Why Would You Want This Job?
My man John Edwards has entered the fray again in a totally cool announcement in New Orleans, although many dems have already started their typical hand-wringing the likes of which will milquetoast us right into another John Kerry for president nightmare. I'll say it one time and (yeah right) never again: the most important thing is to win in 2008. Maybe that sounds a little bad - you know lacking real content. Because isn't the most important thing to have the "right" person in the job? I don't know...is there anyone that could honestly say that a Gore presidency would have looked exactly like the Bush presidency?
Anyway, the more pressing issue(s) facing our nation is(are) summarized in Richard Clarke's article in the Washington Post. I know, I know, Dick Clarke is a little bit loony and a little bit self important (a little?), but I kinda like him. He reminds me of a good Tom Clancy novel. You know, post-modernist cold war paranoia with a splash of James Bond. This piece in the Times makes you wonder why anyone would want this job, or any job in government. I guess the reason why they would want it is that they know they can avoid the real work that has to be done, but I think we as citizens have a responsibility to hold our leaders accountable for working through their scary to-do list:
1) Global Warming - see Al Gore's docu-drama An Inconvenient Truth.
2) Russian Revanchism - cool word, that. I think it means that the Russians are acting like the Soviets in a Tom Clancy novel (see, I told you so).
3) Latin America's Leftist Lurch - Cuba's not going democratic 'cause Castro's dying and the real problem lives (democratically-elected) in Venezuela.
4) Africa at War - Even George Clooney knows that.
5) Arms Control Freeze - I actually have nothing snide to say about this.
6) Transnational Crime - see #2 above, except insert "drug-cartels" where it says "Russians" and "Soviets".
7) Pakistani-Afgan Border - this is the one that really scares me and is the most critical work not being done because we're mired in Iraq.