The choice.

Choosing who to vote for in the presidential election is always a question of one or the other of two people you're not so crazy about (or downright detest). That's probably one reason why so many people don't bother to vote at all. Myself, I always make it to the booth for major elections - seems only right since so many people died to gain the franchise back in the civil rights struggles of the 1950s-60s. I'm usually not at all happy with the options, as some of you know, and the prospect of a McCain vs. Clinton general election is a depressing one for me. Not that I invest all that much stomach lining into the question of who will occupy the White House. (Far be it from me to suggest that a vote every four years is all you should expect to have to do to make the world a better place.) But honestly, both of these people will make abysmal presidents. And while I would prefer not to lock-in another eight years of Republican party ascendancy, particularly the virulent strain of right-wing conservatism that has taken hold in recent decades, I can see that in a race such as that, we're fucked one way or the other.

Take Clinton, for instance. Her victory would result in Clinton II - The Vengeance... a kind of Frankenstein's monster of political regeneration, stitched together from the remains of the last three miserable presidencies. Yes, including the current one. Everything an administration does sets a precedent for its successors. High sounding rhetoric aside, Bush has expanded the power of the presidency to a degree that will redound to the president that follows him, whatever party that person may belong to. I have no doubt that Hillary Clinton will make use of the prerogatives of the unitary executive in a way that will make the previous Clinton incarnation seem tame by comparison. And for those who think peace and plenty are on the way, recall the bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo war. With Kosovo on the brink of declaring independence (Feb. 18), we may be facing the prospect of renewed conflict in the Balkans; something the Clinton team, driven by the same foreign policy players, will be only too eager to engage with. Three wars, anyone?

Speaking of multiple wars, let's talk about McCain, the presumptive G.O.P. nominee. There are two things I hear about McCain over and over again - one, that he is honest and firm in his beliefs, and two, that he (along with all reactionary Republicans) has great defense / national security credentials. My reaction to the first point if fairly simple - what the hell does it matter that he's honest and consistent (questionable premise, but nevertheless) when he is dead wrong nearly all of the time, like when he thought the Iraq war was such a great idea (an opinion he still clings to)? We've got "strong" and wrong already, and it's not working so well. On the second point, it beats the hell out of me why he or any of his fellow Iraq war enthusiasts would retain national security credibility when their historic disaster in the middle east has made us all more vulnerable to terrorist attack by any reasonable measure. What the hell does it take to discredit these fuckers, anyway? The man is an ass who flag-waved us into the Iraq catastrophe, costing many thousands of lives and setting us up for decades of negative consequences. He would make a miserable president. (Yeah, but how do I really feel?)

McCain would be Bush III - he'd be calling the tunes, but Dubya's severed hand would still be playing the piano.

luv u,

jp

[Next week: Obama and Huckabee]