I will be sure to check out the Outkast song, I'm sure it will bring back lots of old memories.

Speaking of old memories, you've been exposed! You're really dead, aren't you?

With rhetoric like that, he is unelectable.

I don't think I can disagree with you there. OTOH, I am guessing that many more Democrats with much blander rhetoric are unelectable, too!!

It wil be interesting to see what happens. Polls cited on the networks show support for the war (and maybe Bush, too) among US voters currently at 70%. Sure, I wonder how they are asking the question and who they are asking, but it is somehow believable on a "support our troops" basis. Everybody loves a winner. If, by this point, US tanks can drive around Baghdad, and if the US can prop up some military-sponsored interim government and the death rate among occupying troops subsides to a lower level, Democrats including Kucinich are facing a fait accompli. How do you run on an anti-war platform when the war is "over" (I put this in quotes just to indicate my skepticism of a narrow definition of "over").

What would be interesting to see is whether somebody like Kucinich, having failed to get the nomination, stands with whatever centrist, no-so-antiwar candidate the Democrats cook up. It's kind of sick, but I think the Democrats' only hope is if something around Iraq gets much worse in the next year and that 70 percent figure drops to 35 percent.

One small tangent off of Kucinich and his other positions and lifestyle is my own sometimes paralysis when it comes to political demonstrations. When looking at past WTO demonstrations and some but not all of recent anti-war protests, I feel like there's a whole melange of political viewpoints mixed up in there....fundamental pacifism along with other overlaid themes like animal rights. I looked at one march a week ago and tried to envision myself -- not a pacifist and a dyed-in-the-wool carnivore -- marching with the crowd. Oh, I guess I'm not a joiner anyhow! ...and to be fair, what I have seen of anti-war demos have tended to be pretty on message...fewer folks trying to leverage the situation for their own groups. End tangent. Time to catch a plane to "Oakland".

Along those lines;

John Kerry stirred up quite a fuss this past week with his comments that "the US needs a Regime change".

Leaving debate about that statement aside for now, what I found disgusting was the CNN anchors vitrolic attitude towards him, suggesting that he was being unpatriotic for attacking the current Administration in a time of war. What next? It's unpatriotic to vote for a non-encumbent during a time of war?
The fact is that this Administration did go to war against the wishes of many US citizens. Kerry has got primaries coming up in under a year, and the Administration keeps telling us that the war is going to take a while. Is he supposed to wait until the last month before making his points? Or just until Baghdad has fallen, all the victorious flag waving is happening and all the happy Iraqi citizens are smiling at the cameras, justifying the Administrations position?

Politics suck. War sucks. But they should suck separately.

Politics suck. War sucks. But they should suck separately.

"War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means."
- Carl von Clausewitz

I just finished reading "The Crisis of Islam" and was somewhat suprised. A quick read (one night) but interesting. At first I thought it was going to excuse the terrorists but it really just describes how we are where we are today in the Middle East.

"War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means."
- Carl von Clausewitz

So it's true? The shrubs do use war as a means of re-relection?

So it's true? The shrubs do use war as a means of re-relection?

Oh, yeah, this was an obvious re-election ploy. This war has been so popular, it's quite clear that Bush will be re-elected in '04. Why bother having a cannon-fodder Democrat spend all that money on a campaign? Let's just annoint Bush for a second term now, and avoid the hassle. Since this war has been so universally embraced by the voting public. And oh yeah, it worked so well for his father...

One can make many cases for different reasons for getting involved in this war, some of them not so noble.. But re-election? That's rich.

The shrubs do use war as a means of re-relection?

The short answer is no. That being said, in a democracy, the decision to go to war is profoundly political. Everything regarding a democratic government is political. That is the nature of the process and healthy.

Rather that just the famous quote, you could read an explanation of what Clausewitz meant.

Here are some other quotes from Clausewitz.