According to CNN, she says that Obama (probably) regrets picking Biden as a VP.

She supposes he wishes he’d picked Clinton (although she had earlier dismissed her as a whiner), but my feeling is that she has that just ever-so-slightly wrong.

Judging by the enthusiasm with which she’s been sucking on her own toes this week, I’m wondering if she’s picked the wrong presidential candidate as wishing he’d picked Clinton as veep…

If McCain isn’t already, I’m pretty sure he will be when Palin debates Biden, no matter how well they prep her. Joe ain’t one to let ignorance slip by, and say what you like about Senator Biden, but he knows him some foreign policy, yessiree…

Governor Palin, I may not be a huge Hillary Clinton fan, but you are no Hillary Clinton. You’re not even qualified to stand in her shadow, so quit acting like you’re sisters-in-arms already.

(I’m starting to wonder if Palin’s political tombstone will read “hubris” rather than “scandal”…)

Disclaimer: this is a rant, like most of my political posts are. For the record, I do not speak for or represent the Obama or Clinton campaigns in any way, and I reserve the right to be a righteous biatch and censor comments I find offensive

Also, please note the following two important points before reading:

1. This may sound like I somehow discount the views of all Clinton supporters, which is not the case; I have lifelong friends who support Clinton and whose opinions I respect, even if I disagree with their points of view.
   
2. In this rant, I discuss a particular kind of Clinton supporter I have encountered frequently in the past couple of months and seen representing the campaign on many political shows. However, I want there to be no misunderstanding – while I discuss supporters who fall into one of the main Clinton demographics, that is, women 55-65, I do not mean that I have a problem with, disrespect, or dislike the vast majority of people who fall into this group. I am making an observation about some of her supporters who fall into this age/gender group, which, while perhaps controversial, in no way reflects my general views on anyone other than those specifically described.

Apparently, Greg Craig, a former Clinton administration official from the State Department, has finally hit on the issue with Hillary Clinton’s “experience” that has been driving me nuts ever since she announced her candidacy: that is, because she was married to the president, she has presidential experience.

Now, my husband is a computer science professor, and my father is a chemistry professor. I’ve spent my life around those in academia, and I spent enough time in graduate school to have a pretty good understanding of how it all works. I don’t, however, have the requisite experience to be a professor myself – that is, I don’t have a PhD. I have an M.S., and all of the coursework and a good start on a dissertation for a PhD in linguistics, but I don’t have the PhD.

So if I apply for a professorial position based on the fact that I’ve been intimately exposed to the academic life and have some of the experience necessary to get a PhD, even though I don’t have one, in most fields I will be laughed out of the room, and rightly so.

So how is this any different? Why does no one ever talk about this? Craig says Clinton is grossly exaggerating her role in the Northern Ireland peace process, and geez, how is this a surprise? It’s only new that someone who should know is actually saying something about it.

My theory is that it has something to do with the nature of a large majority (or at least the visible majority) of Clinton supporters, and note that this isn’t due to what I’ve read in polls or political analysis – it’s what I saw at my precinct’s caucus and the county Democratic convention where I was a delegate.

Not to say that there weren’t other people supporting Clinton, or that there weren’t more than a few women at or around the age of 60 supporting Obama, but the vast majority of women my mother’s age were rabid, and I do mean rabid, Clinton supporters. Before anyone jumps on my case, let me explain exactly what I mean here.

The bizarre thing about a caucus, for anyone who lives in a primary state, is that secret voting is not allowed. Not only do you see who everyone is voting for, but you are allowed to speak for a few minutes on behalf of your candidate. While you are not allowed to actually debate, you can respond to what has been said before you to some degree. And in my precinct, the precinct captain for the Clinton campaign and a few of her supporters were, from the get-go, pushy. Pushy, and I’m not exaggerating when I say this, really rude. They got up and explained how they’d been waiting their whole lives for this (the implication being, however subtle they thought they were being, that they wouldn’t live long enough to see their dream of a woman president fulfilled by someone else), and how Hillary was just a gem, and… then they each just echoed the talking points. “Ready from Day One”, and “vetted”, and “experience”, and… blah blah. We’ve all heard it by now.

