviet students at our dormitory -- would have predicted at the time that the Berlin Wall would fall a mere two years later, but Perestroika was in full swing and change was in the air. It was an unprecedented opportunity for Western students to glimpse at life behind the Iron Curtain... shortly before that curtain fell away.

I learned a great deal during my three months in Soviet Russia, but one of the most amazing things was to observe how passively the Soviet citizenry accepted state intrusion into their lives. The Soviet students I dormed with, for example, needed passports to travel within their own country. Imagine that!

As a child, I had grown up along the border between the US and Canada; I had frequently split my summers and weekends between Fort Erie, Ontario and Erie County, New York. My family would cross the Peace Bridge that straddled the border with almost as little fanfare as crossing the Grand Island Bridge nearby. Some spare change to pay for tolls, and a Hi, Howdy-Do to the customs agents on whichever side we were entering. We did not bring passports. Our car was our passport.

"Citizenship?"

"U.S."

"Cleared to go."

I don't want to get to far down the road of romanticizing the past. But by 1988, I'd flown all up and down the East Coast, I'd driven interstate, and I'd bussed interstate, and I'd driven and bussed internationally. If I was driving, I needed my driver's license. I'm pretty sure I didn't need it for the bus. Or the plane. Perhaps I'm misremembering that.

But to fly to Europe, I needed a passport, and to enter Russia, I needed eleven passport photos for the various visas and such that the Soviet Union required of me. This was all understandable -- I was, after all, to be a foreigner abroad, and that's what passports and visas were all about.

But the very idea that one needed a passport to travel *within one's own country* was as foreign to me as, well, as any other consequence of living in a police state. The Soviet Union had a constitution that purported to establish a democratic government, but just try peaceably assembling in Red Square to petition your government for grievances.

From what I observed during those three months, life in the Soviet Union was obviously hard. Crime was low -- one of the benefits of a police state, I suppose -- but morale was lower. The people were genuinely warm and friendly, and very curious about foreigners. They also carried a burden of weary, wary fear. "If I had met you six months ago," a Soviet student named Max once said to me (in Russian), "we wouldn't be talking now. There'd be two men in grey coats following you everywhere you went. It wouldn't do for me to be seen talking with you."

With the advent of September 11, crossing the border between the US and Canada is no longer as casual as it once was. Okay, I understand that. But the federal government is now saying that my state's drivers' licenses (along with ten other states) are not "secure enough", and that the federales won't allow me to take a commercial flight using my drivers license as my ID. By this time next year, it's a near certainty that I'll have to use a passport to fly anywhere within the United States.

Hellooo? Mcfly?!

This is but one little development that nags at the back of my mind. One clue in an orgy of evidence that we are sliding toward more of a police state than I would ever have thought possible within the US.

But while we're more of a police state than would have been imaginable seventeen years ago, are we likely to take this trip to its logical conclusion? Are the liberties we have sacrificed irrevocably lost? As the saying goes: have the terrorists won?

I don't think so. Certainly, we have lost a great deal of our liberties -- liberties we have, as a society, handed over just a little bit more eagerly, in exchange for some phantom sense of security, than I think wise. But this isn't the first time the US citizenry has headed down this road -- starting with the Alien & Sedition Acts during the administration of our second president, John Adams, and seen as recently as the Nixon administration's attempts at making it easier for federal law enforcement to share information with each other.

Those attempts were ultimately repealed, and the current Patriot Act is likely to suffer the same fate. Eventually.

More to the point, however, I see reminders every day that our society has not been *completely* cowed by the threats against our liberty from within and without: every day, I drive by groups protesting the war (or whatever it is) in Iraq. And people protesting the protesters. Every day, I read major newspapers opining against or in favor of various policies and actions by the current administration. Every day, television news shows us both attacks upon and support for our troops and our politicians and our way of life.

Friends of mine who support the current administration view the protesters and the "liberal media" as undermining our society. Friends of mine on the other side of the political spectrum view supporters of the current administration and the "vast right wing conspiracy" in the media as likewise undermining our society.

I disagree on both counts.

The very fact that protesters protest and supporters support and occasionally members from opposing camps swap sides is all to the good. It's annoying, certainly, to see your own position assailed by others. It's annoying to watch the tide ebb, even when you know intellectually that it will once again flow. But as long as the voice of dissent can be heard -- is *allowed* to be heard -- we're doing a far cry better than any system our enemies would seek to impose.

As I drive down the road and find a group protesting their cause of choice, whether I share their views or not, I am glad we still have loyal opposition. As long as those voices can be heard, the terrorists have not won.

[Please excuse the massive repetition I'm about to employ, but I have a point I'm trying to make...]

So, there was this dude named Galileo Galilei. Being influenced by his mathematician father, Galileo took measurements and systematic observations and used them to develop and support (or refute) theories of natural observed phenomena. He is thus considered by many to be the (or, at least, "a") father of the modern scientific method. He was also, in his day, prosecuted by the Catholic church because his observations and evidence challenged the beliefs held by some highly-placed members of the Inquisition.

