"Al Spohn" wrote in message
news:MPG.1bbb483633ede20c9896fb@mayonews...
In article , dwhite110
@optonline.net says...

"Fred the Red Shirt" wrote in message
om...
Dave Hinz wrote in message
...

And whose fault is that? Kerry voted to approve the war too,
remember?
He also said, a week or two ago, that even knowing what he knows
now,
he'd _still_ vote to approve going to war. How do you reconcile
that
with yourself, I wonder?

No, Kerry did not vote to approve the war. The Congress did not
declare war. That's like saying that a law thar permits police
officers to carry guns is approval of every shooting by a police
officer.


No offense intended, but the quote above and the rest of this post is a
complete load of crap, sorry, and is exactly the kind of obfuscation
that is
going to lose the election for Kerry. Kerry and practically everybody
else
gave the president the authority to act. The rest is splitting hairs
and
political maneuvering. Anybody who is really watching can see that
Kerry's
position on the war is complely, exclusively driven by the polls.

Right, and Bush is completely above any influence by the polls,
obfuscation or political maneuvering.

I don't think Bush's war on terror is poll driven. It is actually
potentially disastrous politically. The "hey, everybody in Washington does
it" was the favorite response of Clinton supporters in the rare cases where
you actually got them to think logically. I don't totally disagree with
you, but there are degrees of influence. For example I can't imagine, ever,
that Bush would take a poll on where he should vacation or what kind of tie
he should wear.

dwhite


Anyone that is in a position to
run for president cannot get there without being a self-serving, self
absorbed (and rarely self-made) individual. The question is whether or
not the person that gets elected, whether in a moment of boredom or
possibly even guilt (unlikely) is ever actually capable of making a
decision putting the country's interest ahead of their own. I say that
if you elect a person capable of doing that 10% of the time, you have a
winner - and that's the best you can expect. The tie-breaking bonus is
in finding a candidate whose personal interest happen to coincide with
the best interests of the country. Someday I hope to be proven wrong,
but I don't think it's going to be this time around.
/fatalism :-)

- Al
(self-absorbed, but otherwise lacking the credentials to run for office)