But the surprising part was how aggressive, and dare I say, mean some of them were. One of them, just before the actual vote, actually came up and got up in the face of one of the Obama supporters and in her most intimidating screech said, “So, young man, have you changed your mind about Hillary Clinton now that you’ve heard about her experience and how ready she is?” And he, with wide eyes, said that no he hadn’t, and repeated something about her Iraq war vote, something that drove many of us present to Obama.

I would say I’m a feminist, though not a feminazi, and I was so repulsed by the righteous anger rolling off of some of the supporters that it only reinforced my dislike of the candidate in general (and she is much more likeable than those supporters present at my caucus, I promise). Let it not be said that I don’t have some understanding of what it’s like to be a woman in a man’s world – I worked in a male-dominated field, and from time to time would run across those who thought I was in my position only because I lacked dangly bits between my legs – but I’m not so rabidly angry about it that I want to tear the eyes out of anyone who doesn’t think every woman publicly trying to break the glass ceiling is a gift from God.

And then I went to the county convention, and Christ, it wasn’t just my caucus, it was a bit less than a third of the damned room (giving credit for those Clinton supporters who were normal human beings). It got so that I could almost always tell who supported what candidate before I ever got close enough to see the candidate preference on someone’s credentials. Female and between 55-65? Clinton. White male of any age? If alone or with another man, Obama. If with his wife, often Clinton. Under 50? Almost all Obama, with a few women going for Clinton. Over 65? Generally Obama.

But, as usual, I digress. My theory, such as it is, relates, as I said, to the nature of her supporters (and her campaign); those women who scared the crap out of me at my caucus? They scare the crap out of everybody. And I just couldn’t understand why they were being so rude – we were all impassioned, sure, but the Obama supporters were uniformly personally civil.

And then, talking with another female Obama supporter at the convention, we hit upon what made sense to us: those women think they’ve earned this. They think they deserve it, and damnit, no one is going to take it away from them, and definitely not these Obama kids.

And so why do I think that Clinton’s been given a free ride on the experience card? Because everyone is too afraid to say anything that might sound like “she was just the president’s wife“, for fear of being bitten by one of these particular supporters I describe, because their way of getting what they want is to bully their way into getting it. I’m sure it’s absolutely what they had to do in the 60′s and 70′s to be taken seriously, but it’s as if the only tool they have is a hammer, and everything they see is a nail. And the hammer is really, really intimidating.

But Hillary Clinton, for all of her life and career experience, was not the president, she was not a cabinet member, she was not a member of the State Department, and she did not have security clearances. She was a lawyer, probably an excellent one, and I have no doubt she was and is eminently competent – but as far as executive experience goes, she was just the president’s wife.

Just as, however good a programmer and analyst I may be, and however much I’ve seen as the wife and daughter of professors, I may be eminently competent at what I do, but I cannot claim professorial experience. Nor, for the sake of argument, can my husband claim to have been a systems engineer or a linguistics instructor just because I’ve been one, however awesome he is.

It’s a stupid, stupid argument, and I’m glad someone’s calling her on it, even if it means risking the righteous flaming wrath of the female demographic between the ages of 55-65. I wish the press would do it more often. If we’re going to talk about free rides from the press, let’s have it be an equal opportunity free ride.

For the record, I personally agree wholeheartedly with Susan Sarandon on Hillary: “There’s absolutely no reason why a woman shouldn’t be in that office, but I am not sure about this woman.”

ETA: Apparently, according to Jonathan Alter and some of the reporting on Olbermann tonight, many people in Congress involved in the drafting the SCHIP children’s health care legislation which Hillary is taking so much credit for are similarly upset with her claims and are stating that she is grossly overstating her involvement there as well. Surprise, surprise.

So, um, yay cheeseheads! (And apologies to any of my readers who are Clinton supporters – I’m just annoyed to see the Clinton campaign starting to play really obviously dirty. And that’s my opinion, btw, not a talking point. People who post talking points in the comments get deleted…)

If you’re in Colorado, remember that your caucus doors open up at 6:30 pm – doors close at 7, although rules apparently state that if you show up late, you can vote in any business from the time you arrive forward. Since the presidential preference vote comes first, though, it’s best to be there when the doors open to make sure you get to caucus for your candidate.

Ok, so there’s the public service portion of this post.

Now here’s the biased bit.

I’m caucusing for Obama, and I feel pretty strongly about it. I was torn between Edwards and Obama, frankly, but Edwards stepping out of the race solved that.

