*The current President, was governor of Texas. The Texas legislature meets no more than 140 days and only in odd years (not exactly the most active state government). Other than the fact that he was the son of a President and was responsible for the execution for hundreds of Texas convicts, was he really the best person to be president?
*Is centrist and Democrat, Senator Hillary Clinton (NY-D) the best candidate? Many people are upset that she voted for Bush's use of force in Iraq and has remained unapologetic about it.
*Could it be a flip-flopper? Senator John McCain (AZ-R), a candidate for President, is being criticized because of this flip-flops on Iraq. Hinessight found the story at Alternet:
John McCain's been all over the map when it comes to Iraq for a long time. Cliff Schecter notes that way back in 1990, two and a half weeks after Iraq had invaded Kuwait, McCain said that Americans shouldn't support a ground war in the Middle East because "we cannot even contemplate, in my view, trading American blood for Iraqi blood." Less than two months later, though, McCain not only contemplated the possibility, he voted to go to war on behalf of Kuwait.
As the war drums sounded for the current fiasco, McCain, echoing Dick Cheney and the administration's legion of half-baked neocons, promised a cakewalk. In September of 2002, he warned us that there might be a few casualties: "As successful as I believe we will be, and I believe that the success will be fairly easy, we will still lose some American young men or women." That same month, he told CNN, "We're not going to get into house-to-house fighting in Baghdad … we're not going to have a bloodletting of trading American bodies for Iraqi bodies." And in early 2003, he promised viewers of MCNBC, "We will win this conflict. We will win it easily."
This month, though, he told MSNBC that he knew all along the Iraq war was "probably going to be long and hard and tough," and that he was "sorry" for those who voted for the war believing it would be "some kind of an easy task." "Maybe they didn't know what they were voting for," he said.
In October, John McCain was just as sure that 20,000 more U.S. troops would do the trick in Iraq -- bringing about stability, democracy and prosperity, and restoring America's image in the world (or something) -- as he had been about the ease with which it would be prosecuted in 2003. When reporters asked him to elaborate on his statement about the need for more combat troops in Iraq to quell a "classic insurgency," McCain said: "Another 20,000 troops in Iraq, but that means expanding the Army and the Marine Corps."
** Why are so many people excited about the announced candidacy of Senator Barack Obama (IL-D)? Even though he is young, Senator Obama (he is younger than me!) has a few attributes that the other candidates do not have---Senator Obama did not vote for/support the war in Iraq. He represents the hopes, dreams, and the leadership for a new generation. Senator Obama speaks with a common sense approach to solving problems. He has served in public office in Illinois. Obama has served in a leadership capacity in many different areas. As someone mentioned in USA Today, "He doesn't have a lot of people he owes things to."
Check out the Barack Obama website. President Obama sounds like a real possibility.