Here's the thing about science: it is all about the understanding of the causal relationships between and among natural phenomena.

For example, if I lob an object into the air, it traces the shape of an arc known as a parabola. It decelerates as it heads upward, and accelerates downward, by an order of "squares". This is observable. Testable. Reproducible. Predictable. And it has very practical implications in the real world. It has implications for the basketball player attempting a jump shot. It has implications for our troops in the heat of battle preparing to launch mortar shells. Etc., etc.

The same kind of practical implications hold true for any number of scientific principles, and this includes the principle of evolution. While this principle is often referred to as the "theory of evolution", it has long since moved from theory to accepted scientific fact. Charles Darwin observed the principles of evolution in his landmark book, The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection. The concept of natural selection is observable, testable, reproducible, predictable. It informs not only the scientific fields of biology and medicine, but also zoology and botany and all of the other life sciences.

However, evolutionary biology as a scientifically observed and tested natural phenomenon poses some challenges to some beliefs of some currently accepted religious paradigms. Evolutionary biology has implications for the origin of mankind, for example, that may seem to challenge certain interpretations of the Christian (not to mention Jewish and Muslim and Hindu and Buddhist) creation stories.

As I mentioned above, however, science is all about the understanding of the causal relationships between and among natural phenomena. Religion is about the understanding of the supernatural. There is no conflict here. Science has nothing to say about the supernatural. If it's supernatural, it's outside the rules of science, eh wot? QED.

There are some people, however, who are so offended by the potential implications of scientific principles that they want to curtail how science is taught. Like the Inquisition's earlier edict to Galileo that he label his findings as "hypothesis" devoid of any "real" implications, so some in the religious community want science textbooks to label the principle of evolution "just a theory, and open to debate". Or, like the Inquisition later determined with regard to Galileo, want to ban the teaching of certain scientific principles altogether.

But now there's another kind of attack. Some want the teaching of science to include the teaching of a philosophical, neo-theological concept called "Intelligent design". There is nothing in the concept of Intelligent Design that is observable, testable, reproducible, or predictable -- ie, it is not scientific. It is an assertion about the supernatural.

[Intelligent design, if I understand correctly, is summed up by the idea that if you were walking along in a forest and stumbled upon a gold watch, you would not assume that the watch grew there with the trees and the mosquitos. Rather, you'd assume it was designed by some deliberate creator. We are to think likewise of mankind amidst the barrenness of space.]

What is so galling here is not the philosophical precept of an intelligent designer, so much as the notion that it should be taught within a science curriculum. It is the height of ignorant arrogance to insist that supernatural what-ifs be taught as a scientific theory that has any kind of legitimate standing against a truly scientific vetted principle such as evolutionary biology.

Teach intelligent design as theology, if you must teach it at all, or even philosophy (if you want to insist that this isn't about the Christian story of the origin of man). In fact, let's debate it there, as I'm certain there's much to debate even on those grounds. But don't insert this into the science classroom. It doesn't belong there.

Why doesn't it belong there? What could be so harmful about teaching it there?

First, intelligent design requires us to disregard so much that we have already demonstrated to be true about the life sciences, paleontology, geology, cosmology, astronomy, and physics. It is, in essence, anti-science. Without evidence, it nonetheless refutes that for which we do have evidence.

Second, it is not a valid scientific precept in any conceivable fashion. How do you measure it? Test it? Observe it? Reproduce it? Predict it?

Third, it pits legitimate science against religion and philosophy, where no such conflict should exist. Science is about the natural, religion is about the supernatural, and philosophy is about ideas. The only place these disciplines intersect is in the realm of ethics and morality (where what can be done must be weighed against what ought to be done and what is right to do).

Fourth, we do our children and ourselves a great disservice by muddling the distinctions between the natural and the supernatural. Yes, I want the doctor who treats me to "do the right thing", but I also want the doctor who treats me to do the thing right.

So, my wife and I bought the TV show "24 - Season Two" on DVD and spent a couple of weeks watching an episode or three each evening after the kids were put to bed. Having now seen the first two seasons this way, I must heartily recommend "24". Wonderful fun, with an emphasis on plot reversals:

In a "reversal", the plot or action suddenly veers off in another direction from what was expected. The reversal can be good *or* bad. It doesn't always have to be bad. A really good reversal changes the goals/questions for the characters involved.

If you are a writer or an aspiring writer, you could do worse than to take in how 24 approaches plot reversals (regardless of how you evaluate the plot holes).

As a friend of mine commented recently, watching a couple of seasons of 24 back-to-back can give one an acute attack of paranoia. These episodes are all about conspiracies within conspiracies, and they can make you a bit jumpy.

