A Light After a "Long Political Darkness" – Obama 2008!

I'm happy to see all the bullshit going away and the shape of things starting to become clearer.

Four years ago, I voted for Kerry because he wasn't Bush, who even then I considered a criminal threat to American values, principles, and specifically, its Constitution. I didn't vote for Kerry so much because he was Kerry, but like many Americans, because he did not seem like a criminal. I take my vote seriously, and I cannot vote for a man who called the Constitution "just a piece of paper" even as he lied to the American people in creating the pretense for a war everyone with either a brain or a conscience knew was not going to be over in "a matter of weeks."

Bush was handed the election by the Supreme Court in 2000, and the attacks of 9/11 hadn't happened yet. That was back when the presidency was mere politics for me, a matter of choosing policies and hoping for some changes in the direction I felt were a better one. But I had never considered the matter of the presidency as a matter of life or death for America.

After 9/11, that changed, and we went to war against Al Queda and terrorists, primarily in Afghanistan (a move I supported) and then a costly, seemly endless quagmire in Iraq (which I think will go down in American history as an even bigger mistake than Vietnam, and did not support).

Knowing what could be known then, a vote for Bush meant further endorsement of his irrational foreign policy, unilateralism, and his sheer arrogance and seemingly growing disconnectedness from reality. That vote -- the second one, which was, for the most part, fair and square, unlike the one that got him elected -- was a crucial one for me. When Bush got reelected, it really did cast a gloom over me, and was a funk I haven't been able to shake for years. It was also a funk that has made it easy for me to be an expatriate, and to not feel much desire to go back.

I get angry even seeing Bush on television, but even angrier that the American people, or just over half of us, actually put him back in office a second time. I can't say which disappoints me more.

But to the extent that I despaired in 2004, I have hope again. I am voting for Barack Obama, barring a revelation that he is an alien infiltrator in human clothing, or was secretly a street pimp named Big O working the Tenderloin in the 1980's. Short of such levels of scandalous revelation, I've seen enough to make it clear that he is the most fit, as well as the most likely to become the next President of the United States.

I truly believe, for the first time in my life, that I'm able to vote for a candidate who will bring about true, fundamental change in American life, as well as its policies abroad. He's not a crunchy Nader, an emotionally inaccessible Kerry, or a formerly uninspiring Gore. And he doesn't look like the picture of "the politician", as Clinton the First pulled off with charm, confidence, and a certain degree of pimptitude, but are warm character traits that Clinton the Second sorely lacks.

And let's not forget that Hilary is no different from the other politicians who voted to send American troops to die for what is nothing more than an business opportunity for the connected, and a vainglorious distraction from the fact that Al Qaeda is still running around while Bin Laden continues to draw breath in the land of the living. And laughs at us. Why are we fighting these wars again? Wasn't it to round up the several hundred badguys in this criminal network and put Bin Laden into the ground? Why are we just creating a new breeding ground for terrorists and pissing away the power of our moral mandate to strike back? Well, we've pretty much pissed that away completely at this point.

Yes, Bush. "Mission accomplished," right?

Now, comes a man whom I would truly follow, whom I think of worthy of being followed, who has the morality, vision, and ability to lead. And now that the old arguments are starting to tatter -- "C'mon. A black man as president? If he could win, I'd vote for him, but" -- it's time to question just what the value of a vote means.

I didn't vote for Nader -- my history as an adult in the final races have been Clinton, Gore, Kerry, although I registered Green in the primaries to give them viability, yet voted in other directions. Yet, I still bristle when people needle him for "giving Bush the election" by dividing the electorate. That's short-sighted.

The real problem has been that the Dems have been pussies for far too long, and the electorate should have never BEEN that divided to begin with, to the extent that a blithering idiot such as Bush could even make it a close race. The fact that Nader made it a bit harder for Gore is besides the point, and people shouldn't use their votes as political tools, like pawns in a game of chess. People who vote for whom they think is best. If people simply do that, we don't have to play counting games and talk about "throwing away votes."

And the political inefficacy of the Democratic party was where votes were "thrown away" for long before Nader even showed up. If anything, his brief upsurge in popularity was a mere reflection of the growing disillusionment of the stuffed-suit politics of a party that had seemed to forgotten where it had left its balls, not to mention a clearly-stated vision for the country.

Now, I feel we've got a man with a vision, as well as a man who CAN win. I've always been saying that anyone who isn't going to vote for Obama because he's black, or because "his name rhymes with Osama, dude!" isn't a vote the Dems ever had, anyway. And now that Clinton is starting to feel the heat from her past political mistake of supporting the Iraq war, is playing the role of eminent politician, and continues to make clear her utter lack of a personality, Obama's star is really starting to shine.

I'm ready. I'm on board. Actually, I've been there since 2004. Don't you hate it when you go to see a movie, and the trailer for the movie you REALLY want to see comes on? Well, now, after nearly four years of waiting, it's almost here. Looks damn good so far.

