more election thoughts

i asked my sister, a political science major who was an intern in DC this summer, to post some of her thoughts about the war and the election. she tried to post the following response, but for some reason it wasn't working. rather than hide it as a comment i am just going to post the whole thing here:

hey, couldn't post this w/o an account.
random political thoughts
this isn't very coherent right now, but you can pick and choose what you want to post.
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congress was the branch of government that officially declared war.

I'm not advocating that Hillary go to hell, just that she doesn't send our country there while in office.

Bush did not lie. Last week I was at an exclusive congressional luncheon. Senator Zell Miller from Georgia, a democrat, nonetheless, and a member of the classified senate intelligence committee said that when he read the report, he believed it. Everything made sense. What lead the CIA to make these erroneous assumptions was a long process of assumptions and mistakes that were easy to make beginning in the early 90's [the Clinton era]. In addition to that, England had the same conclusions, France had the same conclusions, Russia had the same conclusions, Israel had the same conclusions, and they all had different spies. This was a mistake on behalf of the worldwide intelligence community. Bush did the best possible thing with the information which was given him. There was no reason to question the information, and even if extensive research were done, it was all backed by seemingly good logic and sound evidence.

Next, the loss of life was phoenomenally low compared to what it has been in all the other wars. [A little over 1000 Americans at this time.] The united states conquered the whole country of Iraq in 20 days. We all cheered by the sight of the toppling statues in such a short time with relatively few deaths. War necessarily entails loss of life, but this one entailed less death than is doled out on the DC streets every year.

I don't like the concept of war either, but Iraq is already a self-governing power. Wow. How amazing is that? From Saddam to independence in less than a year. Shit.

let's go to Washington with Pete Coors (Colorado Republican candidate for US Senate) to repeal the drinking age laws - I'm all for it!

Getting "stuck" with Bush for another 4 years is not ideal for me either, but it's a hell of a lot better than Kerry who is renowned for his flip-flopping on issues. A guy whose life says "whatever you believe, I believe it too" is definately not the type of strong leader that our country desperately needs to continue holding the reins.

I don't hate Democrats. I think they have some good points as far as social justice and environmental issues go. I am wary of a party that sees no problem with chaining themselves to a tree to spare its precious life, but have no problem killing millions of babies a year. I don't fully support Republicans either. I agree that Bush looks like a dumb ass and has made some sketchy decisions. But when I look around at my other options, he somehow looks a hell of a lot brighter.

my poli-sci prof. swears that if Kerry is not elected this year, Hillary will run next election and win, enslaving the nation for another 8 years. let's face it, this woman once in office will never let go. this is something that has been in the works for a while. no one minds if Bush wins again because next election, there will be no strong candidate that could have a chance next to Clinton. for this reason, even the washington post is somewhat low key on their praise of kerry. if he wins, hillary can't run next year. she's had this nice little plan on track for some time. she got elected (promising she wouldn't run for prez) by NYC. now she's established her own reputation, hiding behind a slightly more conservative veneer and is raring to go for the white house again. she had the book all planned to keep press going and will lay low for a while. secretly, she wants kerry to lose b/c then she'll have her turn in 4 years. she probably has a plan for chelsea to run later on too. Now, not only do i not really support bush, but kerry seems almost to be the good option to keep hillary away. political games are far too complicated. maybe it's best to just vote for the "good" guy and hope god brings a savior for our next election.
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Legality alone is no guide for a moral people.
- Walter E. Williams