Quote:
Originally posted by sycamore
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I understand why he did it, but it almost seems hypocritical, particularly for a Democrat.
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Welcome to realpolitik. Dean has to follow Bushs lead. Its amazing that even the less than rabid conservative talk shows are admitting that Bush is lost in Iraq. However, if the president pulls a few more names off of his dad's Christmas card list, pumps tens of millions of dollars into TV ads, Bush can still change the message.
Money = Message in politics today.
I appreciate absolute moral conviction. I think the Green Party has an important message. However, I still think that some of them are looking at the prospect of drilling in ANWAR and surveys into coastal oil and wondering if they chose the right path in the last election.
My wife already intercepted a call from an Army recruiter who wanted to speak to my 17-year-old son. For me the issues in this next election are clear and I need for not-Bush to win. I am not happy with some of the Democratic candidates, but any of the top four are at the very worst, literally, the lesser of two evils.
If we cannot get in someone competent to manage the military and foreign policy to get us help in Iraq, then we will end up building another wall near the Washington monument. It won't be 493.50 feet long and have 58,175 (est) names on it, but it will be big enough for the people who visit it.
If I go to the Vietnam Memorial it will be as a tourist, and the men and women I pay my respects to will be strangers. There will not be any name there for me to bring flowers to, or to cry over. You have to wonder about the parents who visit their children whose names are in the middle and end panels, the ones who died later in war. Do they question how they voted, or their views on the war and the statements they made about it before their child was called up? If they knew what was going to happen, would they have voted for McCarthy?
The war in Iraq is the most critical issue for the US and will be for years. We could have finished Iraq in the first war, but decided not to. We could have waited to build support so that we would have had a truly international presence there, maybe even from countries in the region, but we didn't.
We are stuck there right now by a White House which is hampered by one HUGE problem. They must fix a serious problem without admitting that they made a mistake or that the problem is at all serious. This is impossible.
For this reason, the next president cannot be Bush if we want to fix Iraq. If he were willing to step down, it could be another Republican, but Bush is unwilling to do what it takes to fix his own mess.
In my opninion, Dean can and should do whatever he legally can to win. We already have a White House steeped in the influence of corporate and wealthy contributers. Add the fact that they are getting American soldiers needlessly killed and there is not much worse that Dean can do.