Hope you feel better soon deary…can’t wait to read that rebuttal.  Ya know my industry has been HAMMERED since the 9/11 attacks and it hasn’t seen one tax incentive as a result of it…ya know why?  Because my industry is historically votes Democratic….and this Administration only helps it’s friends…not the Amercian people across the board according to a true financial belief or plan.  When the people who were in President Reagan’s administration are willing to come out publicly against your policies because none of them bother to adhere to any recognizable Republican rhetoric…then I think you may be off track even according to your own people.

I just saw that entry you were referring to and so will write my own small rebuttal here to get the ball rolling.  Ok, L.A. - I’ll save you the “family values” part.  Regarding Christine’s comments on the war:

“As far as the war, you need to search deep into your soul and feel for one moment as invaded as the great people of NYC felt. I don’t want war, however, I’m afraid in order to keep our country safe, we must have war with any president.”  I’ll agree with you on that one.  As far as Afghanistan.  Everyone was agreed that Al Quaeda came out of Afghanistan and that, odds are, Bin Laden is still hiding there.  So why did we leave Afghanistan with a token number of troops (too small and unsupported to do much more than barely defend themselves, much less track down the real culprits), to go to Iraq?  When they told us in the beginning that there were ties between Iraq and Al Quaeda, and that there were WMD’s, I was all for it, too.  I even have the souvenier coffee mug and t-shirts mocking the former Iraqi information minister (“I now tell you that you are mistaken - there are no American infidels in Baghdad.”)  But every independent commission and investigation came to the ultimate conclusion that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and no WMD’s have been found.  But even if there were WMD’s, unless we were threatened with them, or some link was proved, we had no reason to go in the first place.  Guess that makes me a flip-flopper, too.

You go on to say that you feel more comfortable with someone in the White House who knows what they’re doing in a war situation.  I would feel more comfortable with someone who knows what they’re doing, too.  And I would definitely feel more comfortable with someone who has actually fought in a war in a leadership role, than with someone who ducked serving his country in even the most minimal capacity.  While John Kerry was in Vietnam leading missions, getting shot and shot at, Dubya was dancing drunk on bar counters, working on a political campaign, and ducking out on even training in a fighter plane (he was supposedly in the Air National Guard).

I’ve seen on the news so many stories about parents of our servicemen & servicewomen who supported the war at first and then questioned the validity of our involvement after their children came home maimed or dead.  As a player of boardgames based on military battles, I can tell you that it is a very easy thing to regard troops as little squares of cardboard stacked up and moving around on a paper map.  Battles are fought by rolling the dice.  And so it is in real life, too.  Dubya has no plan, and doesn’t support our troops.  He’s presided over military pay cuts, decreases in medical care for the wounded and has left our veterans swinging in the wind.

Don’t talk to me about flip-flops.  ( I can see that you’ve been dutifully absorbing your Republican buzz-words) But ask yourself:  Do you really want a president who is so intransigent that he refuses to change his mind or his opinion given new facts and additional information?  Is that a strong leader?  Or a stubborn idiot?  Are you like that?  Do you routinely ignore facts in favor of a baseless opinion?  That’s like deciding to cross the street without caring if traffic is coming or not.  If you are like that, then you probably stopped reading this about 2 sentences in.

Oh, and Christine….  your description of Midwestern values does not make them unique.  You seem to imply that Midwesterners cherish their friends and families more than people from other areas of the country.  Being from the Midwest myself, originally, and having had the opportunity to live in the South and in South Florida, I’m pretty darned sure that love of family and friends is fairly universal.

That’s it, for now.

L.A.—while certainly not up to your standards of wit and prose, I hope that will tide you over