Musings of a (Fairly) Young Contrarian

Profane campaign

The presidential campaign and the puditocracy are yet again obsessed with the past. Democrats are accusing President Bush of pulling strings regarding his National Guard service. Republicans openly wonder if John Kerry REALLY deserved his Purple Hearts because he didn't lose any limbs. Both of these non-issues have to do with incidents that did (or didn't) happen in the late 60s and early 70s. There are over 100,000 mostly young American soldiers in Iraq. Over 1000 of them have died and who knows how many injured. No one bothers to count how many Iraqi civilians have been killed or injured. The invasion of Iraq, supported by both Bush and Kerry, had nothing to do with fighting terrorism but has proven a recruiting godsend to al-Qaeda and related groups. No significant weapons of mass destruction have been found. President Bush promised to find Osama bin Laden 'dead or alive' but, unless the conspiracy theorists are right, that obviously hasn't happened. To waste time arguing about three-decade old incidents while all this is going on borders on profane.

posted by Brian @ Wednesday, September 15, 2004