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Obama for President

I'm attending a Obama house party over on the east side of town today. I am co-hosting with a co-worker near his home, and near my parents' home. I've been asked to provide a few comments on why I am supporting Barack Obama for president.

In short, my thinking is simple. He is the best qualified candidate for leading the change that we must make to return America to the proper course. Respect for our fellow man both domestically and around the world, for the environment, honoring the service of the men and women who have served in the armed forces, whether they are still serving, or have returned home, and making sure that they are supported appropriately, commensurate with their sacrifice. It is important that we instill new leadership that is prepared to address these challenges. And I am confident that Barack is the candidate to take on those challenges.

Greenhills Dems Convene Again: July 17th

Just a reminder that we are supposed to get back together again Thursday, July 17th, at 7pm. Hope you all can make it! We need to get energized for the fall elections. We'll be up at the Greenhills Community Building Library again.

Cognitive Dissonance

One thing that I don't understand as we roll into this election cycle is the disconnect on the right as it pertains to torture. I see a recurring theme around the fact that torture tactics that we employed against detainees at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and other now-infamous US facilities are somehow tolerable, and that the provisions of the Geneva Convention are quaint, because frankly the means justify the ends, given what we suspect the detainee might have done. And in the same breath, the mere utterance of McCain's military record (not to mention his time as a POW)by anyone on the left triggers a hue and cry that no doubt signifies an impugning of his complete service record, and is nothing short of an indictment of the patriotism of the commenter.

We should either honor McCain's service, the incredible hardships he endured in five years as a POW, AND at the same time reject the premise that our own tactics (many similar, if not the same as those that McCain endured) were nothing less than torture, or alternatively, we relegate the tactics employed by American forces (hired guns and otherwise) to that just a step above "frat hazing" and then must therefore question the punishment that McCain endured as simply his initiation into the North Vietnamese chapter of Delta Tau Chi.

FISA Capitulation by Dems

Obama's vote on the FISA bill makes me somewhat queasy. But unfortunately his actions are merely the last component of capitulation, the sacrificing of our civil liberties at the feet of the most corrupt administration in American history. Bush, needless to say, is thrilled, and he should be: he was able to get every last component of what he was looking for out of a Democratic congress.