Inspired by the gleeful paranoia-euphoria of being fresh off of season two of "24", and thinking of a couple of very dear friends of mine who live their lives in such a state, I pounded out my little tidbit, "Choose Your Own Conspiracy". It was a lark, intending to mock how quickly and irrationally we can sometimes resort to blaming conspiracies when simpler, more credible forces are more likely at work.

One such friend (ie, one of my friends who sees conspiracies within conspiracies as being rather pervasive) posted a response chiding me for being naive. I'm going to repeat her comment here because it deserves some elucidation:

Much like a child who is completely unaware that he is, in fact, the reason why his parents got divorced, you are happily clueless.

You are blissfully unaware of what is going on around you and your own culpability therein.

You won't even acknowledge a conspiracy that was so clearly pointed at you!

It is arguably amusing, but very, very costly.

Now, this sounded to a couple of other faithful readers like an "insane" slam from "the angry left". At first blush, it certainly seems nasty.

It was none of these.

Like many shouting matches that pretend to be reasoned debate on the talking head news shows, the conversation here is falling apart due to lack of context. Let's back up a little bit and provide that context.

Jehan and I used to work together for a well known national brand that she occasionally refers to as "thatplace.com". She and I have spoken often and at great length about the different kinds of conspiracies that may or may not be plausible in the realms of politics, racial profiling, and the day-to-day grind on the job.

I've never been public about my reasons for leaving thatplace.com except in the vaguest of terms -- and I intend to keep it that way -- but it is not perhaps much of a secret that before I left, my successful team was reorganized out of existence, much to the dismay of my team and myself.

Jehan was a member of that team, and remains one of the most talented devs I've ever had the pleasure to work with. Like most of my former team (and myself), she eventually left thatplace for much the same reasons that the rest of us did. She and other members of my former team showed an amazing amount of loyalty to me and to each other, for which I will always be profoundly grateful.

Jehan's and my on-going conversation has included reflections upon things that happened to me during my last few months at thatplace. It has always seemed to me that those things were obviously part of the larger reorg (and aftermath) that engulfed our entire division of the company. There were, it seemed to me, sound business decisions behind the reorg, however much I may not have agreed with them.

My friend and former co-worker believes otherwise. She believes that the events that unfolded were designed not for business reasons, but for personal and political reasons. To be blunt, she believes that I and my team were not collateral damage, but deliberate targets.

Our (hers and mine) long-running conversation on the subject gets further complicated by two things: my position is reasonable and requires no evidence, whereas her position is less reasonable, requires evidence, and yet she nonetheless has enough evidence to make a compelling case.

Now, re-read her comment above. See how context changes everything? She's not raving about vast right-wing conspiracies (which is what I believe some readers have come to think). She is mocking me for mocking conspiracy theorists. Here, I was mocking those who would be so paranoid that they would see a conspiracy in the destruction following a hurricane. She counters that I would be so blind as to deny an obvious conspiracy that targeted me directly and personally... insofar as she believes this is exactly the case.

Did this clear anything up? I hope so. Now, let's get down to business.

One of my faithful readers is another friend whom I met in a completely different context, named Allen. Since very, very few readers of my blog could know the circumstances to which Jehan is alluding, it is only reasonable that her remarks should be misinterpreted by many of my readers. But Allen went so far as to label her response as being from "the angry left".

Allen, you're a good man and I love you like a brother. (You know, the brother who moved away to Canada like some commie-symp blue-stater, so we don't talk about him so much at the dinner table; that kind of brother.) But just as the "angry left" was being ridiculous to keep crying about some phantom "vast right-wing conspiracy", so too is it ridiculous to cry about some phantom "angry left".

Not all who oppose us are necessarily part of a unified enemy. Sometimes, we are opposed by our dearest allies. Not all who disagree with us oppose us. Intelligent people will disagree about the best way to accomplish common goals.

It's true that Jehan's remarks did read a little harsh, and I appreciate your standing up to defend me. But, well, your remarks were a little harsh, too.

Can't we all just get along?

People! Aren't you paying attention?!

Hurricane Katrina is part of the conspiracy! After all that hullabaloo about Karl Rove, and then that mother who was protesting outside of the President's ranch, he needed a diversion. So they created Katrina! If the hurricane bumped off a few poor people along the Gulf Coast, it's just a political win-win, no? (Never mind that it was those very people in the so-called red states that got him elected in the first place.)

C'mon, people! My friend E--- says that if you want to know who's behind events, you just have to look at who benefited the most. Well? Who benefited from Katrina? Rich white people who could afford to leave, that's who. And what is President Bush? A rich white guy. You know who else benefited? Construction workers who want some job security for the foreseeable future.

Those wily construction workers.

But the most obvious beneficiary was the President himself. Because, hey, it looked like that mother of that soldier who died in that war who was protesting outside the President's ranch had him on the ropes, didn't it? But who's talking about her now, huh? NOBODY. And why is that? Katrina, that's why.