Why am I endorsing Obama? (Oh, yeah, and I’m sure my endorsement is reaaaal important )

There are two parts to it. The first is that I think Sen. Obama is an incredibly capable, straightforward and inspirational guy. I didn’t decide I liked Obama after a speech or some TV commercial – I used to listen to his weekly podcasts to his Illinois constituents on the way to work on the train and I thought they were considered, rational, and, most of all, right. Whether it was about foreign policy or domestic issues, this was a guy I could agree with.

And then the campaign started, and I am so impressed – and pleased – with how all sorts of people are getting involved, and how after these eight years of horror he has really presented a message of hope that people respond to. One can argue that it’s an abstract thing, but let me put it this way – people without hope become apathetic. And when people become apathetic, we get 8 years of George W. Bush, a ruined educational system, negative foreign credibility, war, no privacy, no accountability, etc. Without an engaged and hopeful populace, none of the rest of it matters.

But I also think it’s a ridiculous criticism to accuse Obama of being nothing but an inspirational speaker, which the Clinton campaign has strongly implied more than once. For a woman who is, quite frankly, running on her husband’s record and who furthermore voted for the Iraq war, the criticism rings a little hollow.

And I just want to say that his willingness to talk to our adversaries instead of this stupid policy of ignorance we’ve been following is a huge deal to me.

The second reason is, quite frankly, that I can’t under any circumstances vote for Hillary Clinton. Let me state something upfront – I was a huge Bill Clinton supporter in the 90′s. After 12 years of Reagan-Bush, it was hard to be otherwise, and he had charisma and energy that the country needed. And for the record, the 90′s under Clinton were the first years my family was able to prosper in my memory. I was ridiculously angry with Bill Clinton for the Lewinsky scandal – not so much for the blow job, but for walking right into the hands of right-wing folks who were just waiting for him to slip up and then, worst of all, lying about it. I figured the actual act was between him and Hillary, but that he was willing to do idiotic things after the fact that locked up the government and media for a year… that was really damned stupid. But I remained nonetheless a Bill Clinton supporter, politically speaking.

I am not part of the vast right-wing conspiracy.

But this isn’t about Bill, right? Well… the problem is this. Whenever it’s about the years of prosperity, Sen. Clinton talks about “we”. She includes her husband’s years in the White House in her “35 years of experience”. Fine. I don’t have a real problem with that, though it doesn’t really count in my book. Her experience arguement is pretty weak… But what it says is this – if you take credit for those 8 years, then you also take the liability that comes with them. And that makes you a huge liability for the Democrats in November.

Until recently, it was really only the electability thing that got to me. But then President Clinton decided he was going to get into the scrabble of politics again because he just couldn’t resist, and after South Carolina, I was truly disgusted. It was a reminder to me that we run a real risk of repeating that inability to move forward in politics due to real or imagined Clinton scandals if they become the first family again.

We simply can’t afford that, first woman candidate or not.

But my real objection to Sen. Clinton isn’t that – it just makes me think she’d be a bad candidate. My real objection to her are the votes on the Iraq War authorization and the Levin amendment.

“If I knew then what I know now”, my ass.

She has 35 years of leadership experience? I only have 35 years of breathing experience and I knew exactly what that vote meant, and was sickened to see Democrats support it at the time.

And the refusal to apologize is, I’m sorry, weakness. We’ve had 8 years of inability to say, “I made a mistake,” and this posturing has gotten us nowhere.

The word “change” has been so overused, but we have to have it.

And without hope and unity, there is no change.

End of my political blather. As a postscript, check this video I got sent today:

Click here to view the embedded video.

VOTE. Even if you disagree with me.

N.B.: As with all my posts, photos are scaled inside the post proper to fit into the blog template – click on any photo to see the larger, better-quality version. Although I should admit that my camera IS dying, so some photos just suck

You know that Obama rally yesterday with the massive overflow crowds which stretched around the block in Denver they keep talking about on the national news?

Yeah. I’ve heard everything from 10,000 to 18,000 people, and all I can say is that it was a crapload of very, very excited people.

