On the other hand...

Even though I just got done trashing the "just like me" argument in US presidential politics, I feel compelled to suggest a few of my own personal qualities that I would like to see in the next White House occupant:

1. I can identify all of the Central Asian republics on a map, as well as name their capitals and leaders. In Silk Road to Ruin, Ted Rall suggests that Central Asia might be the next geopolitical hot spot. So it might be good for the next leader of the free world to know a little something.

2. I read -- a lot. I read books and magazines and blogs and news sites. I read things I often agree with, and things I often don't. I read things I don't even understand. I read things to try and understand people whose idea of reality seems totally different from mine -- like after September 11, I read the New Testament when the Bush administration started invoking God as a justification for war. I try and pay close attention to what's going on -- this is, incidentally, how I knew what the Bush Doctrine was.

3. I am financially conservative in my day-to-day life and I believe other people should be the same way. Want to talk about personal responsibility? I believe it's the responsibility of every American citizen to live within their means so that they can have money left over to contribute to the common good.

4. I believe that people actually have more personal freedom when there tighter social safety nets in place.

5. I love American democracy. Hell, I'm drunk on American democracy. Woo hoo! The m-f-ing Constitution! But I don't believe the USA is the center of the universe, and I don't believe we're doing everything better than any other country that ever existed.

In what ways would you like the next President and Vice President to represent what you're about?

Morning After

Let me get this straight.

Even though half of likely voters would've liked to see third parties included in the debates -- and even though Ralph Nader and Bob Barr offered to jump-in and take John McCain's place -- we're left scratching our heads this morning about why last night's debate was so uninspiring.

Why not just let them debate?

Maybe because something like this might happen:



(My deepest, deepest apologies for the boy-band soundtrack.)

This is not someone I want anywhere near the White House

From Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric:

Asked why she only obtained a passport last year, Palin said, "I'm not one of those who maybe came from a background of, you know, kids who perhaps graduate college and their parents give them a passport and give them a backpack and say go off and travel the world. No, I've worked all my life. In fact, I usually had two jobs all my life until I had kids. I was not a part of, I guess, that culture."

More here.

Not Like Me

For the last few weeks I've been in a real quandary about whether to vote based solely on issues, on principle -- or out of fear.

I've always found the idea of strategic voting distasteful. I don't think we should vote based on likeability or electability or whatever.

I want to cast my vote for Ralph Nader because I'm much more in line with him than with the Democratic Party (which Kevin Phillips, in an interview with Bill Moyers last week, described as having lunch-bucket flesh while its soul was wearing a pin-striped suit). I believe we need to break the two-party monopoly. I also believe you should vote for who you want, rather than the person you think other people would be most likely to accept or get behind.

At the same time, I really want to cast a vote against Sarah Palin.

Now, I knew she wasn't my kind of person from the get-go. And putting a woman on a Republican ticket would never get me (a woman) to vote Republican. But I'm alarmed by the way she's making people act.

I don't have a problem with her teenage daughter being pregnant. I don't think it makes her a bad mother; these things happen. However, I don't like talking heads like Bill O'Reilly and James Dobson making exceptions for her in their blanket "teen sex is causing the downfall of society!!!" rhetoric.

And what I really don't like -- what really, downright scares me -- is the "but she's like me!" argument.

Please! Stop and think! Do you think you would make a good Vice President of the United States? Despite my education, despite my level-headedness, despite all my experience working in the public sector, and despite my near-pathological tight-fistedness with money, I'm quite sure I would make a terrible Vice President. No. What I want is someone in the White House who's much, much better, much smarter than me. Who knows gobs about economics and the history of the Middle East and who's been to at least one non-English speaking country.

Is that too much to ask? Is it truly a crazy, far-out demand that proves I'm out of touch with Red State Values or Mainstream America or whatever? Please tell me. I'm starting to feel like I've lost my marbles.

The Best Day of the Year

The first Sunday after Labor Day, because that's when the library opens again.