Thank You

Thank You

I have to say that you never realize how important it is to have friends until you need them. I have to thnk Jen Runne for not only keeping my spirits up, but keeping the site up and breathing while I was getiing treatment. I also have to thank Dave and Bill for their concern. As well as my parents, who despite the crappy weather and their age, visited me every day and my sister calling me from Boston. I sometimes wonder why I have been so blessed with such wonderful people in my life.

And I want to thank all the readers for their concern and support while I was flat on my back. There is no reason to read a blog from a guy who isn't writing and your collective loyalty is touching.

With that said, I want to make a larger point here.

I watched a lot of CNN and CSPAN while sick. I saw a profile on Dick Gephardt. You could not want to have a better neighbor. He is a man who's decency is manifest. I have to say I respect him now more than ever. Yet, there is no way he can beat George Bush. He is a decent man and Bush is manifestly not. Dick Gephardt is the past, a past of unions and blue collar work and sunday pot luck dinners where a decent job can send a working class kid like him to Northwestern and on to law school. But that isn't America today. And his vision of America doesn't appeal to enough people to win.

Bush would beat him like a whipped puppy. Same with John Edwards, who throws off a creepy vibe of self-actualization. He's about John Edwards and Bush would womp him as well.

John Kerry is probably the most experienced candidate running, but there is no there there. There is Kerry's manifest belief in himself and that's about it.Would he be a good president? Sure. He just wants the job too much to get it.

All these men would be better presidents than Bush, so would Jon Stewart or Chris Rock. But they have to win.

In the end you need someone who wants to fight and you've got Dean and Clark. Dean has more domestic experience, Clark is vastly more liberal.

I think Iowa works for Dean and works well for him. Because his supporters can explain why he should be the next president of the US in the open, and if Dean has anything, it's his people. They have a message and the means to deliver it convincingly. Neighbors can talk to neighbors and that is an edge for Dean, who pulls in people who wouldn't ordinarily vote Democratic or vote at all.

In other news, I was pleasantly surprised to see Juan Cole on the Newshour last week and his statements about Sistani came out clear. On TV, he comes off calm, but make no mistake, he was stating the obvious, Sistani is about to play his hand and the US is going to be quite unhappy about it. It's a far more serious situation than people admitted and that little test run protest in Basra last week was a hint of things to come.

Sistani knows who helped filled those graves with dead Shia and his name is George Bush. He has no incentive to help the son out of a jam.

Watching Ted Koeppel in Iraq was frustrating. On one hand, he saw the utter anacrchy enveloping the country and what an assclown Bremer and the Young Republicans Abroad are, yet feels that the US must stay to "protect" Iraq for years to come. Uh, no. You have real elections, US troops are gone or there's open warfare. This won't be a quisling government making these choices. It was as if he couldn't imagine we were going to lose and that Iraqis had to want us around. Reality dawns slowly for some people,

posted by Steve @ 8:53:00 PM