Credibility Gap/Domestic

Just one quick note on my last post. I guess if I want to consider myself a total lefty, I have to take O to task for not being able to fulfill his campaign promise to close Guantamano while talking about foreign policy. Yeah. This is a mess. There's no good place to put these really bad people. I get that. But I also have no good answers for this. We can't let them go, and we can't try them all publicly. But it's a lot harder to clean up this mess than to start it. At least we can credibly say we're not torture people.

Okay. There are two things driving right wingers in this election. One is fiscal things. One is cultural. Today, I'm just going to touch on the fiscal thing. These people have essentially one policy. In good times, we should cut taxes. In bad times, we should cut taxes. We should especially cut taxes on rich people and corporations so they can have MORE incentive to make money (as if money in itself is not incentive). Self serving garbage. Not one of the Republican candidates is really talking about what they would do for the economy. Their only answers are to undo everything O has done. Take away financial regulation. Take away healthcare. Just common sense should tell you that this doesn't always work. That's all the have. That's it. Cutting taxes can be effective policy at times, but it is far from the answer to everything.

Will soaking it to the rich help? Yes and no. It's really not going to be more than a drop in the bucket to fix the budget issues. But it's still the right thing to do. It's the American thing to do. I can't believe so many politicians are standing on the wrong side of this issue.

Credibility Gap/Foreign

The lead up to the Iraq war was very depressing. It was very very clear to me that there was no change that Iraq had nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction. The fabrication of legitimacy of war was straight out of 1984 and utterly disgusting. Instead of trying to do everything to avoid needless war. Instead of looking at facts, Junior fabricated the whole thing and for some reason a majority of the US backed him in his lie.

The point of this is not to rehash history that can't be rewritten. It's just I was recently struck with the stark contrast of O seeking sanctions against Iran.

In the first case, much of the world, including our staunchest allies knew Junior was talking crap. He didn't allow the UN agencies to finish their inspections. He tried to link Iraq to 9/11 on the most tenuous of connections. He concocted a story about Nigerian uranium which he used to further manipulate everyone during his state of the union. It will never happen, but yes, Junior should be put up on trial for war crimes.

With Obama, he's got credibility with the American people and with our allies. He has a much worse hand because the unprovoked war on Iraq cost us too much in people, money, and credibility. I'm not saying that O will necessarily solve all the problems with Iran, or even that he can avoid war. But he is passing sanctions. He is trying to isolate Iran diplomatically. He's actually paying attention to the facts, rather that just the political advantages. He's putting the US on the right side again. It's good to see.

Games We Play

I'm pretty sure most people don't do this with their kids.

Games with the Little One.

Hat On/Hat Off. She obviously doesn't love to wear hats. So most kids would get annoyed at this really fast, but she seems to find great joy in pulling hats off her head over and over again.

Find the radio.
She loves music. If you put her down on the floor, she races to flip the radio on. I usually let her get there the first time. After that, I'll pick her up and put her on the floor on the other side of the room. I usually have about thirty seconds of free time before she races over to whack the radio again.

Games with the Big One.
Hippo Is Looking At Me!
This is a variation of a game that my brother used to play. In his game, he would leave a stuffed cow at various unexpected places to freak people out. In this variation, my kid chases me around with a giant purple hippo.

Where am I sleeping?
I'm not quite sure what to make of this, but my child doesn't like the very nice Scandinavian Design bed she had been provided. Instead she will find various places throughout the house to sleep at night. Her room, spare bedroom, living room, or even the floor in my bedroom. She'll set up camp, make her bed obsessively so each blanket even covers the entire sleeping area, then go to sleep. I'm happy to see that she seems adaptable to change. Beyond that, I'm not sure what to make of it.