He'd have gotten away with it, too, if he hadn't had such a flaming IDIOT for a director of FEMA.

So, yeah, it's pretty clear that if GWB didn't start the hurricane, he at least allowed Karl Rove to make sure it happened.

Oh, "But wait!" I hear you protest. "The President is getting bad press for the hurricane!" Well, duh. THAT'S WHY HE HAD JUSTICE REHNQUIST KILLED! Deflects all the attention away from New Orleans and puts the attention right back smack dab in the middle of Roe v. Wade, which is where it belongs. It's so obvious! Look at who benefits!

"There's nothing to see here," says Karl Rove, trying to block your view of Katrina. "Maybe you should be looking over at Roe v. Wade over there." Bang! Rehnquist dies. Oh, sure. He died of "natural" causes. Like there's anything "natural" about death. It's all about pro-life, baby!

It's a win-win-win-win. No more angry mother protesting, no more poor people, no more binge drinking (Mardi Gras anyone?) to tempt the straight-and-narrow el Presidente, and no more abortion. It's effing BRILLIANT!

Whoever it is that pulls the strings for this administration, I salute you.

So, I've made every effort to speak rationally on the subjects I find interesting, even to the extent that I may either bore you to tears or offend you by not being as outspoken as perhaps I could be. Pulling punches, I think it's called.

In an effort to help make sure that my political missives are not disregarded out of hand, I tend to address the issues and avoid the labels. I have tended not to be vocal on this site about the fact that I have actually been quite active in my political party of choice. I don't want you to filter my arguments by assuming that because I am a member of party X, that means you automatically know my arguments in favor or against Y. It's not a question of being ashamed or squeamish; but rather, a question of avoiding labels and getting straight to the *issues* at hand.

But in order to comment on this year's election, I can not come even close to conveying the depth of my feelings without mentioning that for the past several years, I have been an active member of the Republican party. I first became a "Precinct Committee Officer" of the King County Republican Party five or six years ago, and even ended up becoming a Regional and later an Area Chair.

A quick explanation of what that all means: we all live in legislative districts, which are broken down into small voting precincts. In a typical suburban area, a precinct is maybe a few square blocks, and consists of roughly 200 to 400 voters. The precincts are drawn by the state legislatures. Most political parties are organized similarly: there's the county committees, the legislative district committees, and then those districts will have a few "area chairs", who in turn have a few "regional chairs", which in turn handle a few precincts each. Each precinct itself has one PCO -- precinct committee officer.

The job of a PCO is to help mobilize his or her neighbors to vote for his or her party's candidates and/or causes. The PCOs are often involved in fund raising, as well, but their primary task is to help get the word out. They doorbell, hand out literature, and maybe post signs or ask neighbors to post signs. Not glamorous, but that's the basic job of the local political party: to get out the word.

PCOs also vote on party business, including setting guidelines for the party platform and running caucuses (at least, in some states, including mine) where candidates are considered and possibly endorsed.

And so there is both a bottom up process (the locals discuss party platform ideas and candidates, which get forwarded to the legislative district level, and from there to the county, and from there to the state, and from there to the national level) and a top-down process (the agreed upon candidates and issues have fliers and talking points that get passed along to the states, counties, districts, and on to the PCOs to distribute). State-wide, leg. district-wide, and local candidates and issues work the same way, going up to and back down from the appropriate level of the organization.

Robert A. Heinlein wrote a brilliant (if perhaps a little bit dated, at this point) political primer called Take Back Your Government in which he makes a very compelling argument that 1) local politics matters, and 2) you should participate in, and vote for, the party, not the person, when it comes time for the general election.

I'd never heard a compelling argument for voting for the party as opposed to the person until I'd read this book. Heinlein's point is simple: your party's choice of candidates represents a compromise. You and your fellow local party members agree on many things, but not everything, and it's your points of agreement that form the foundation of choosing one candidate over another. This means that you will occasionally choose candidates with whom you agree less than other candidates, but that's the nature of the game. Once you get to the general election, you are in a very real sense obligated to vote for your party's candidate, if only because he or she represents the best compromise that you and your like-minded fellows could arrive at -- even if he or she wasn't *your* first choice. To not follow through and vote for your candidate is to reneg on your agreement with your fellow party members. It weakens your party, and the very structure of the political system within which you are working.

Of course, each major party has its mobilized ideologues and its less impassioned (and more moderate) majority. The majority of Americans tend to be moderate, with their few "hotbuttons" ultimately determining which party they will tend to favor. If you are particularly concerned with abortion rights or the right to life, or the death penalty, or the right to bear arms, or whatever have you, it's pretty obvious which party you'll end up falling in line with, even if that party does not tend to share your views on other issues where you are more moderate.

