LAmom

MCCLELLAN COMES CLEAN

I'm guessing it feels good to take the load off.  Scott McClellan has a book coming out where he bites the hand that fed him for so many years.

"One of the worst disasters in our nation's history [Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath] became one of the biggest disasters in Bush's presidency," he writes.

"The perception of this catastrophe was made worse by previous decisions President Bush had made, including, first and foremost, the failure to be open and forthright on Iraq and rushing to war with inadequate planning and preparation for its aftermath."

Mr McClellan stops short of saying Mr Bush lied about the reasons for going to war in Iraq, but says his administration orchestrated the build-up so that force became the only real option.

Quoted by the Washington Post, he writes that "it was all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the president's advantage" and chides the media for failing to ask enough questions.

"No-one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now when we can more fully understand its impact," he says.

"What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary."

When I used to see McClellan on TV, it always seemed to me that he looked very uncomfortable as he did his job.  Having to repeat and defend lies that weren't even his own, it looked like it was making him feel ill.  Very different from other White House spokescritters (like Tony Snow) who seemed to thoroughly enjoy the task.  I actually felt sorry for Scott when I watched him.  I'm NOT excusing him for lying to me, but it was clear that he wished he were somewhere else.

BY THE YEAR 2013

Fellow citizens, I want to take a little time to describe to you my vision of the things I will accomplish in four years if you select me to be your leader.

I cannot guarantee that I will achieve these things, but I will recite them anyway because you deserve a leader who understands the power of positive affirmations as a public policy strategy.  When I describe these goals, I will use present perfect tense verbs, so that you will feel as if they have already happened.

By the year 2013, America has become an idyllic place.  The traffic jams that plague our roads have been vanquished, although we still suffer the lingering effects of the occasional stalled car in the slow lane.  Earthquakes have been prevented, and we have daytime temperatures of 72 degrees year 'round.

I should probably reiterate that I cannot guarantee these results, but this is my vision.

Four years from now, there is no longer any place in the world that is a safe haven for talentless pop stars to plan their efforts to target our precious children.

Also, by 2013, our nation's single men have overcome their fear of commitment.  They have learned how to recognize a good thing when they see it, and they are proposing to acceptable women by the fifth date or sooner.  Russia and China are cooperating with us as well, resulting in the end of the worldwide man shortage.  Adultery has also been eliminated (while there may be flare-ups at times, they are spasmodic and much reduced).

As I said before, these things are not guaranteed.

If you believe in these goals, then you want me to lead this country.  Really, you do.

"BUSH'S THIRD TERM"

I don't usually approve of the kind of sweeping generalizations that politicians like to make, such as "McCain is running for Bush's third term."

But what else can I think when I see this?

Republican U.S. presidential candidate John McCain said on Wednesday he would not rule out launching preemptive wars against future enemies.

Let the name-calling begin!

I heard a local radio DJ say yesterday that a large number of historians have named GWB as the worst president ever.  The DJ thought that it was premature to say things like that about a currently sitting president before history has had a chance to take its course.  But considering the precedents that Bush has set in terms of pre-emptive war and disrespecting the rule of law, I can understand the historians' point of view.

BLACK PEOPLE'S DIRTY LAUNDRY

I'm realizing that the thing that most has my stomach in knots about Rev. Jeremiah Wright is maybe less about the effect he might have on the campaigns and more about the fact that I, and probably all black people, know people like that.  People who can be just fine in some areas, but they also have that freaky black-paranoid-rage streak.  And from time to time they say this stuff that make you feel so queasy.  And you get used to putting up with it, but you really, really hope that they never say it in front of non-black people, because you know that other people will think that black people are totally nuts.  And now, here's our dirty laundry on the front pages of major newspapers.  It's been a rough week.

HILLARY CHANGES PARTNERS

At the beginning of the election season, there was a vibe coming from the Hillary Clinton campaign that she represented almost a "two-for-one" candidacy.  Vote for me, and you get Bill, too.

Now she's hinting at another package deal.  Don't worry about choosing between Barack and me.  Just vote for me, and you'll get us both (maybe).

Stand on your own, Senator!

HE'S ON A ROLL

Looks like there's a pattern here . . .

There was this:

McCain, Romney acrimony dates back to the Olympics

And now this:

A contentious relationship between Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, has been percolating on Capitol Hill for more than two years.

Mr. McCain seems to have a talent for getting on people's bad side (and then having to compete against them later for a job).

GOOD ENOUGH FOR HIM, NOT ENOUGH FOR US

My pretty-much-preferred candidate, Senator Obama, made a splendid showing on Super Tuesday!  Now that the big day is over, I can see even more clearly where my feelings lie about Obama himself and about the presidential race overall.

Watching Obama's journey has been inspiring to me as an African-American.  It's extremely gratifying to see a black man run such a good campaign and be so well received by the American people.  In terms of what I would wish for him personally, his success up through this week would be enough to make me happy.  And seeing the way he has inspired young people and new voters to get involved in the political process, I think he's done a great service to our country just by running.  If he were competing for the nomination against a Howard Dean or a Barbara Boxer, I would be ready to sit back and say, "Good for him!  Win or lose, he's done himself proud!"

But I can't sit back.  I'm still on the edge of my seat.  Because he's not running against Dean or Boxer; he's running against someone who helped to get us into this horrible war.  For the sake of our country and our reputation in the world, we have got to express a full repudiation of the Bush doctrine.  Obama is the only candidate left who can do that.  That's why I'm still so emotionally attached to this race, looking at the delegate counts and the polls, checking hourly to see if they've called the primary in New Mexico yet (right now, with 99% of the precincts reporting, Hillary is ahead by 1,123 votes).