I should warn you that because I spend more time with my baby than I do online these days, this may sound like some sort of fangirl post, which it certainly isn’t – I hadn’t decided whether I was going to caucus for Edwards or Obama at the time I went to the rally, though I found out while in line that Edwards had stepped out of the race. And this is not a “why I support Obama post” due to time constraints. I’ll leave it to the policy wonks and political bloggers to dissect what he said – his speech can be found here (part 1 – part 2), and Caroline Kennedy’s here – but I can just say from the crowd level that people were incredibly excited to see him. I got there with my “priority E-ticket” about 7:30 am – an hour before the doors were supposed to open – only to hear from someone who is apparently on the University of Denver Obama listserv that they’d issued a lot more E-tickets than they had space (I have no idea whether or not this is true), and this at an event which was completely open to the public with or without E-tickets. It was pretty cold out, and the folks I was standing with were wondering whether or not we’d get in at all – as it turns out, it was good we got there when we did, because I’m pretty sure that the folks that got into line 15 minutes behind us were forced to go into the overflow areas.

There were a lot of people – this is a photo from the door back toward the line, and it in no way shows the rest of the line stretching down the street and around the block, nor the similar line on the other line which stretched back up onto campus.

People were psyched.

We were in line so long that we started to get to know each other – and all I can say is that my new Obama buddies (Jesse, Jessica and Vivian) and I made it into the arena and onto the floor.

There were a LOT of freaking people in the arena.

If we’d known how long it would take for Obama to get onto the floor, we might have chosen to sit in the seats – there were some decent ones still available – but we ended up standing pretty close, and when the tall (and sometimes very rude) people in front of us moved in the right way, we had a pretty good view of the stage. People were really excited, but after standing so long outside and then standing a long time inside waiting on Obama (I don’t think he spoke until shortly before 11 or so), the audience I think did start to tire of cheers (especially on the floor, where our feet hurt). I personally was getting a little tired of hearing from local organizers, but I understand that Obama was outside addressing the crowds that didn’t get into the arena, so I can’t really blame them for killing time.

Considering that I don’t even have time to blog about my own life right now, I’m not going to go into detail about the whole thing, but I have to admit, I was impressed by a lot. Federico Peña – if you don’t remember him, he was the highly esteemed transportation secretary under Clinton – started to get the crowd prepped for Obama, and introduced the other local dignitaries there who’d endorsed Obama (including Gary Hart – remember Gary Hart? Yikes..), highlighting the fact that while he was a former Clinton official, he was supporting Obama instead of Hillary. He’s a good speaker, and I think his views on Obama reflected those of the audience, so he was a good guy to get people revved up.

Denver Bronco Rod Smith gave a short speech endorsing Obama which we could barely hear due to crappy acoustics (we couldn’t hear a word when the local organizers spoke either, so it wasn’t just him).

We were starting to get kind of irritated when some other Colorado speaker came out (I don’t remember who anymore – the head of the Colorado campaign, probably) – we’d already had a bunch of local organizers killing time and some kids trying to organize chanting on stage, etc, and by then, many of us had been standing and/or waiting for about 3 hours. People were so interested in just getting on with the main event that we almost didn’t hear the organizer start to introduce the next speaker – when I heard and told our little newly formed posse that I thought she’d just said Caroline Kennedy was about to speak, we were all a little disbelieving.

We were wrong

What she said wasn’t substantially different from what she’s been saying in the Obama commercials, but I do know that it made a real impression on some of the people there (there was still a lot of buzz about the Kennedy endorsement in general and the surprise of her getting involved in politics to endorse in particular).

And then, finally, the man of the hour came out.

As I said before, I won’t get into the details of the speech, but I will say that being at one of his speeches is even more impressive than hearing him talk on television. He spoke with passion, reason and conviction, and his authenticity really reasonated with the crowd.

I guess what I personally liked most is that the same person whose reflective, analytical podcasts to his constituents I used to listen to on the Blue Line to work in Los Angeles came through in his speech, even when punctuated by passionate rhetoric.

He did take a few knocks in the Clinton direction, not so much at Hillary personally as at what she and her husband stand for. They weren’t, however, playground swipes designed to be nasty – I think they very much reflected the opinions of many in the crowd, and I think many of us felt vindicated by the recognition of the weaknesses in her position that keep us opposed to voting for her. There was not a whole lot of love for her among the crowd, in any event, but again, it was none of this nasty personal attack crap that went on last week.