There are a number of reasons that I have thrown my lot in with the Republican party. Most have to do with personal, and therefore anecdotal, history. Hardly a sound foundation for choosing a party, especially when one prides oneself on choosing *causes* for more logical reasons. But ultimately, the cause that I find most dear is what ties me closest to the party. That cause is: foreign policy.

When it comes to social policy, both of the major parties in the US are hell-bent on dismantling the Bill of Rights. They simply disagree on which of the first ten amendments they want to abolish and which sectors of the population should be denied them. This is a topic for another essay... for the time being, take my word for it that I find both parties to be generally hypocritical with their views toward the Bill of Rights and the subsequently "implied" rights (like the right to privacy) that have been inferred by our Supreme Court.

Luckily for all of us, the system of checks and balances built into our Constitution has managed to protect each side from the desired proscriptions of the other.

But while neither party is perfect, I've tended to side with the Republicans on certain *practical* local-level issues (restricting taxation, fiscal conservatism, private property rights, small business rights). One quick local example: the Dems in Washington State recently pushed for legislation requiring car seats for children up to eight years old, even though there is no evidence that child safety seats have any statistically significant benefits for children over the age of four, and even though this imposes a harsh burden on "soccer moms" who would otherwise choose to car-pool their children and friends to various activities. The legislation was proposed by a single woman who has never had kids to solve a problem that doesn't exist. It's an example of governmenting for government's sake. On the local level, Republicans tend to refrain from this kind of government interference.

The key here, of course, is the phrase *tend to*, and I would never claim that the Republicans are averse to government intervention when their own causes are involved.

But that said, there is a larger national issue that also draws me into the Replubican party, and that is the matter of foreign affairs. This has been an area of passion for me; so much so that I endured grad school to get a Masters degree in Political Science from an Ivy League school (my concentration being in International Relations) after having majored in Russian and Soviet Studies (as well as History) during my undergrad years at another Ivy. Can you imagine how excruciating that all was? I did it because, for whatever reason, the subject is important to me.

American foreign policy is extremely important both to our nation and to the world. Our national security, let alone the balance of global power (both politically and economically) hang in the balance. Global telecommunications, the freedom to travel, negotiating "commons problems" like managing pollution and fishing rights and shipping lanes and human rights policies and so on, not to mention the very existence (let alone the conduct) of armed conflict among nations all hinge upon the competent execution of a sound foreign policy.

And when all your chips are on the table in this nuclear age, I have found that the best bet when it comes to foreign policy is to side with -- you guessed it -- the Republicans. This, too, is a subject I could write *volumes* about, but I don't want to get to far away from the point of this essay. Let me suffice it to say that when it comes to foreign policy, I'll take a Reagan or a Nixon administration over a Carter or a Johnson administration any day. Even Bush the Elder's administration stands head and shoulders above eight years under Clinton. I'll be happy to defend these statements on another occasion, if you desire an explanation.

Which takes us to the year 2000, and the opportunity for Republicans to choose a contender for the Oval office following Clinton's mandatory retirement. During the primary and caucus season of that year, I favored Senator John McCain for the job. I had seen him speak in person here in Seattle, and he struck me as an intelligent man who is truly dedicated to his country (rather than just looking out for himself) and who had the two necessary ingredients for anyone to manage foreign policy well: he was well informed, and capable of being decisive. These are necessary ingredients.

Let me repeat that. The two necessary ingredients for a successful foreign policy are being well informed (I'm talking knowledge of issues and "how things work", rather than simply knowing the names of nations' capital cities) and being decisive.

In 2000 on the Democrats side, Gore clearly was adequately informed but, alas, it seemed to me, unable to be decisive. Bradley struck me as being able to get informed and to be decisive, as need be, and I was hoping the Democrats would choose him.

But on the Republican side, McCain simply exuded the whole package. He knew what was going on with the world; knew it cold. And the guy was not afraid to make a decision. Let's be frank here. If 9/11 had happened on his watch (an extremely big if: unlike the current administration, I don't think a McCain administration would have ignored an intelligence brief entitled "Osama Bin Laden Plans to Use Airplanes in a Terrorist Attack") -- *IF* 9/11 had happened under McCain's watch, you can be damned certain that Osama Bin Laden and his entire network would have been found, thoroughly interrogated, and extremely killed by now. We would have had no foreign adventures like the kind we are currently undergoing in Iraq. Is there anyone in the world who could seriously believe that a McCain presidency would have led us into Iraq without sufficient evidence that it was necessary?

Then there was McCain's opponent, the honorable governor from Texas. Like most (but not all) previous Presidents who had previously served as a state governor, Bush lacked any coherent understanding of world affairs. I also found him to be lacking when it came to decisiveness -- his governorship of Texas was generally mediocre, and he didn't really seem to stand for much other than defending the Republican party platform (in and of itself not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly not *enough*). He didn't seem terribly ambitious; but, rather, he seemed like a good talker who could tow the line as need be. In that, he didn't strike me as good leadership material.