We need for Obama to win because we need for the other candidates to NOT win.  Yes, my vote for him was partly an "anti-" vote; I'm not ashamed to say it.  He's done enough to be a credit to himself, but America needs for him to go all the way.  Keep it up, man.

YOUR VOTE COUNTS!

. . . and for the first time I can remember, my vote counts, too.  Usually when I go to vote, I feel like I either know already who is going to win or at least I know which way California is going to go.  I vote anyway, but not thinking that my vote has much influence.

But this time, the California vote actually matters AND the California victory is possibly up for grabs.  So as I head across the street to Lynwood High School, I really feel important.

Tingle, tingle.  Here I go . . .

UPDATE: I'm glad I went early in the day.  My local poll workers didn't know how to handle a Non-Partisan who wanted to vote Democratic.  At first they sent me to the Independent voting booth where there were only independent candidates on the ballot.  I had to explain to them what they were supposed to do and then I was successfully able to vote.  So now anybody who comes in there after me will get good service.

DEFINING MOMENTS

I've come to expect politicians to act like politicians.  I know what they say about laws and sausages, and I accept the fact that at times there have to be compromises.  But sometimes a critical moment comes when we really need our representatives to rise above politics and do the right thing, even if it's not politically smart.

I remember how I felt when the Iraq War resolution was being considered.  I remember pacing the floor in our den while I listened to the radio.  I couldn't believe that Congress was seriously considering the president's proposal to start a war unilaterally against a country that had not attacked us nor threatened us.  How could we set such a dangerous and immoral precedent?  I figured that some of the legislators really did want to go to war, but I strongly suspected that there were others who knew it was wrong but were afraid of being painted as "soft on terrorism" by war hawks who were capitalizing on a zeitgeist of fear and the confusion some Americans had about who's who between bad guys overseas.  I saw it as a defining moment, one where you see what a leader is really made of.

I felt helpless thinking that the people who were supposed to represent me could cave in to political pressures at a time when we so desperately needed them to stand for what was right.  Before the vote, I told myself: Anyone who votes 'yes' on this has got to go.  What I meant by that was that they needed to get the boot from Congress; it hadn't occurred to me that some of those people would later be running for the presidency.  My vote for our commander-in-chief will not go to anyone who either sincerely believes in pre-emptive war or was spineless enough to go along with one.  That's why I didn't vote for John Kerry, would not have voted for John Edwards, and will not vote for Hillary Clinton.  It's also the reason why I was glad to be able to vote to re-elect Barbara Boxer to the Senate in 2004.  Despite the fact that we disagree strongly on some things, such as abortion, she had the courage to stand by her convictions and vote against the war.

I've had this blogpost halfway composed in my head for over a week, but I hadn't made the time to sit down and finish it.  Then yesterday I happened to see something at the library that finally got me back to it.  I was glancing at the section of biographies for kids when I saw a name that always stops me in my tracks -- Jeannette Rankin.  Even though she knew that her votes against war would doom her political career, she would not go against her principles.  After her vote against entering World War I she said, "I'm not interested in that ["that" being the question of how her vote would affect her chances at re-election].  All I am interested in is what they will say fifty years from now."  Those votes were her defining moments, and she rose to them.

It's wonderful that she broke the gender barrier in Congress, but that's not the thing that makes her so special to me.  Her willingness to stand alone was what had me suddenly shedding tears right there in the middle of the San Pedro library.  We need more leaders like that.

WHO I WANT TO WIN (EVEN THOUGH I PROBABLY WON'T VOTE FOR HIM)

When it comes to choosing the next president, the issue that looms largest in my mind is war in general, Iraq in particular.  Out of all the political issues that our country faces, war policy is the one where the president has the greatest individual influence, so a candidate's position on war is usually the thing I look at first.

I don't know if any of the candidates would carry out the policy that I think is needed in Iraq, but I think there is only one major candidate who could do it.  (You know what I mean by major candidates, right?  The ones we expect to get at least a bronze medal in the primaries.)

Before there is talk about how long our troops should stay or when they should leave, we must first confront the fact that it was WRONG for us to have invaded Iraq in the first place.  I don't really want a president who would withdraw from Iraq just because things are going badly there or because the war was poorly managed.  That would leave the door open for other preemptive wars, provided that we carry them out better.  No way.  We first have to acknowledge that preemptive war is evil, that we have wronged the Iraqi people, and that we want to make right what we have done wrong.  In Christian lingo (not everyone is Christian, but I am and so is Mr. Bush), this is called repentance.  Once we have faced that truth, then we can work with the Iraqis and the international community to make a plan for what kind of presence we should have there and for how long.

The only major candidate who can legitimately take this position is Senator Barack Obama.  The main Republican candidates support the war.  And the other leading Democrats, while they are critical of Bush now, voted in favor of the war resolution at the beginning, which means that they at least support the idea of preemptive war as viable option.

So I'm hoping for a win by Obama.  I'm not planning to vote for him myself, though.  I live in California, a state that is usually expected to go Democrat, so I feel very comfortable voting for fringe candidates.  I expect to cast my vote for Joe Schriner, a pro-life liberal who is running as an independent.  The only thing that could change that would be if Obama were the Democratic nominee and there were questions about which way California was going to go.

UPDATE (February 2): Shame on me for not knowing this sooner!  I just found out early last week that California is not a completely closed primary!  Independents can vote in the Democratic primary.  So I'm going to vote for Obama in the primary and then most likely vote for Schriner in the general election.