My mommy brain can’t remember most of the speech, to be honest – it went on for about 45 minutes and was really inspiring, but since I get no sleep, my brain cells don’t retain anything. Also, there were a lot of freaking tall people in front of me even though we were close to the stage, so I spent a lot of time straining to look.

So since I can’t really say anything substantive about the rally because my brain is all fuzzed from lack of sleep, here are the last two pictures I took, the last part of the speech, and a fuzzy shot of he and Caroline Kennedy leaving. Apologies to anyone who came here looking for some sort of meaty analysis (or any analysis at all), but I am just too tired to do that right now.

Now, I know, some of you begin to breathe fire and drool rabidly at the mention of Mr. Moore’s name (something I don’t really understand, but you’re entitled), but let me just say, all politics aside, that it is an excellent film. Really. Fantastic. And for those of you still drooling rabidly, even the reviewer for Fox News liked it, so maybe you should just get yourself a handkerchief and calm the heck down. Wipe your mouth, seriously. And then go see the film, and complain about it later if you hate it.

I was, for many years, among the uninsured in the U.S. And I was pretty damned lucky – the worst thing that happened to me in that time was that I got a terrible ear infection. Now, that was bad enough. That terrible ear infection cost me over $400 to treat in the mid-90′s, since I of course waited until it was too late to treat it; emergency rooms supposedly can’t refuse service because you can’t pay, see, but doctors’ offices certainly can. My ex-fiancé’s relatives were trying to convince me that smoke or urine in my ear would make it better (no, I did not let anyone urinate in my ear, thank you… but these were down-home Nascar folks, so it’s not entirely surprising, and at least they were trying to help. I think), and so I sat around miserable until I ended up in the emergency room, screaming every time my ear throbbed. And paid $400 for it, albeit over the course of several months of harassment.

But I shouldn’t complain. I didn’t have an accident. I didn’t get cancer. I got the flu several times, but I didn’t end up with pneumonia or anything. Yes, there were several times where my life would have been made easier if I’d seen a doctor, but I only got the normal stuff folks get every day. And fortunately, a cold you caught 10 years ago that is now gone is not considered a pre-existing condition, whether you went to the doctor or not.

But even insured, Americans aren’t exactly well-served by their HMOs. This is no secret, and yet there is still this myth in the U.S. that we have the greatest health care system in the world. Maybe we have the greatest health care system money can buy, and if you have the money to buy it, you can have it – I don’t know. I’m lucky enough to have great health care coverage right now, but I’d bet money that if something really awful happened to me, it wouldn’t stay that way.

Now, some of you fiscal conservatives out there are whining, “well, why should I have to pay for your illnesses if I’m healthy?” And some of you are the same people who spout the marketing hype about how Americans are the most generous people in the world. I have news for you, bud… when you have a heart attack, or you get old, some part of the system will be paying for you, whether it’s your HMO or Medicare, and if you’re not completely covered by those (as most people eventually are not), unless you’re a millionaire, you’ll end up struggling financially too. We’re all mortal, peeps. And we can all get sick or get hurt. And even if socialized medicine isn’t perfect, realize that nothing is. Running a capitalist model with people’s lives is ridiculous.

But the really great part of SiCKO, frankly, is that it shows those bits of American life that we all know about, vaguely, but are able to ignore or not experience. I’m not just talking about the folks on Skid Row in Los Angeles (if nothing else depresses you, just go see how the poor and mentally ill live in L.A. – I saw them every day on the Blue Line to work, and it is completely demoralizing), but folks like Donna Smith (who was at last night’s screening), who is a middle-class, working American who had insurance and still ended up having to move in with her kids when both she and her husband got seriously ill because of deductables. It’s not OK to throw the poor, the mentally ill, or the homeless out on the streets because they can’t pay for medical care, and it’s not OK to throw your mother, father, or grandfather out there either. Persist in thinking that what few social services we have in this country take care of everyone and complain that you don’t even want to be paying for that, fine, but you’re wrong. What Moore does brilliantly in the film is to expose what actually happens.

