US: Cultural Irrigation Needed?

[adderslj]

I'd be very interested as to what US readers think of this article.

Despite being published by The Guardian, it's from a right-wing commentator, incidentally.

Comments

[blacksnail.livejournal.com]

He was the Democratic Party's compromise candidate. He stood above the rest by not excelling in a very pliable way. He was a penultimate parlaimentarian who could not get to the damn point about anything ever - an asset when you're running down your time, but a liability when you're trying to talk to anybody who doesn't yield minutes to the speaker, who he would like to thank, &tc. The burden of proof was on him to impress me and he did not. He was literally "anybody but Bush," and the complete lack of focus in the Democratic Party didn't help that one bit.

As for the simple plan:

1) From the way he was pandering, you'd think everybody would be home by July 2005. I chalked that up as either a campaign promise he would immediately renege upon when getting into office or, if he was absolutely foolish, something he would go through with. I didn't want us to be there in the first place, but now that we're there I think it would be absolutely foolish to just "up and leave." The base who wanted that most would have accepted nothing less, and he'd have had to ditch them like Bush did to the religious right (twice!) or danced their tune and left a giant mess in the region.
2) I grabbed both health care plans and read through the proposals, analyses, figures, etc. The only significant variation I could find between the two was the way they would shuffle the money to get it done. Both were, of course, pie-in-the-sky ideas that could only exist as written if passed through Congress unopposed.
3) I'm actually behind this, but didn't trust him to be the guy to do it. He'd be a milquetoast president entering office with a Congress completely opposed to him. The Republicans would have exercised their own nuclear option of obstructing everything in their power to obstruct.

For me, the theme of the 2004 election was "So...it's come to this." If the Democrats wanted to get rid of a controversial president who practically handed them reasons to oust his administration, they should not have brought their C-game.

[blacksnail.livejournal.com]

I'm inherently skeptical of any politician, particularly someone touted as the "next best thing" at a point where the current politician is abysmally bad. When you have a glass full of sewage with a drop of wine, and a glass full of wine with a drop of sewage, it's still just sewage. Comparatively, yes, Kerry looked better. That's why I was very, very careful to scrutinize him and for me he didn't pass muster. I didn't believe he'd keep the promises he made.

Not that it matters; Fairfax county returned something like 90% on Kerry, so whatever I ended up deciding was either at the crest of the wave or beneath it. :)

[aquamarcia.livejournal.com]

This exchange reminded me of something I wrote back in October of '04:

Though I wouldn't normally have done so I watched (somewhat sporadically) the debate last night between Pres. Bush and Sen. Kerry. It was less painful than I thought it would be to watch and I came out of it feeling a bit better about Kerry than I did before, though I tend to think that feeling better about a politician because of a good performance is like feeling better about a tumor because it has stopped metastasizing for the moment.

Kerry may try running again in '08.

[magentamom.livejournal.com]

I keep hearing the idea that we can't just "up and leave." So, what is the plan then? Unless we're planning to stay until all parties bent on civil war can play nice, we're eventually going to leave a big mess. So, what's the requisite amount of blood and treasure we squander before we throw up our hands and let them kill each other? We haven't the forces to remain for the rest of time, and although I see lots of people who say it's in our vital national interest to stay, I don't see them signing up or supporting a draft. Hell, I don't see many of them supporting tax increases to fund the damn conflict.

[blacksnail.livejournal.com]

Erm, I don't think Adam's journal is the best place to debate this - mind taking it to yours? I'll pop over there, it's just that I was already feeling silly for repeatedly going on about two-year-old American election business. :)

[magentamom.livejournal.com]

You're quite right, not the appropriate forum. I'll copy my post and put it up in my journal.

[blacksnail.livejournal.com]

NP! No fight at all.

Good luck on finals!