The caucus, unlike the primary, is not a closed vote. I ran my caucus true to the spirit of party participation, and I was honest with my vote even though it was obvious that the higher-ups in my district favored Bush. I voted for McCain, and quite possibly hurt my position in the district party organization as a result. Bush won our state handily, and he won the nomination eventually, and the rest, as Henry Ford would say, is bunk.

Taking Heinlein at his word, I supported my Republican candidates regardless of whether they were my choices during the primary/caucus season. This includes Bush's campaign.

Four years later. I remain convinced that Bush is not the right man for the job when it comes to my top issue, which is foreign policy. Here is a list of the principal issues I've noticed on his watch:

1) He announced the unilateral breaking of the ABM treaty with Russia, and has ignored Russia in pretty much every major foreign policy issue since. This has had the simultaneous result of alienating one of our principal negotiating partners in foreign affairs, while also announcing to the world that the US will not honor its treaty obligations.

2) He presided over the disintegration of our agreements with North Korea -- a process that was very preventable -- which has led to North Korea being well on the path toward acquiring / developing both nuclear weapons and the delivery systems necessary to threaten the United States.

3) In the wake of 9/11, he pursued the dismantling of Afghanistan's Taliban regime... this is clearly a desirable and necessary accomplishment. He developed an uneasy alliance with Pakistan -- also a positive accomplishment. But he has since disregarded Osama Bin Laden as a continued threat (he actually said as much) after a substantial chunk of Bin Laden's al Queda network was effectively dispersed. Osama Bin Laden is still out there, and his ability to reorganize his terrorist organization remains in tact. What the hell?

4) He precipitated the invasion and the current occupation of Iraq. One could argue whether this was a worthy or a necessary pursuit, although I found it nominally worthy and generally not necessary. Overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime is arguably a good outcome. But doing so *in the manner we have* has made the world less safe, and we pursued our Iraq campaign with no viable exit strategy. The President has stretched our armed forces much too thin -- to the point that we could not effectively wage another campaign if one should be necessary, and we are not even effectively waging our current campaign to secure Iraq. We are currently doing more to help terrorist organizations keep the hate going than we are doing to protect our own borders.

Apologists for Bush will point out (correctly) that Clinton had allowed the US military to atrophy. But at what point does the current President take responsibility for the fact that he has done nothing to effectively beef our military back up? He has secured the money necessary to wage our current, poorly-handled campaign in Iraq, but he has not addressed the larger issue of stretching our forces far too thin for the sake of our nation's safety. At some point, you have to stop blaming the previous administration and take charge for your own watch.

5) Closer to home, the Bush administration has managed to alienate Canada in ways too numerous to mention here (although I'll be happy to do so, if you care), and this has proven to be unnecessary and may yet prove to be unwise. Snide remarks about Canada aside, this nation is actually quite an important partner for the US, both geographically, economically, and politically. While we're at it, our relations with Cuba remain stupidly stilted and yet we have inexplicably been bending over backwards to appease China in so many instances where, again, it was neither necessary nor well advised.

The current campaign for the oval office is centering on Iraq. This is a mistake. The next foreign policy crisis will not come from Iraq. It will come from elsewhere. Regardless of the source (my bet is North Korea), our resources to respond to such a crisis will be missing some key ingredients. Our military is stretched too thin, and will remain so for the foreseeable future under the current administration. We do not need to (nor should we) meet every foreign policy crisis with military force. But we are at a severe disadvantage if we don't even have this tool available as a possibility.

Okay, so I believe that the current administration has proven to be inept at foreign policy. There are still other things to consider: what about the administration's domestic policies, and what does the challenger offer instead?

As I mentioned above, I do not agree with either major political party one hundred percent. I do, however, tend to adhere to certain principals that could be considered "Republican": I favor fiscal conservatism (including the preference for a small, balanced federal budget) and reduced government intervention in our daily lives. In both cases, Bush has proven to be a bad Republican.

EVEN BEFORE 9/11, Bush's administration squandered our national budgetary surplus and turned it into a massive deficit. As a percentage of GNP, this administration's budget deficit is already as large as it was under Johnson. Grok that for a minute. While his deficit is not the largest ever run (as a percentage of GNP), it is larger than any administration since Johnson. Not even Carter or Reagan, who were famous in their day for the federal deficit, managed such an amazing feat.

And you can't blame this all on 9/11. The ball had already been set in motion by then.

As for governmental intrusion into our daily lives... well, let's just say that if much of the Patriot Act may be considered necessary or even useful to securing national security, there is also much of it that is needlessly intrusive and destructive to our constitutionally guaranteed protections without providing so much as a shred of increased security.