Frankly, Obama "had me at hello."

P.S. And in a crisis, who still thinks a black man can't be president? We've already seen this applied. Still can't imagine it?

As they say, "Once you go Black, you never...vote Republican again!" Or something like that.

Obama/Freeman 2008!

Comments

[la_resistance28]

Wow, your movie-trailer analogy is just spot-on. His 2004 speech is still one of the greatest speeches I've ever had the pleasure of hearing. Obama-rama in 2008!

P.S.
Who's Freeman? Wait, did you mean MORGAN Freeman? Haha, I suddenly realized the connection to the clips... duh.

I like Obama and would not be incredibly disappointed if he were to become President, even though I don't agree with him much on policy. He's a good man.

But, Mike, what the hell?! John Kerry?! That John Kerry was not perceived as a criminal is testament to the spin job of the Democratic Party and the left's tolerance for anti-military crime. Kerry is most definitely a criminal. Just one of the sort you are willing to tolerate, it seems.

John Kerry held a commission in the United States Navy and Naval Reserve. While he held that commission, he traveled to Paris to secretly meet with Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army representatives. His anti-war activity violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice (which applies to reservists, even Inactive Ready Reservists, as well as active duty), Federal law, and -- if you're willing to adhere to the language of "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" -- the US Constitution.

Even if you're not willing to declare Kerry treasonous, read the 14th Amendment: "No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President ... having previously taken an oath ... to support the Constitution of the United States, [who has] engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof". By Kerry's own admissions, how can he be fit to be President under the Constitution? How can he be fit to be Senator?

That the Democrats didn't recognize this fact from a cursory review of Kerry's Navy record and biography -- that they thought his service was a plus -- just goes to show how sadly disconnected and bankrupt the left is on military and national-security issues. Add to that the fact the guy's an unlikeable, boring turd and the Democrats threw away that election.

Just because a ham sandwich should have been able to beat George Bush in the 2004 election doesn't mean it was a good idea to have nominated the ham sandwich. I'm a Republican voter these days, so I don't want the Democrats to win, but I would appreciate it as an American if they made some effort to be competitive.

[The Metropolitician]

Whatever, (no name), one can claim Kerry did or didn't do during Vietnam (and don't bring up the Swift Boat Ramroading of a decorated war hero), Bush started a war on false pretenses. He's going against the face of even our most cherished allies in NATO. He's wasting thousands of American lives, even more lives in the collateral damage he's causing, besmirching the once relatively good name of our military and our people with all this state sanctioning of torture, sold out an undercover CIA operative from his offices, way overstepped his constitutional bounds in the executive...

Need I go on? I'll save myself the carpal tunnel and just leave it at that. If I have to choose the lesser of two "evils" again, I'd still go with Kerry in a happy heartbeat.

[Brendon Carr (Korea Law Blog)]

It was me (Brendon Carr) who commented above. I don't know why TypePad is

John Kerry's Silver Star was awarded in 1969; although there are many other people who dispute the validity of his medal, I don't. But in 1970 he went to meet the enemy in Paris. Just because he had won an award for heroism a year earlier does not mean his conduct in 1970 was not clearly and unforgivably against the laws of the United States, and disqualificatory for Federal elective office under the Constitution.

Call me skeptical, but I do not see Obama as anti-war at all. He would bring US troops back from Iraq in 2009 at the earliest, another possible 2 years of war. He belongs to the same extremist foreign policy organisation as Cheney, Hillary Clinton, and most of the other warmongers running the war, and refused to rule out nuking Iran if it was suspected of making a nuclear weapon.

And seriously, how does Obama speech at before AIPAC really differ to that of President Bush?
http://www.scribd.com/doc/46712/Obama-AIPAC-Speech

I think Obama is a bait and switch. Yep, he can see that Iraq is a disaster and wants out (eventually), but I don't think he is taking a principled anti-war position.

Personally I think that Obama would be better than Hillary, who is as bad as President Bush but only worse since as a new president she would have all the credibility that President Bush has lost. And he is better than every single republican candidate, most of whom are making absolutely horrifying fascist statements, with the exception of Ron Paul.

Anyway, it is unfortunate but Obama is not going to be the democratic candidate because he is black, and most whites won't vote for a black. That fact is the elephant in the living room, and is the reason why Hillary is going to take the democratic nomination while they go through the motions of considering Obama. He may have a chance at VP, though.

I think America is ready for change and that change can indeed come in a black president. I think he is the right man at the right time. His background allows him to easily traverse the thorny road of racial politics in America.

If Obama is going to have problems as a black candidate then how is suddenly Hillary immune to the "american won't back a woman for president" notions?

Antiquated ideas like that are what holds people back. I can honestly be hopeful about a Obama presidency unlike a Kerry white house which I just backed because really the other option was too horrible to contemplate.

If America has woken up they will elect Obama, but sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you're ready for help.