Were I an American, I would never have though I'd be a Rebublican, but honestly right now, McCain is looking like the best of the lot.
It's okay, Carol. If it'll make you feel better, I can assure you that liking McCain by no means makes you a Republican. That's part of his whole schtick -- "even non Republicans will vote for me!" Trust me, there are a lot of Republicans who cannot stand John McCain.
I agree, the media's being exceptionally shallow on this race, especially re: Clinton v. Obama. I suspect part of it is that their programs aren't all that different. So it's easier to focus on things that should be irrelevant. "Oh, look, a woman! and a black! aren't we wonderful that we're so progressive."
It ticks me off when Hilary plays the "poor little me; those big bad men are being mean to a girl!" act. I like her a lot better when she's cranky. At least that points to her strength of character, instead of weakness. Come *on*. You can't face Tim Russert, how on earth are you going to do anything about Iran... or much of anything, really. Speaking of Kathleen Blanco...
Paul, you are correct. Saddam wasn't a threat to us at that point. The idea was to stop him from ever *becoming* a threat. He probably didn't have a thing to do with 9/11, either. So what? We acted against him *before* he had a chance to act against us or anyone else (remember Kuwait?). That kind of pre-emption is somewhat speculative, I grant you. The signs seemed clear that Saddam would love to be a danger to the region and hence the world. Now, since we went in, there is no way to know what he might or might not have done by now. We can argue that. But I don't think anyone really misses him much.
And really, if you found a rattlesnake was living in your backyard, would you leave him there on the grounds that he hadn't killed your children *yet*? Why, he might not *ever* kill them. I mean, sure, the neighbors' kid died last year, but that's different. Probably it was some other snake, anyway.
Or would you think it was a lot smarter to get rid of the rattlesnake?
(Yeah, yeah, the analogy's not perfect. And actually, I can imagine some people agreeing with the first approach, so for them it won't make the point at all. But that's what the thinking was.)
Saddam's Iraq was a rattlesnake. Me, I'm glad the rattlesnake's not out there anymore.
Could we have done it better? Yeah, probably. But I'm a bit cynical about that -- it's the government, of *course* they screw up. Which is another reason I don't want them taking over my health care, come to think of it...
PJ
