We had a big combined birthday party for my mom, and my in-laws. Their birthdays are all in the first week of July so we decided to have a big dinner. We ended up talking about politics (it was all my fault). With a fun cross-section of political reasoning at the table it was lively to say the least. It was mostly presidential with my mom bringing up anti-Clinton stuff, my father-in-law defending him where possible, and me playing devil’s advocate. I ended up realizing (thanks to my mother-in-law) and we kept bringing up examples of the same kind of behavior for both Clinton and Bush Jr, just different situations. I think I’ve figured it out. By the time you get to be President, you’re beholden to certain parties who helped you get there. For Bush, those interests involve huge energy and oil companies like Enron and the defense industry, which explains some of the problems he’s had with his top secret energy taskforce.
It’s depressing that politics is dirty. Maybe dirty is too strong a word, but it definitely has the appearance of payback, unethical behavior and being sold to the highest bidder. Unfortunately, I don’t see any hope on the horizon. There is no idealistic third party with enough organization, money or good ideas to provide an alternative. What do we do?