tan, rested, and ready

I'm back.

After a five month break, I'm blogging again.  There's a lot going on with election season and I've had a lot percolating in my mind lately and I need to articulate it.  

If you read one of my earlier posts, you know I voted for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.  Obviously, she didn't get the nomination.  Rather than be bitter about it (as a Democrat, I'm used to see the people for whom I vote lose), I've decided to give Barack Obama a second look.  I have to say that while I do no support him as enthusiastically as some, I will nonetheless vote for him in November.  In fact, I think he could make quite a good president, should he win.  This is a huge election for this country.  I believe it is imperative that Obama be elected.  He is not without his faults, however.

Obama needs to explain his shift on the FISA renewal bill.  By caving in, yet again, to this disgusting example of a president, the Democrats in Congress really raise questions about their abilities to govern.  Instead of safeguarding the Fourth Amendment, Congress felt that it was more important to give civil immunity to the telecoms who executed Bush's illegal, unConstitutional, and impeachable wiretapping orders.  For Obama, who vowed to filibuster this bill to support it, to have voted for the "compromise" is something that really enrages me. With the Republicans signing off on this administration's gutting of the Constitution over the last 7 years,  I had hoped for more from my party.  He is not the only one I'm mad at.  But he still needs to explain himself. 

What really has me concerned is the possibility that someone like John McCain could be elected.  This is not the 2000 model of John McCain.  That guy was principled, articulate, and appeared to have a genuine plan as to how to govern.  The 2008 model we're stuck with is a toady to a bunch of corporate lobbyists and who can't seem to say what he'll do in office, other than staying in Iraq indefinitely and balancing the budget while not raising taxes.  Yeah, that'll happen!  That's what the last guy said.  He does not appear to have any grasp of the economic crises that this country faces in the wake of the sub-prime mortgage mess.  In addition, all he has offered in the way of substance in the last 2 weeks is a discussion of Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and tire gauges.  Is he really telling us NOT to inflate our car tires to save gas?  And to make matters worse, McCain is behaving as someone who believes he's heading for defeat-he's beginning to unleash a really hateful and negative campaign.  Now that he has several of Karl Rove's minions in his employ, McCain is trying to make the debate all about the character and race of Barack Obama.  The sad part is, negative campaigns work to some degree.  There are a lot of people who are wary of voting for a person of color and McCain is exploiting that.  This is from a guy whose nomination was derailed in 2000 by Karl Rove's telephone campaign before the South Carolina primary implying that McCain had a mixed-race child out of wedlock. McCain and his wife, to their credit, adopted a child from Mother Teresa's orphanage in India. Now that he's in bed with Karl Rove, you have to wonder how much more of his soul and self-respect he's mortgaged to be president.  

Obama needs to hit back hard.  There is more than enough material.  Of the generally sorry lot of Republicans that were running for President, he emerged as the least unelectable.  His flip flops are many and are becoming legend.  In 2000, he rails against Jerry Falwell and in 2006 he's giving the commencement address at Falwell's Liberty University.  He opposed offshore drilling until a couple of months ago.  This is the kind of stuff that Bush used to go after John Kerry-and it can work against McCain.  This guy doesn't know what he's for or against and yet he's supposed to be a decisive leader?  Please.  Anyway, I'll have more in my next post.