Politics

Let me start by saying I don't trust any of the 3 major players seeking the office of President.

Despite that I still like following politics because every 4 years when we go through this Presidential election cycle, we really get to see spin masters working their charm.

A great example is this whole "debate", as it were, on so-called Foreign Policy experience. Explain this to me.. why does this matter? Bear in mind the following little tidbit: Our last two Presidents, including the current sitting one, both became President after being Governors. What Foreign Policy experience do freakin Governors have? Zero. His lack of foreign policy experience did little to assuage people from voting for Bush in 2000 - even if he didn't win the popular vote. And yet in 2000, such experience was still pretty relevent: Terrorism was on the rise and becoming more brazen (Remember the USS Cole?), and the fragile tendril of "peace" between Israel and Palestine was starting to show its weaknesses.

So when I see people attacking Obama for his lack of foreign policy experience, it makes me want to laugh. Sure, McCain has more of said experience than him, but it was McCain's party head (read: The POTUS) who got us in this foreign policy mess to begin with. And what was with that hardline McCain took about other nations like Iran and North Korea that sounded an awful lot like Bush's "Axis of Evil"/"You are either with us or you are with the terrorist" comments. Have the Republicans learned nothing these last 4 years?

Newsflash to the GOP: Most reasonable people like the idea of pursuing every avenue of diplomacy before resorting to bombing someone to the stone age. 'Every avenue of diplomacy' is not the same as "appeasement".

Now, before anyone thinks I'm all anti-Republican, this on-going fight between Clinton and Obama is pissing me off. And what is Clinton's primary argument? She has "experience".

Folks, "experience", when said in a political context, is the same thing as saying:
"I can maintain the status quo. I know how to exploit government loopholes, accept underhanded PAC funds, and play hardball while looking out for number one. I'm a Washington Beltway insider."

I would rather have someone with 2 years of Washington DC "experience" than someone with 30. Public Service, in my opinion, was never designed to be a freakin' career choice. People shouldn't aspire to grow up and want to be a Senator for 30-40 years. People with lots of Washington DC "experience" are career Politicans, no more, no less, and like everyone else with a career, they want nothing more than job security. [This, of course, is why I'm a very staunch advocate of term limits. No more than 6 terms as a Congressman or 2 terms as a Senator - that's a total of 12 years. And if you go to the Senate from the House of Representatives, you can only serve the number of years which equal to a maximum of 12 (for example, a 2 term Congressman who takes a Senate seat would only serve one full term as a Senator plus 2 years).]

Like I said, I don't trust any of them. And if I even bother to vote (thank you, George Carlin, for your enlightenment on why voting is useless), I'd vote for Obama over McCain and even Hillary over McCain. 8 years of a Republican president is enough. I don't think anything would change with a Democrat, but lets give them a chance. They can't screw us worse than, oh, I dunno, a needless war that has been a multibillion dollar drain on our economy. Even with higher taxes and bigger spending on federalized programs, we'd probably still see a multibillion dollar drain on our economy - but maybe we'd have something more to show for it than dead soldiers and more people who want to kill us.

Posted by Captiosus on Sat May 17, 2008 @ 3:51 am EDT | 3 Comments