Bureaucracy Sucks

Bureaucracy sucks.  Therefore I am moving everything to one blog.  Why did I have four?  Seemed like a good idea at the time.  But not anymore.  Hop on over to:

http://messman23.wordpress.com/

Everything will be continued over there.

Bayh and Graham

I’ll post my thoughts on these two later.  One is my unsung hero from yesterday, the other is not so much.

David Petraeus on The Hill

I had the hearings on in the background yesterday at work, so admittedly I didn’t catch everything that was said, but there were a few things that stood out from yesterday.

Let me begin by mentioning something that really really gets to me: protestors who think it’s a good idea to scream and chant and interrupt the hearings.  YOU LOOK AND SOUND LIKE FOOLS!  Respect the hearing, those leading it, and those testifying.  It’s the same reason that I would stand if President Bush walked into a room.  You have to respect the office and not the man.  Respect that you are on Capitol Hill and most importantly have some respect for yourself and your cause.   I agree 100% with what they were saying, but every time they do something stupid like getting kicked out of a hearing they turn more and more people against our cause and give our opponents more ammunition to attack us.  Goodness people, use your heads.  Ok, rant over.

The first thing from the actual hearings that stood out to me was the emphasis that some Democrats were putting on the agreements that were being signed with the Iraqi government.  Treaties need to be approved by the Senate, and Democrats are worried that the administration is trying to skirt around them and sign what are in essence treaties without going to the Senate.  I have no doubt that the administration is trying to do just that, and as Joe Biden said yesterday, the Senate should be involved if agreements signed by President Bush are going to bind the next President.  I’ll admit that I hadn’t heard much about this issue before yesterday, but I’m intrigued.  It’s worth following.

At one point a Senator mentioned that the average combat soldier in Iraq was 20 years old.  20!  That’s three years younger than me.  Unreal.  The future of America is dying in the sands of Iraq.  What’s worse is that the older generation, still stuck in the mindset of the 20th Century and the Cold War, are the ones who are sending them to their deaths.

It’s striking how the General and the Ambassador can sit there and say with a straight face that our efforts in Iraq are making us safer.  No use beating a dead horse, but we’re not.  Our invasion created any threat from Iraq.  It was not an imminent threat to us before 2003 and it is not one now. 

Last night I saw on the news that Obama said something to the effect that he’s worried the definition of success from the administration is so high that we will never be able to achieve it, and thus will never be able to leave.  Great point Senator.  We don’t have a properly functioning democratic government in our country, an we have thousands of years of democratic tradition behind us.

Which leads me to my next beef with all of this talk about democracy in Iraq.  In essence, what does having a “democracy” mean?  At the most basic level it means that the people of a country get to choose who their leaders are, for better or worse.  It means freedom of choice.  That means that if the Iraqis want to elect Islamic extremists to lead their country, they can – no matter how much they hate America.  It also means that they can choose what they want their government to look like.  Forcing Western democracy on them won’t work.  The freedom to choose, however, is an idea that would probably appeal to them.

Messie is my name, politics is my game!

Welcome!  I’m going to be sharing my thoughts on all things politics.  I’m not going to comment on too much from the past, except as it relates to future events.  There is just too much that has gone on in the last few months to catch up on.  Enjoy!