mid-term election woes.

here is my standard disclaimer: the following blog entry is an accurate representation of my views on the subject below. the prose itself is of poor quality, and the implications made herein may be explored in comment form. please refrain from any "colorful" language--i.e., personal attacks on me or profanity. i appreciate any constructive comments made that will provide more insight into your thoughts or will allow you to understand mine further. so. here we go.

for all the news i've been hearing and reading about the mid-term senate elections, along with the recent news coverage of president bush's speeches on the war on terror, one subject has framed the debate: iraq.

overall, i think this is a good thing. the iraq war for a long time has sadly been in the corners of our mindscape, with many of the people not giving a lick about the war. but it has eaten away at our morale as a people, and at our confidence in the leadership of our government.

now, after three years of fighting, the politicians are speaking out. elephants and asses alike are speaking their mind. and they're talking about the wrong things.

three years into the war, they want to argue about whether or not it was right for us to go to iraq, the sorts of questions they should have asked before they voted in support of the war. bush has recently come out and said there was no connection between iraq and 9/11, in stark contrast to what they implied all throughout the buildup to war. the fact of whether or not it was right to go to war in iraq now appears to be a moot point.

i personally am conflicted about how the iraq war started. nonetheless, i realize that that debate should be staid for the moment and once we have the comfort of hindsight and retrospect to look back at the iraq war, we can discuss that. but by no means should the justification of how the war began be an election issue, let alone one to build an entire campaign on. what the incumbents and congressional hopefuls should be discussing instead is how to stabilize iraq, curtail the insurgency, provide ample humanitarian aid, prop up the iraqi government, properly supply our soldiers with the necessary equipment, and then how to wisely withdraw our troops from the region. these sorts of debates would be practical.

i hope that the coming elections will provide some much needed stimulus to washington. having a rubber stamp congress is bad for the country. the congress for the most part has been impotent since day 1 of the bush administration, letting bush and his crew make all the calls and holding few to any sort of real accountability based on competency. accountability in the bush administration is based more on party loyalty than to anything else.

the republicans had a golden opportunity, and they squandered it with poor leadership at too many pivotal points. they grew corrupt too quickly. the democrats still seem unable to maintain any sort of solidarity and provide a suitable alternative and united front against the GOP.

i hope that the democrats can pull it together, win the majority of seats in the senate, and force bush to provide more centrist policies such as the immigration platform he has put forth. such a future is likely the only hope for me not becoming further disheartened by the state of politics in america.