Beyond what is and isn't useful in securing our safety, the Patriot Act makes it clear that as a *first* resort, and *not* as a last resort, this administration seeks to curtail civil liberties in an effort to pursue its stated goals. That troubles me more than anything else. Even Abraham Lincoln, in the direst of times during the civil war, was reticent to so much as put on hold our constitutional rights. And when he did so, it was with great deliberation and the stated necessity that our civil liberties be fully restored as quickly as possible. The current administration has never expressed any such qualms nor intentions.

(And lest 9/11 be blamed for everything the current administration has done to hinder our personal liberties, don't overlook the fact that EVEN BEFORE 9/11, this administration did more to restrict the right to bear arms than any previous President, Republican or Democrat. This is often overlooked by Republicans, who should be screaming the loudest about it.)

Okay, so George W. Bush does not, in my opinion, have the necessary skills in foreign policy nor does he represent what I consider to be true Republican ideals. What, then, of his challenger?

Would he be competent in foreign policy? I'm inclined to believe that he is more qualified than the previous Democratic candidate, Al Gore, in both knowledge and decisiveness. He not only has adequate knowledge of what's at work on the world scene, but he also has first hand experience regarding the use of military force as an extension of American foreign policy.

Does he have that other necessary quality, decisiveness? Both Kerry's and Bush's political campaigns have had to deal with this issue, and the Bush camp has convinced me that Kerry is unambitious -- albeit, not a flip-flopper. There is a big difference between unambitious and indecisive, just as there is no necessary correlation between hawkish and decisive. Kerry appreciates the subtlety of situations (what his camp called "nuanced"), and takes mitigating factors into account when casting his vote. Nothing sexy about that, but as long as it doesn't paralyze you (the way it did President Carter), nothing wrong with it, either.

From what we've seen of his political career, I'd expect Kerry to have the same kind of decisiveness as a George H. W. Bush: slow to act, generally non-aggressive and unambitious, but resolute when it becomes obvious that American action is necessary. (Note that I was not a fan of George Bush the Elder's foreign policy, but it was a far cry better than, say, Carter's or Clinton's.)

Ah, but what about those other concerns: Republican core values of fiscal conservatism and a less intrusive government. Well, Kerry is not a Republican, so we can't expect him to adhere to those values any moreso than Bush.

Or can we?

Clinton wasn't a Republican, yet he worked with the Republican Congress near the end of his tenure and accomplished what no President (Democrat *or* Republican) had managed in the modern era: a balanced budget. With a Republican Congress to keep him in check -- perhaps in some future essay, I'll go into why this wasn't possible with a Republican Congress during Bush the Younger's administration -- Kerry may well find himself moving back toward a balanced federal budget. And if not, how much worse than the current President could he be?

As for government intrusion into our daily lives, that's a bit harder. Kerry is a Democrat, and his voting record indicates that he's as inclined to have Government As Parent as any. But it's hard to imagine that his intrusions into our daily lives could be anywhere near as sweeping as the current President has already accomplished with the Patriot Act. I'd expect a net gain of personal liberties under Kerry (insofar as I expect the Patriot Act to finally die under a Kerry administration), even though I doubt we'll end up at pre-Patriot Act levels once everything is added up in a Kerry presidency. For that, look to McCain in 2008.

Not much of an endorsement for Bush's challenger, I know. And truth be told, there's a lot not to like about Kerry. What I am left with, ultimately, is that there is even less to like about Bush. So much less that I risk being a Bad Republican myself by crossing the party line for this one office, for this one election.

The stakes, however, are much too high for me to stay silent. The global balance of power, let alone the American Way of Life, are all at risk. A friend of mine has posted on his blog that he is not going to vote for Kerry. Truth be told, I don't want to vote for Kerry.

But I can not, in good conscience, vote for Bush. And while Heinlein made a strong case for voting the party line, he has also offered this advice:

"If you are able to vote, then do so. There may be no candidates or issues you want to vote for... but there will certainly be someone or something to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong." -- Robert A. Heinlein

I am active in the Republican party, and therefore have some obligation to stand by my party's nominee. But the Republican candidate for President has acted too much against true Republican values; has in fact blamed the Republican Congress for his own transgressions against those ideals. And he has clearly demonstrated through his mishandling of foreign policy these past four years that he does not share the strengths that his Republican predecessors have possessed. He is a bad Republican. He is a bad President. Both the party and the nation deserve and are capable of doing better.

There exists today a technology to implant a locator chip into a living body so that, if the subject should become lost, the subject can be located by the use of a special electronic tracker device.

These chips are currently used primarily for pets. In my own neighborhood, someone has posted a "Missing Cat" poster that mentions that the cat has an AVID chip installed. You might think that this is, in and of itself, an advertisement against locator chips because it obviously isn't working in this particular case. But, alas, there are two issues here: one, the cat was chipped in California, whereas the cops in our area don't use that technology, and two, the cat was run over by a car and crushed repeatedly by the continuing stream of traffic. Bad news for the chip. And the cat. And the owners, who weren't aware of the dangers of letting their cat roam the busy streets of crazy downtown Redmond. Etc.

