10 candidates and not one acceptable.

At the moment, there are a whopping 10 Republicans considering a run for the presidency, though Republicans have struck a reputation for choosing one candidate early in recent elections. There are plenty of others openly considering a run at the Oval Office, including Fred Thompson. However, they all seem to be the same kind of conservative, traditional, not the religious right zealots that put Bush in power. Pundits are saying that this is a kind of backlash against the mess that Bush has made of this country, and against the power base that allowed him to do so. There is a problem with this, though. Despite the problems with Bush, the evangelicals are still the single most powerful conservative demographic in the country, and they are not happy with their field of candidates. The current field also has one other major problem The traditional conservative government platform they are running on is based strongly upon the military and support for the military. With the Iraq War as wildly popular among moderates as it is today, that could chop off that end of the spectrum of their support. What they are left with is, well, not quite enough to put them on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Another comparison.

In a recent poll, Hillary Clinton has 38% of the Democratic constituency in hand, while Barack Obama only has 24%. This in itself is not exactly troubling. You expect some difficulties when two people are trying to reach out to Americans, one with the last name of a former President, and one with the middle name of a despot deposed recently by American forces. However, what is troubling is the reason that Hillary is pulling away. Most liberals said that they supported Clinton because of her strong position on the war in Iraq.

Let's compare.

Hillary Rodham Clinton voted in favor of the Iraq War and defended her position several times. It was only in late 2006, when it became clear that she would make a run for the White House, that she began to decry her radical anti-war position, and the bootlickers lapped up every word she spoke.

On the other hand, Senator Obama, though he did not have the opportunity to cast his vote against the war, understood its potential consequences and spoke out against it from the very start. Clinton hasn't managed to convince me that her administration would not just look to the glories of the Clinton heyday. Obama has consistently made "changing politics as usual" a centerpoint of his campaign. Given the way the country is looking these days, I think we could use a change from politics as usual.

A comparison?

In Northern Ireland today the Democratic Unionist Ian Paisley was sworn in as the first minister, with Sinn Fein (read: IRA) will take up his post as Paisley's deputy. World leaders are finally daring to hope that bloodshed in Northern Ireland will end.

I mention this for two reasons. The first is that this was an intense, deadly and bloody fight between two bodies of the same religion: the Protestants and the Catholics. Yes, they are officially divided into "Republicans" and "Loyalists," but for all intents and purposes, this was a religious power struggle, and everyone knows it. And it took decades of actual fighting to resolve the issue at last.

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

The second reason I mention this is that these two sides, who are not exactly best buds, were able to overcome their differences for the sake of their suffering people. The people of America are not exactly suffering as a whole at this point, but the soldiers in Iraq certainly aren't having the time of their lives. We can only hope that the Democrats and Republicans can have the same levels of maturity as the Unionists and Sinn Fein.

The New Plan

Despite the fact that the vast majority of Americans want our troops to remain in Iraq, Bush will keep them there as long as he wants, because the amount of Republicans in Congress is just enough to keep the Democrats from gaining a two-thirds majority. However, the Democrats are doing just as Bush asked, and cooperating with him, trying to reach a bipartisan decision to help the soldiers in Iraq. The new bill they are working on would deliver the money to the president in two stages. No, the president is not going to like it. Yes, he is going to whine and complain to the media about how by not giving him exactly what he wants the Dems are being unpatriotic, not supporting the troops, and probably killing babies too, just for good measure. But in the end, this will probably do what the Democrats couldn't do with the first bill: pass with enough support to show Bush that this new Congress really isn't messing around. Sure, there will be enough "loyal Bushies" in Congress to fight with the Dems. But at last it will pass, and at last there will be a viable option to getting us out of this war.

One Signature

It's becoming more and more obvious why we need a Democratic President. Bush has, in the words of Barack Obama, "stubbornly ignored the will of the American people. " I don't think that anyone else could have put it better. The Democratic majority in Congress is a direct result of the unhappiness of the populace with the Bush administration's current course of action. The only thing that Bush is going to do by vetoing the war is to further that discontent, and put the Democrats in place to hold congress in the upcoming elections. However, I would rather see one less soldier in Iraq die for an unwanted, unpopular war than see all the seats in Congress go to the Democratic party. Senator Obama is absolutely right in this instance. It is time to get out of Iraq and think through a new strategy for the war on terrorism. Maybe, this time, our commanders will actually think through a strategy.

The Amazing Disappearing Gonzales

At this point, the Alberto Gonzales scandal is beginning to look a lot like the war in Iraq. In both cases, it is pretty clear that there was wrongdoing. In both cases, the Bush administration set the PR machine in motion to run damage control by purposefully deceiving the public. And in both cases, President Bush has stuck by the side that is clearly wrong, and defended his position by criticizing his detractors. The e-mails released by the Justice Department make it clear that the eight U.S. attorneys were fired for not being "Loyal Bushies." However, Alberto Gonzales has outright lied about, or claimed not to remember the contents of, the e-mails, in an attempt to save his own job. And, of course, through it all, Bush has stuck by his side. I guess it pays to be a loyal Bushy.

Heroes

Just how shameful can the military operations in Iraq get? Dick Cheney tells the media that not following George W.'s plan exactly, and handing the man who has squandered so much of the country's capital, both financial and diplomatic, would amount to abandoning our heroic US soldiers. However, for the sake of the public relations of the government, which are just in tip-top shape to begin with, the government will cover up the death of Pat Tillman, killed by friendly fire, as the world has just learned. There is no doubting Tillman's bravery and heroism, but even that isn't safe from the clutches of GW. Both one of the men traveling with Tillman and Jessica Lynch, who spent time as a POW in Iraq, testified before Congress about the elaborate PR spin that the army put out to halt the spread of word about his death. Lynch had a year-in-review worthy quote while answering the Congressmen's questions, seated next to the Tillman family: "The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes and they don't need to be told elaborate lies." The American people at this time don't need the lies and coverups that are bound to come with a pro-war administration, especially when it comes bundled billions of extra dollars spent and the loss of thousands of American lives. Pat Tillman was a hero for his bravery, not for his death, and if it were not for this idiotic, needless war, the world would have a lot more heroes.