And then, there are the corporations. Oh yes, the corporations. Now, can someone please tell me why everyone buys into this idea that the free market will automatically settle to whatever works best? The unregulated free market will eventually settle to whatever makes money, and no more. And when I say “makes money”, I mean “makes money for the shareholders and CEO”, not “what makes money for the tax base”, since we all know that big corporations get huge tax breaks. What I found most shocking were the discussions with medical reviewers from major insurance companies and HMOs who stated flat out that they had a quota for denials (regardless of validity of the claims!), and if they exceeded that quota by denying coverage to more patients, they were given bonuses.

So… the person deciding if your surgery for colorectal cancer has an incentive (keeping his or her job, getting more pay, etc.) for finding a way to deny your claim, even if it’s legitimate.

Yeah, that works, folks. Seriously. Also? I am the Queen of England.

Moore looks at the systems in France, Britain, Canada, and Cuba afterwards, and I promise you, even if you’ve heard about the sorts of problems the British NHS has, the picture it gives of universal health care versus what we let corporations do here is so startling it will make you want to cry.

So go see the film. You’ll learn something, I promise you.

Even if you love the president.

And about those 9/11 rescue workers taken to Cuba, before you jump to conclusions, see what the film has to say. I promise you, you’ll be upset, and it won’t be about Moore being in Cuba.

P.S. Senator Clinton? Care to explain why you’re taking money from the HMO lobby? Universal Health Care advocate, my fat, white butt. You’ve got some serious explaining to do.

The CNN pundits are saying that Clinton won the debate – granted, one of the ones saying Clinton won was James Carville, who, as a former strategist for the Clintons, may be a little biased toward his old friends, and the other one saying she won was J. C. Watts, who, as a conservative and former Congressman, may simply be gleefully hoping she’s the one that runs. Bill Schneider, whose political commentary has always seemed relatively sane to me, thinks that Edwards and Obama won, having “had the best moments”. I tend to agree with Schneider here – I think Clinton came off as pontificating and throwing out too many marketing-slogan sound bites, whereas Edwards and Obama were clear, organized, respectful in disagreement, and looked less packaged. I do wonder if their “respectful disagreement” was a way of paving the way for a joint ticket, but either way, I felt that both of them were being more genuine in what they had to say.

I’m not a Clinton-hater – I just don’t think Hillary is electable as president, and that’s not because she’s a woman. I think the way she was painted during her husband’s administration by the right-wing smear squad has unfortunately colored her national image for some time to come, but even over here on the left, I can pretty safely say that most moderate liberals, and anyone left of those, are not really interested in her attempts to subtly evade having made a mistake when she voted for the war in Iraq (actually, what most of us would really like to hear is “we knew better, but we were wusses and willingly drank the Kool-Aid”, but that probably won’t happen – face it, a good number of us, in the lead-up to the war, without the benefit of National Intelligence Estimates, knew what was going on with the Bush administration. And so did they, no matter what they say. This is where Obama gets big mileage for simply admitting to having common sense). I found her answers to the war on terror, where she tried to present that “tough in the presence of enemies” attitude, offensive, and rather Liebermanesque. Senator Clinton better be careful here – I think she’s repeating the mistakes of the past 6 years by trying to display this “I’m tougher than all y’alls on national security” stance while at the same time trying to sound anti-war; the liberals aren’t the only ones who are sick of the lip service, and I think Americans – not just liberals, but almost all of us – are about fed up with the dishonesty and ass-covering. You can’t have it both ways, Senator – if you choose both, you get none.

Edwards was really impressive in this regard, and I think his comments about honesty played very well. I do wish they’d let Gravel talk more, though – I have to admit that I’d rather see he and Kucinich as running-mates (if they were electable) than the others, simply because they’re right; since they won’t be chosen, though, I wish they were allowed to push the candidates into uncomfortable situations more. In some sense, this forces candidates to answer to the liberal left (or simply to the common sense folk) and play off the script some. But anyway, I thought Edwards was really impressive this evening, and Obama was good at keeping his message clear as well. If I had to pick who’d won between the two of them, I’d say Edwards, but it was a close thing.

