onegoodmove

The Iraq war argument is truly bizarre. Hillary seems to be making a valid point - although Obama did make a fine speech against the war before he became a senator, he has been toeing the Bush line since he became a senator. Then it dawns on you - so has Hillary! The mystery remains: why have the Democrats, including both Clinton and Obama, been such fucking cowards that they can't stand up to a pathological liar with an approval rating in the mid-30's and end this goddamned war?

Tonight made me realize this: I really do not want another 4 years of Clintons in the White House.

Tim, exactly. It really disgusts me to some degree. Bill and Hillary supported the war. They supported it probably on principle to some degree (Bill dropped a lot of bombs on Iraq in his day), and partially on political expediency. Now they not only want to backtrack, but belittle the contribution of those who did oppose the war. HRC is claiming that you can't vote to fund the war if you were against going? But then she gets to claim that she voted to authorize the war but doesn't have to take responsibility later.

The right wing claims falsely that there really were no serious people against the war, so we should be excused for going to war. Then some people like the Clintons admit that there were anti-war people but belittle their opposition. Obama spoke at an anti-war rally! That's not enough? Bill Clinton, on the other hand, is a big reason why this country went to war--it was his support and the support of other prominent Democrats that generated broad based approval for a very stupid idea. The Clintons should be apologizing rather than using this issue against their opponents.

John Edwards sinks the layup.

that the Democrats would support the war is not a surprise to me in the least, and I have trouble understanding why some here would have problems comprehending the reasons behind this. The Democrats and the Republicans are ultimately the same at least in their goals, if not the means to accomplishing a great deal of policies. When it comes to the war in Iraq, the criticism by many (if not most) Democrats is not that the war was unjust, illegal, immoral or just outright wrong, but that it was not successful. if the war had gone according to plan there would not be a peep out of the candidates about their opposition, instead they would be falling over each other saying how much they supported the fiasco. So why should it be surprising that Clinton or Obama toe the line on this? Their ultimate criticism is over tactics, not over the philosophy of the US using military force in the world to aggressively look out for its self interest.

John's speech there really made the two of them feel stupid for their petty "squabbling".

I'm disappointed that the potential for Hilary as the first woman president, or Barack as the first black president, isn't quite as bright as I thought because I don't like either of them that much in terms of actually being president.

Go John Edwards!

Fight! Fight!

Maybe they'll knock each other out and Edwards will win.

Susceptor,

Very true on those points. When it comes to foreign policy you can't believe that bought and sold Democrats are going to be any less willing to kill a bunch of foreigners and maybe some Americans if it ensures the Military-Industial Complex won't pull a Lee Harvey Oswald on them. I'm being a little sarcastic in my "conspiracy" talk but seriously, the only way to stop the ceaseless warmongering is to stop the excessive profiteering from these wars. I doubt anyone here truly believes Hillary or Barak would do a single thing to stop the madness. Maybe put some fresh lipstick on the pig but not shut down the bacon factory.

Why is Edwards in third again?

When it comes to the war in Iraq, the criticism by many (if not most) Democrats is not that the war was unjust, illegal, immoral or just outright wrong, but that it was not successful.

Susceptor speaks the truth! The reason why hillary and barack vote for funding the war is because they don't disagree with war, they just disagree with the monkey running the war. I would love today if i turned on the tele and I saw all the news channels talking about edwards and his response to the pettyness of the other two candidates, but alas, they won't. All the 24 hour news cycle will talk about is the fight, and not the policy ideas edwards proposed afterwords.

Edwards '08!

It's impossible to fix Social Security. The only 3 solutions are privatization, raising the age, and/or cutting benefits.

The fundamental flaw in in Social Security was the lifespan and birthrate assumptions would keep up. Unfortunately, as countries modernize, the average birthrates go down and lifespans go up. Social Security didn't account for this fact and it hasn't really been adjusted along the way. In fact, not only has it not been adjusted along the way, the problem was compounded by increasing benefits and Congress borrowing from the Social Security Trust to pay for other things. I predict what will happen is that companies will increasingly cut peoples' pensions and the cost of living will rise to mitigate the problems of not coming to terms that Social Security is fundamentally broken and cannot be fixed.

And this is why all universal benefit programs are bound to fail and countries that are unable to keep up due to lower birthrates require immigration. Unfortunately, the earth's resources are finite and exponential population growth will eventually put all of this nonsense to a halt.

The distinction between words and action...ah, John Austin is rolling in his grave.

I like most of Edwards policies best of the three.

I dislike Hilary's persona, I'm tired of her obvious manipulations of the truth (as illustrated in this clip), and I don't think it is the best thing to have a Clinton dynasty. However she'd sure as hell be better than any Republican.

I believe in Obama's personal integrity, I like his style, I think he would get the most done at the end of the day, and most importantly: I think he can beat McCain (or Romney).

I don't think Edwards can.

I would looove to see an Obama - Edwards ticket.

The Clintons will be great advisers, along with Gore.

Whoever your candidate is, would all of us please get off our asses and work for a Democratic victory against the dark side next November. Me included. (I just made a small donation to the Obama campaign today, my first donation ever.)