<p>From Newsweek:
</p>
<p>Source: <a href=“http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15402067/site/newsweek/[/url]”>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15402067/site/newsweek/</a></p>
<p>Ah, too bad, I already voted, or they could have flown me in. Actually, I enjoyed voting this time. There were a host of good candidates on the ballot, and for the U.S. Senate race, it was really hard to make up my mind, as I wavered between the Green Party candidate and the Libertarian. </p>
<p>Stay the course.</p>
<p>Go Green Party! :)</p>
<p>Sure HH! The Green party just takes votes from the Dems…it’s an excellent GOP strategy to root for the Green (Nader really nailed it last time, with help from his good buddies in the GOP…cost the election some say…)!</p>
<p>But we need a winky on this one ;)</p>
<p>Gotta love Andy Borowitz.</p>
<p>“an excellent GOP strategy to root for the Green Party”</p>
<p>The Dems shanked the last election themselves by nominating an upperclass dork with a record of 25 years of virtual uselessness in public service, and who claims he was fooled into voting to send American soldiers to go kill and die. (It didn’t take much; he didn’t talk too good either). Wouldn’t be surprised to see them do it again.</p>
<p>Stay the course.</p>
<p>Mini, please Stay the Course.</p>
<p>All this vacillation has me dizzy.</p>
<p>Generals are speaking out for the troops. Need More anti-terrorists (soldiers) in Iraq! But somehow this sad, Iraq now has the ultimate in Democracy…Anarchy.
Where’s Rummy to keep the generals in line?</p>
<p>Yeah, stay the course! More debt, more death! More disrespect in the international community! More religion in politics! Let’s go for the gold!</p>
<p>“Sure HH! The Green party just takes votes from the Dems.”</p>
<p>So tell me - what have the Dems done in the past 6 years to earn your trust? Claim they were bambozzled by a two-bit faux Texan with a speech problem? Vote more money to splurge on non-existent military equipment and to support a war which ended in 2003? Vote on and hence legitimate the suspension of habeas corpus at the whim of the Executive Branch? Fight the shipment of jobs (and torture) overseas? Reject the pleas of a Pennsylvania Congressional war hero to set a timetable to bring the troops home and instead leave them hanging indefinitely?</p>
<p>Let’s hear - what is it that the Dems collectively have done to deserve your vote? Or are you all amnesiacs?</p>
<p>The clock is ticking…no answers to mini’s question yet? 
I thought there would be pages and pages of answers by the time I checked in here today!</p>
<p>I think the silence is a tribute to their honesty (which I would not have expected had I posed a similar query to Republicans. But who knows?)</p>
<p>Stay the course.</p>
<p>OK, I’ll give my answer.</p>
<p>The most important thing the Democrats have done to earn my trust is not **** anything up for about 12 years. (I don’t think Clinton actually ****ed anything up after 1994; things just kind of blew up on him, so to speak.)</p>
<p>I don’t hold their Iraq votes against them (except maybe the recent one). First, I can’t hold minority-party legislators to a requirement that they attempt to derail a Presidential initiative clearly supported by a majority in Congress and by the public. If the Republican leadership in Congress wasn’t willing to restrain the President – and it wasn’t – then it’s unfair to ask that the Democrats take a purely symbolic stand. Second, neither they nor the Republicans could have dreamed in 2002-2003 that this administration was as incompetent as it has turned out to be; I certainly didn’t. Third, I know, and everyone knows, that they would have taken a more cautious approach had they held the reins of power. I believe a more cautious approach would have served the national interest far better than the arrogant course we took.</p>
<p>I respect Murtha’s position (and of course it’s proving prescient), but if I were king of the world all of a sudden I’m not sure I would set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Honestly, even if there’s a Democratic President and Congress in two years, I wouldn’t expect them to solve the Iraq problem anytime soon. It’s much easier to identify what went wrong over the past five years than to figure out what will be effective to correct those errors, and I would be suspicious of any solution that promised short-term results.</p>
<p>As for “shipping jobs overseas”, I tend to be kind of a Republican on that set of issues. I trust the Democrats to tick me off somewhat on that. If that were the only issue, I might care about it.</p>
<p>On the whole, I think the Democrats dance too much to the tune of labor unions and trial lawyers, but when push comes to shove I will choose them as the lesser evil compared to the oil industry and the Christian right.</p>
<p>Sad when one has to hold her nose to vote for either side. It really is lesser of two evils, but the more evil is plenty evil.</p>
<p>“The most important thing the Democrats have done to earn my trust is not **** anything up for about 12 years.”</p>
<p>My own personal opinion is that they messed LOTS up over 12 years, from killing half a million children under the age of 5 in Iraq (a million people overall), to neo-liberal policies in support of NAFTA and the WTO causing untold misery abroad (and provoking the mass exodus of people off their lands in Mexico and Guatemala and toward the United States), to legitimizing the suspension of habeas corpus, to being bamboozled into a ridiculous war by an Administration that sent a lying Secretary of State to the UN who was found out within 48 hours of his attempted deception by a semi-amateur reporter. They didn’t do their homework, they didn’t think through the hard issues, and they just didn’t care.</p>
<p>But putting that all aside (it’s a little much, but fair enough) - this non-record of theirs has earned your trust? (Sounds sick to me, even if it is the majority view.)</p>
<p>Beats the alternative (by a hair).</p>
<p>My personal view is, regarding foreign policy, I am more likely to trust those who lie than those who are easily taken in by same. (I just wish the first were better at it.) Others will feel differently.</p>
<p>Stay the course.</p>
<p>Here’s a concept you might want to consider, Mini: “Perfect is the enemy of good.”</p>
<p>Not looking for perfect. Just good. Killing children is the enemy of the good.</p>
<p>You still haven’t answered my question (and I respect you for not doing so.)</p>
<p>Mini,</p>
<p>How do you know the war in Iraq has killed over 1/2 million children? What are your sources?</p>
<p>What do you think about those who kill anyone for the sake of their ideology, and chant “Allah Ackbar” as they gleefully behead those not of their faith?</p>
<p>I’m not a fan of the Republicans in charge, not by any means, but agree with AllMusic’s “beats the alternative (by a hair).” Good line, by the way.</p>
<p>Imagining Nancy “I can’t keep track of my facelifts” Pelosi as Speaker of the House and Harry “Rotten Land Deals” Reed as Senate majority leader gives me the willies.</p>