McCain has just taken me to such depths of disappointment. I recall his last-minute about-face on the torture bill; the first time I was every really, truly disappointed in him. Until then, I think a lot of us Democrats thought of him as the crazy uncle. We weren't always sure about him, but he was likable, and seemed, well, more fun, more understandable, than the rest of that side of the family. Running for President always takes something out of you. You can't ever really be "pure", running for high office, and I understand that you need to take sides. But this? So much of this, including the email deal, is, indeed, irrelevant. But it's becoming more and more indicative.
As for Obama, I was sold when I read an early article of his on his Foreign Policy ideas. He really hit that sweet spot, for me, between soft and hard power. His concept that we needed to not just add troops, but add them right -- boots on the ground to fight 4G wars over new, complex systems -- told me he's far from a lightweight on these issues, and that he really gets a lot of this. One of the things that annoys me is when you misuse troops; the apparent current policy to put Special Forces, for example, in as bog-standard troopers really grates, and that told me that Obama gets why we have a vast variety of troops, and how to deploy them wisely. McCain is like Schwarzkopf in looking at troops as a large mass of men to be ordered, which can work, but mostly in invasion-style mass swarmings of men and material, not in the kind of fighting like Iraq, or Somaila for that matter. And that leads into McCain's Cold War-style thoughts on American Power...Anyway.
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Date: 2008-08-28 04:01 am (UTC)McCain has just taken me to such depths of disappointment. I recall his last-minute about-face on the torture bill; the first time I was every really, truly disappointed in him. Until then, I think a lot of us Democrats thought of him as the crazy uncle. We weren't always sure about him, but he was likable, and seemed, well, more fun, more understandable, than the rest of that side of the family.
Running for President always takes something out of you. You can't ever really be "pure", running for high office, and I understand that you need to take sides. But this? So much of this, including the email deal, is, indeed, irrelevant. But it's becoming more and more indicative.
As for Obama, I was sold when I read an early article of his on his Foreign Policy ideas. He really hit that sweet spot, for me, between soft and hard power. His concept that we needed to not just add troops, but add them right -- boots on the ground to fight 4G wars over new, complex systems -- told me he's far from a lightweight on these issues, and that he really gets a lot of this.
One of the things that annoys me is when you misuse troops; the apparent current policy to put Special Forces, for example, in as bog-standard troopers really grates, and that told me that Obama gets why we have a vast variety of troops, and how to deploy them wisely. McCain is like Schwarzkopf in looking at troops as a large mass of men to be ordered, which can work, but mostly in invasion-style mass swarmings of men and material, not in the kind of fighting like Iraq, or Somaila for that matter. And that leads into McCain's Cold War-style thoughts on American Power...Anyway.