bushwhacking

This story, about the Bush Administration's domestic wire-tapping policy, is maybe the funniest thing I've read all year. 'Twould seem that the FBI--the department that the president told to publicly spy on Americans to make crazy Americans feel better--hadn't been paying their wire-tapping phone bills, some of which exceeded $60,000. So the phone companies shut them down.

In other news, Hillary apparently won in N'Hampshire against all expectations, leaving Obama and myself in a bit of a funk. I'm not up-t'-date on the political philosophies of the three democratic candidates, but I certainly don't trust Hillary, partly for her rightward-leaning ideologies and partly for her shadiness and partly because she's too excited at political rallies. I can fully understand a politician wanting to win over the collective crowds by rallying their excitement, but I think the 2008 presidential race isn't the time for that. Bush ran so close to Gore in 2000 largely because of his platform as "ye olde average Texan," a facade he dropped for the most part after he got into office and passed any number of bills that benefited the superrich.

I think I want the person to win who doesn't rely on gimmicks. I want one of the candidates to take Americans seriously, take off their party hat, and discuss with leadership-grade intelligence the issues they'll have to face as president and how they'll deal with those issues in such a way as to make the country prosper. Most of Clinton's statements I've read so far have generally orbited the "Obama can't do it, I can" motif, which doesn't say much about anything. Obama and Edwards seem to be discussing real issues more often, but I haven't read anything official regarding them, so I don't know.

All in all, I think I'll be happy with Edwards or Obama. And I keep wondering what an Obama win will do for the American ideological future. I've heard countless times from countless people that America's "not ready" for a minority president--black, woman, PhD-endowed, etc. I think that's crap to the nth degree, but how will the mindsets of those folks be changed--and how will their future votes be changed--if Obama (or Hillary) wins, and does a good job? Edwards is just another white southern man who, good ideas though he may have, probably won't get to do much with them, as he'll have the war to clean up, the debt-storm to settle, the massive outsourcing and unemployment to fix, and all the foreign policy and miscellaneous mess that Bush left for the next president. Same with Obama and Clinton, for that matter. So...I dunno. I'm starting to think long-term impacts from this election count more than what the president think they can do in the next four years. But then I guess I would think that.

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