Thursday, February 14, 2008

For Some Of Us Character Matters

Several people commented on the previous post that much as they would hate to do it they would vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election if she wins the nomination. I have to agree with them, they are right...we can't afford a McCain presidency so I know that I would have to find a way to make myself do it but on a really personal level this would be one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do.

I have the same problem with Clinton as I had with Edwards: she voted to kill my children in George's war.

At first I was willing to cut her some slack on the issue, I had to put myself in her shoes and really look at how I might have looked at it if I had been in her position. Now assuming I was ever gullible enough to believe Iraq presented a clear and present danger to the US or even assuming I could at least be willing to entertain the thought that I might be mistaken, the consequences of being wrong on that would not be something I'd be willing to live with. The possibility of putting thousands of lives at risk by making a wrong decision or, unthinkable as it would be for me, to score a political jab at Herr Bush would make it at least understandable why some may have voted to give him the green light on the invasion. Faced with even a slight possibility of this scenario I can understand why some would have erred on the side of what they may have seen as caution.

The problem is that since then it came to light that Sen. Clinton never even read the intelligence reports.

Still wearing Clinton's shoes there is no possible explanation for that other than it was never about erring on the side of caution or fear of risking more innocent lives. It was about political expediency and keeping the vote amongst what was at that time perceived as the "center". There is just no other way to spin it and believe me I've turned this one inside out and looked at it from every conceivable angle and there is simply no way that if ones' concern truly was the safety and security of the American people that anyone would have simply voted without taking advantage of all available information and intelligence. There is just no way I would have done that and hopefully neither would any of the readers here.

I know that's "old" news and supposedly the American voter has a 15 minute attention span. Maybe that's true but not always and not all of us. I don't care what pop psychology says about forgiveness, some things are not forgiveable and more importantly speak to the true character and motivations of a person. There is no way anyone can spin this for me, it is impossible to make a decision affecting the lives of millions without even looking at all the information then try to convince me it was because you believed it was to protect those very people.

I'm a woman and I am a mother and I know better.

So how am I going to make myself vote for Clinton if it comes to that? Only one way I can, McCain has made it clear he will not even attempt to put an end to this. As long as ending our occupation of Iraq remains popular with the general public, Clinton likely will. Don't bank on that though, John Q. Public can change with the wind and we'll have elected a leader who likes to run the way the wind is blowing. If it comes down to it I'll have to settle for that on the chance that I might help save someone else's child or husband or spouse so on that note I'll give her my vote then whatever happens, happens.

Unfortunately it would be just one more time I had no real voice in this country, me and a few million other people for that reason and a dozen others. Yes, that's just one of them, I could write a 2000 page book on some of the other reasons but most people still would not get it and I'm pretty much tired of trying to reason with people that just want to turn this into a high school football team rivalry.

This is about real lives and real people and I have to try and choose the candidate I believe most takes that seriously. At the most basic level it's all about trust and given a choice I always opt for the people who have not betrayed my trust. Sadly I'm usually left with a choice between two people who've betrayed that trust and trying to decide which will continue to do so less than the other.

So you were wondering why so few people vote?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well put. You're absolutely right. The choice will be between two people who have either betrayed the nation's trust, or one of them has not yet had the opportunity to prove himself. If the former, then the process is reduced to the level of high school football team rivalry because to those with a measure of sanity, a Dem is always preferable to a Repub; a lesser of two evils.
Sadly, I believe that if Obama makes it all the way, six months after his inauguration people will be asking why he hasn't begun pulling troops out of Iraq in any numbers, as he said he would.

Not Your Mama said...

I've thought about that too, could happen depending on how a lot of things go ;(. The difference (to me) is that I do not believe for a minute any decision Obama made would be based on his perception of how his actions would win or lose him votes.

Maybe that sounds silly but to me that is a key difference.

Al DeVito said...

I'd like to believe that Obama would not decide issues based on the winning or losing of votes, but I find it difficult to do so.

S2 said...

I suspect that the UK's decision to pull out of Iraq probably hasn't endeared us to the Republicans. I'd also guess that most Republicans probably don't think that they need allies.

So I think I'd be happy to see a Democrat in power.

One thing I'm curious about, though, is Climate Change. Over here politicians are falling over themselves to prove how much they care about the planet (sometimes hilariously), but there's very little coverage about what your candidates think.

Is this really a non-issue over there?

Woozie said...

I'd like to believe that Obama would not decide issues based on the winning or losing of votes, but I find it difficult to do so.

As far as I know, Obama hasn't radically changed his positions a'la Mitt Romney on anything. Oh god, Romney was such a douchebag. A shithead among shitheads. He starts off his concession speech with a punch to the nuts of France! God dammit Mitt Romney!

I'm sorry, what was I talking about?

Anyway, HilDog really lost my vote at an AFL-CIO conference last June or July when John Edwards brought up her taking $400k from lobbyists in the first 6 months or so of her campaign. She responded that lobbyists "represent real people" so therefore it's okay.

Edwards asked for a show of hands, how many people had lobbyists working for them. In a room of 1000 people, 3 hands went up.

Not Your Mama said...

S2: yes and no. It's THE issue to a minority group of people, one of several key issues to the average person and a complete non-issue to the majority of the right wing.

Further complicate the matter with the special interests that now have a vested interest, ie: everyone from Iowa corn farmers to high-rollers with stakes in development of nuclear power and the picture gets even murkier so it's nearly impossible to discuss in any semi-rational way.

So we've dealt with it like we deal with all other too-icky-to-talk-about things and use politically correct codewords (alternative energy) but avoid specifics. Gov. Richardson was essentially the only candidate who had actaually stuck his neck out and done anything specific and we see where it got him, eh?

We loves us some platitudes.

Woozie: yup, been keeping half and eye on Obama for about 4-5 years, before most people had heard of him...he has not changed his basic views, even some old forum posts floating about the net where I predicted he would run for pres though I thought in 2012 and he beat my guesstimate by 4 years. Naturally I was laughed at but then I'm accustomed to that ;).

TomCat said...

I think Clinton made her decision out of political expediency, not integrity. At least Edwards admitted he had been wrong.