My Random Thoughts: 12 May 2007: Kudos and Polls

First off, let me say that I am already sick to death of presidential polls - not the campaign coverage - just all the damn polls. Seriously, it would be easier to make a list of people who are NOT polling on this race. It’s eight months before ANY voting is done – eight months for crying out loud! How much can a poll really tell you right now other than people are aware of the candidates? Eight months is a very looooong time, plenty of time for numbers to change. In addition, the many, MANY polls that are being released have varying (sometimes wildly varying) numbers, which tells me that the poll numbers are pretty soft and that surveys of only 1000 people cannot be as accurately extrapolated as they normally are in terms of the general public this early in what is a very different and very long election season… So enough already with the poll overload!

Second I want to give some kudos to Congress for not caving in to the Bush regime on the Iraq War funding bill. Bravo, and keep up the pressure; be relentless. As I heard someone say Friday on one of the cable news shows, Bush and his minions will only change by force; force is the only tactic that is going to work with them regarding their Iraq War policy. And let’s be honest, we know they are fond of force; they seem to believe it is the ONLY real option to use to achieve goals…

Now I am hearing that there is an Iraqi Parliament draft bill signed by more than half its members that was presented to their Speaker for review; it calls for a timeline for the withdrawal of all foreign forces as well as a cap on the number of forces in Iraq at the amount that are already there. They see us as an occupying force and they would like us out. And to top that all off, the Iraqi Parliament is STILL considering taking a two month break this summer while our guys are still over there fighting and dying in Iraq’s civil war. Unbelievable!

Major kudos to General David Petraeus, our commander of forces in Iraq, for speaking out very publicly and unequivocally against torture in the wake of a mental health survey of our troops, in which 1/3rd of them indicated that they approved of torture. Said Petraeus, “Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. They would be wrong.” He went on to state, “Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they often are neither useful nor necessary.” Thank God for this man! We couldn’t have put a better guy in charge over there; I admire him greatly…

And some kudos go to Defense Secretary Bob Gates. I believe him to be a good man, and him having been a major part of the Iraq Study Group, I think he is well aware of the things that need to be done regarding Iraq. I understand that now as part of the Bush Administration, he has to toe some of the Admin line, but he has shown himself not to simply be just another Bush lackey. He is getting flack from both sides now as he recently had given praise to the Democratic efforts in Congress to set a timetable for withdrawal and also has said that time is running out for Iraq to act. I think Secretary Gates may be an honest man; quite possibly the only candid and honest man in the entire Bush Administration…

Another note: I think that author and analyst Reza Aslan is one of the smartest guys around when it comes to Middle East insight; he should be in a high-level advisory position on the formation of U.S. Middle East policy. Every time I see him interviewed just reminds me of how much this country needs to listen to smart people who know what they are talking about; guys like Reza Aslan…

And bravo to the show Law & Order for dealing in part with the state of veteran’s care in this country with so many of our men and women returning from war and needing health care. It’s shameful that situations like the one at Walter Reed happened in the first place; doubly shameful that it was allowed to go on for such a long time; and triply shameful that with all the money being spent by our government, our veterans are still lacking in adequate care. What on earth are our priorities that are more important than this? There certainly can’t be many… Treating our war vets like this is a lapse in moral judgment as well as egregiously unbecoming. This subject needs attention and needs to be fixed ASAP. And good for Law & Order for not letting us forget about it now that the issue isn’t prominent in the news cycle anymore…

One final note: I’ve gotten so conditioned to Countdown w/Keith Olbermann that I turn toward my TV every time that Lexus commercial with Elvis Costello comes on, the one where the first notes of Beethoven’s Ninth, Second Movement are playing… It’s very similar to the conditioning I have to that short NBC theme that tolls when they are about to show updated football scores… I feel a little bit like Pavlov’s dog…

Until next time! Woof!