The Race of Rhetoric
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008Wow… Am I frustrated with the rhetoric in the Democratic primary race. We have Hillary Clinton stating that it’s not enough for the next president to be a good speaker, but that they have to have substance and experience. On the other side, we have Barak Obama saying that it doesn’t matter about his experience, but it matters about who is “right on day one” for the White House. Of course this is all just a bunch of campaign rhetoric, because neither of them really know what they are going to do when they get into office. Like any other president before them, they will have to respond to information that they are presented in the best capacity that they can and all campaign promises will go out the window.
The way this rhetoric is going now reminds me of first George Bush election campaign when he promised “no new taxes” only to fall into a situation where he had to raise taxes to pay for the debt that was related to Operation Desert Storm. These promises that Obama and Clinton are partaking in regarding removing our troops from Iraq is premature. Neither should be making these promises to protect themselves from an impending future suicide. My guess would be that either one of them will find that they need to keep our troops in Iraq longer due to Geneva convention and other international policies than anybody including myself would like to. The point in the matter is not who was right, wrong, or experienced on day one. The question becomes who will do the best job to honestly take steps that will lead to the reduction of troops and the building of a strong foreign policy that can achieve neutrality in that region of the world again.
Will it ever happen? I doubt it. I just don’t like hearing the BS that either candidate is using. What stinks the most is that the American people fall for it. They buy these promises like they are facts of matter that will lead to the results that they want. Then later on when their candidate is in office and the fall short on their campaign promises, they feel misguided from the political process.
The political process is misguided at this point; cow tailing to whatever groups of organizations contribute the most to their campaigns. I think the American people really need to look into who is the most tied into corporate financing and who is most tied into a public financing campaign. This will allow a neutral playing field in regard to who is pulling the puppet strings and hopefully lead to more honesty about what they will do.
-JAG