That said, the pundits’ comments make me wonder about one thing… In the past couple of primaries, I’ve been unpleasantly surprised by the “inevitability” of the front-runner, even when my sense of who was winning – and my sense of who other liberals I knew wanted – was very different from what the media said was conventional wisdom. I knew almost no one in 2000 who wanted Gore as the democratic nominee – now, I think Vice-President Gore is pretty damned awesome, and this time, I really hope he does in the end run; but in 2000, he made the mistake of listening to too many slick advisors, and presented this guy who just didn’t seem genuine. And John Kerry? I’m sorry, but I’ve talked to a lot of people, and we all agree that most grass-roots folks were not interested in John Kerry as the front-runner. Howard Dean was really who grabbed most people’s attention, and I think that whole non-news with the “Dean Scream” was completely baffling – it didn’t seem any different to me that any other excited politician, and I never understood where his fall from grace came from. This does lead me to wonder if I’m either completely out of touch with the moderate liberals in this country (my approval of Kucinich excepted ), or if, in the end, the primaries are decided before they happen. And if Clinton wins this time, I’m really going to wonder, because I have to tell you, within my personal acquaintance, I know of approximately zero people who are excited about the idea of Senator Clinton as the Democratic candidate. The folks I see who are most excited about it are either former Clinton administration officials, or oh, I don’t know, Bill O’Reilly.

So if she’s the candidate, I’m either really wrong about this country, or I’m wrong in thinking that anyone’s vote counts. We shall see. I didn’t think she won – or did particularly well tonight – at all. But again, maybe it’s just because she reminds me of this particular family member.

As a side comment about Al Gore, since I mentioned him above – I think Al Gore is a bright guy with a Hell of a lot of integrity, and he has a knack for presenting tough issues to the general public in an understandable way. I also, from recent interviews, think he really gets what’s wrong with the media, and what happened when they all turned into massive wussbags and started presenting only what the administration wanted them to present. Those are useful skills. If he ran, if he could win, it would be one small step toward renewing hope. (And maybe, if we’re lucky, he’d help reinstate the Fairness Doctrine – then again, I’d elect almost anyone who’d give the Fourth Estate back its collective gonads…)

But one last comment about the debate, and this is what I really wanted to write about to begin with.

The following (paraphrased) question was posed to the candidates, and you hear it again and again in various guises, and I don’t understand why candidates don’t see the logical fallacy inherent in the question:

Given the recent discovery of a plot to blow up JFK airport, and the fact that we’ve had no terror attacks on U.S. soil since September 11th, don’t you think maybe the Bush administration is doing something right?

Ok, candidates, since I just know you’re reading this post, here’s how to answer that question… it’s the first thing you learned in statistics:

Correlation does not imply causality.

Say it with me again, folks… Correlation does not imply causality.

For the JFK plot, and the Fort Dix plot, and what not, let us remember that the administration has spent a lot of time advertising these plots by supposedly dangerous terrorists, when many of them were “only in the planning stages”, and a lot of them were being planned by folks who didn’t have the brains to carry out their plans (of dubious quality). I have no idea how serious the actual plot was, and frankly, I don’t think we can trust either the media or the government to tell the truth (which is sad, because if they are being straight, no one will ever know. I suspect they never read that story about the boy crying wolf, but anyhow…).

And, by the way, let’s give the intelligence services some credit. They’ve helped keep us out of this kind of trouble before, and one of the main reasons the Bush administration wasn’t on the ball for 9/11 is because they weren’t listening to the intelligence services. So I think it’s fair to just credit these guys for doing their job if these new threats are credible in the first place.

So anyway, let’s leave the JFK thing out of this and go back to addressing the main question, which is if we should give the Bush administration credit for the fact that we haven’t had any terrorist attacks since 2001. To this, you should probably respond that, with the exception of the first WTC bombing in 1993, we didn’t have any before that either. Why should we assume the Bush administration has anything to do with the fact that we’ve had none since?

Correlation does not imply causality.

The real problem is this: Many things have not happened since the Bush administration came into office – dinosaurs have not roamed the Earth, we have not been obliterated by an enormous meteor, and somehow, those evil secular humanists have not removed freedom of religion from the constitution. Now, the degree to which the Bush administration has attempted to ensure that these things have not happened probably varies (I personally think they’re working really hard on the dinosaur issue), but just because something has not happened does not mean the administration’s policies prevented it.

Say it with me: Correlation does not imply causality.

Candidates, seriously, next time one of you gets this question, let the public know what a stupid question it is… Kucinich was dead on with his Ben Franklin quote, and it’s time the rest of you stopped accepting the propaganda Kool-Aid when the press feeds it to you! USE THOSE BRAINS!