Accidental Blogger

Some interesting things may have been said at the recent debate.  To wit:

• Obama would assassinate Osama bin Laden; Kucinich would see him held to account in an international court of law.
• Bill Richardson would be willing to boycott the Beijing 2008 Olympics if China continues to support Khartoum instead of using its considerable influence to end the violence in Darfur/Sudan.  Chris Dodd would not; he argues that a boycott would actually delay China’s decision to start acting responsibly and stop supporting genocide.
• Obama thinks veterans should be required to go to V.A. hospitals "unless they have difficulty accessing and it places a hardship on the family, then they should be exempted and can go to others" — whatever that’s supposed to mean.  It sounds like lawyer-talk to me: intentionally unclear, attempting to pander to both sides.  This in comparison to Richardson’s position that veterans should have health care cards which would allow them to go to doctors or hospitals of their own choosing.
• Biden thinks the U.S. should use military force to stop the genocide in Darfur.  The rest of the Democrats were asked to raise their hands if they agreed with Senator Biden.  Clinton refuses to engage in these kinds of "abstract hypotheticals," which is understandable, because it’s not like she attended Yale Law School or anything where presumably she would have learned how to reason through hypos rather than feeling the need to duck for cover.  Obama agreed with Clinton: "I don’t want to raise my hand anymore."
• Kucinich wants everyone to have health care, and thinks some of the other Democrats would rather just allow the insurance companies to remain in charge.  Edwards criticizes Obama’s so-called universal health care plan as in fact not universal.
• Obama, a member of the Veteran Affairs Committee in the Senate, who as noted above either thinks or does not think that veterans should basically be forced to receive care only at V.A. hospitals, was completely unaware of the poor outpatient conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center until the Washington Post ran its story.
• Biden thinks the "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy is ridiculous and the military should not be able to continue to its current practice of sex discrimination.
• Hillary likes to mention Bill.  A lot.
• Biden, who voted for a 700 mile fence between the U.S. and Mexico, thinks such a fence would be impractical, and he only voted against it to stop drug trafficking.  Apparently, Biden is an idiot and his voting record is meaningless.
• Obama objects to the question of whether English ought to be the official language of the United States because all future generations will learn to speak English and the question is a distraction.  Huh?  As far as I can tell, he doesn’t want to answer it because it’s a political question intended to have political consequences, and instead favors not asking the question because it’s not possible to move forward if we discuss what we’re trying to do and how we’re trying to do it.
• Edwards was wrong for his Iraq vote and apologizes; Clinton admits no error, because she lacked important information.  Edwards also criticized Senators Clinton and Obama for voting correctly on the funding bill, but doing so quietly and without showing any leadership (they did not say how they were going to vote in advance).
• Edwards thinks "WAR ON TERROR" is a bumper-sticker slogan.  Clinton says that it’s not because, in case we’ve forgotten, she was a United States Senator for New York when New York City was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001.  She also thinks that we are much safer now than we were before 9/11.

Conclusions: Obama failed to endear himself to me.  So did Clinton, but she is a much more well known entity, so I’m less surprised about that.  Kucinich is not going to be the nominee, which means… Edwards is the realistically best of the bunch?