Yes, I know this picture is hilarious, but this is a serious post.
Sometimes the most average of people can be the most brilliant when it comes right down to it.
Check this unedited comment made on
Tallahassee.com earlier today. It explains almost precisely my reservations about John McCain's presidental run.
John McCain, just like George Bush, is what’s wrong with America. He supports an immoral, un-winnable war in Iraq that is simply sending our troops off to die for oil. Sadam did not have weapons of mass destruction, nor did he have anything to do with 9/11. Yet, after all of these facts have been verified, McCain still wants to send in more troops. Why doesn’t he go, especially since he wants so badly to "win"?
I respect the man for his service to our country as a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War and his bravery as a POW. However, as a US Army ground combat veteran of that war, I am extremely disappointed in McCain for supporting this unnecessary war. He of all people should understand the horrors of war, and yet, he supports it. His support could perhaps come from the fact that he never served as a ground troop, but performed his duties from the air, dropping bombs on civilians. I wish that he had served on the ground and witnessed the God awful things that I witnessed. If he had, I do not believe that he would be so eager to support an unnecessary war that has killed over 100,000 civilians, over 3,200 of our dedicated troops and has done severe damage to our economy. Based on his current position on this issue alone, McCain is not fit to be my president.
Oddly enough what this doesn't touch on, and it's the Elephant in the Room, is that McCain is still a PTSD ex-POW solider. For those not up on jargon, that's a soldier who was captured (McCain in Vietnam, of course) who has suffered, and still suffers, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Bizarrely enough, McCain still hasn't acknowledged that he is still feels trauma from the years upon years he was in captivity and tortured.
You can see it in the way he motions and holds himself; in the way he blinks. It's fucking heartbreaking. He's a guy who has been in the dirt and has come out of it worse, sure, but better in the sense that he has ground experience and political vision. He's an Eisenhower, quite simply, except he has a proclivity for war.
I want to believe in him so badly. I do. He seems keenly aware of the impact that the military-industrial complex has on our country's economic and moral fabric, he seems to want to do something, anything, to fix campaign finance reform laws and he seems to be a guy that, despite the political landscape around him, wants to be a good man. Plus, and this is so important, HE HAS A SENSE OF HUMOR! It makes him totally media savvy and makes his competitors look like jerks in comparison.
McCain goes on Letterman to pre-announce his intention to actually run for President (yeah, yeah...), the Straight Talk Express is back, he's hosted
Saturday Night Live and has been on
Conan multiple times and WAS ACTUALLY GRACIOUS AND FUNNY.
Hillary can't do that. Somehow, since 2002, she's become more milquetoast than Katie Couric. Barack hasn't proven he can do that at all (but oh he's getting there). Guiliani is way too busy draping himself in an American flag with "9/11" scrawled in blood on it to do that. McCain is a class act.
But there's still the war. McCain, ostensibly, wants to stay the course. And I have to wonder-- as someone who fundamentally, ideologically, opposes all war-- if I can actually bubble in a circle (pull a lever, etc.) for that.
Hillary's promised to end the war if she's President (not that I have any reason to trust her... or McCain, for that matter). So I'm left with a pretty clear choice in 2008: stick it out in Iraq because we got the Iraqis and ourselves into this mess and the people we're trying to give democracy deserve better, or be selfish and cut our losses, because we shouldn't even have gone in there in the first place.
Frankly, I'm inclined to stick it out most of the time. But I think Senator Joe Biden's plan in doing so is a good plan. Trisect the country into Sunni, Shia and Kurd, giving them a government comparable to ours under the Articles of Confederation.
I would append this plan by saying, since we pretty much have to take sides in this, give more power to the Kurds. Not to sound like an arbitrary ignoramous, but the Kurds kind of deserve it. It can be argued that they suffered more, in a way.
So, I have my "plan" (pfft on me), but I still have to bite the bullet and choose one. And, right now, it's way too soon to decide. But we should definitely continute debating as much as possible.