As a science fiction writer and a political philosopher, I've given great thought to the implications of "chipping" people. As soon as I heard this technology was being made available for pets, I figured the next logical step was children (to protect against kidnapping), and then eventually to citizens and visitors of our fine emerging police state. ("Obviously, if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about by getting chipped....")

I was not a parent when I'd first heard about this technology, but now that I am, it takes on a different resonance. Would I sign up to chip my child if the technology had been proven useful in finding kidnapping victims and runaways?

I used to always believe that I'd never do such a thing, but now that I actually have a child of my own... I'm not so sure. The potential benefits (protecting one's child) may seem more immediate and more... personal than the potential long term problems. Things don't always turn out as bad as they could. The fact is that social security cards haven't quite become the Orwellian tool that many folks in the days of FDR had feared.

There's a great deal to be said against chipping children and citizens and foreign nationals, etc. The potential for abuse is HUGE. And yet, it's hard to resist the lure of at least one short-term benefit.

Want to put an end to all the hostage-taking and decapitations in Iraq? Very quietly begin a program of "chipping" any American who travels to Iraq. The chips should not be active all of the time -- that would be begging for trouble -- but have some mechanism whereby a person with a chip can easily activate it in case of emergency. Equip the local Military Police to be able to locate these tracking devices, and then rescue the hostages, capture the terrorists, and bring them to hard, hard justice.

How many of these terrorist cells would you have to capture and dismantle before the wave of kidnappings and decapitations come to an end? I don't think it would take very many. And yes, this solution would do nothing about the suicide bombers, but at least you'd remove one more tool from their bag of tricks, and maybe take a few terrorists out of the game, in the meantime.

Food for thought.

--Allan

I was reminded of the current federal election -- and the one we had four years ago, and the one four years before that -- when I saw this quote from a bumper sticker from the Nixon/Kennedy presidential campaign, 1960:

"Be Thankful Only One of Them Can Win."

A wry message of optimism dealing with a dubious decision. But then I thought about it, and I realized...

Eventually, *both* of them won. It was a lie! It was all wrong! They *could* both win!

[sigh]

On that downer note, here's a trivia question for you: when's the last time the Republican party fielded a bid for the White House that did *not* feature either a Bush or a Dole on the ticket?

(Remember, ticket = President & Vice President)

I am shamelessly ripping off a joke from a friend of mine, and re-writing it to suit my own sense of irony. Barry -- please forgive me!

Ripped from Today's Headlines: Florida has been ravaged by two (so far) hurricanes, wreaking havoc with electricity, cable, phone, and other infrastructure utilities. Fortunately, however, the computerized results from the upcoming election have already been backed-up.

It annoys me when a political campaign tries to have it both ways. Of course, all political campaigns try to have it both ways, and this is nothing new. But it still annoys me.

Today I'm going to point out one particular annoying aspect of one of the presidential campaigns. There are many other examples to use, from any campaign you choose. But here I go:

When you think of Senator Ted Kennedy, what do you think of? Well, aside from the alcoholism, womanizing, intellectual bankruptcy, Chappaquidic, his many dead brothers and nephews, and the family fortune built upon bootleg liquor and other illegal connections, I mean. When you think of Senator Kennedy, what do you think of his politics?

If you're at all like me, you probably think of him as not merely a liberal, but a staunch liberal. Somewhat of a neo-socialist on certain matters (socialized medicine, various welfare programs, affirmative action, etc.). Staunch in that he holds the line firmly. He is unabashed about his position. You know where he stands, and he stands firmly on the left, and that's that -- non-negotiable.

Now, this may or may not be true, but it is, nonetheless, what many folks (including myself) think of first when they think of the politics of Ted Kennedy.

So, if somebody says that there's someone even more liberal than Kennedy, what would you think of that person? That they are even, er, stauncher? That they lean even further to the left? That their views are even more firm, even less negotiable, perhaps?

That's what I would think.

Now let's suppose that a campaign described a candidate as a flip-flopper. What would you think that means? That they are *not* staunch, perhaps? That they do not consistently lean either to the left or to the right? Rather, that they are sometimes left-leaning and sometimes right-leaning? That their views are hard to pin down, perhaps? In fact, that their views might be open to negotiation?

That's what I would think.

So, then. Let's connect the dots. When the Bush campaign refers to Senator John Kerry as even more liberal than Senator Kennedy and, at the same time, as a flip-flopper... which is it? Is he a neo-socialist? Or is he a moderate? Is he a hard-liner commie symp, or a wishy-washy middle-of-the-roader? Is it possible to be both at the same time?

I remember a poster from one of my grade school classrooms (from when I was a student, not from when I was a teacher) that featured a quote from Garfield