Pre-election Blues

At less than two months from Election Day, I am increasingly convinced of the certainty of George Bush's re-election. This is not something that makes me happy. The extent to which the Republican's have been able to spin John Kerry into something he is not, and the lack of success that the Democrats have had in fighting back, all point to the fact that those who are not already firmly in one camp or another are likely to vote for the devil they know, and that would be Bush. Recently, he's been saying things like "You might not agree with me, but at least you know where I stand." Yes, Mr. President, I do know where you stand, and I don't like it one little bit.

Otherwise intelligent people who claim not to agree with any of Bush's social policies are often heard making the statement that he "gets" the war on terror. I have to wonder what yardstick they're using to measure that -- if you believe what you read, the next big thing in terrorist attacks is likely to be the suitcase bomb, a small, remotely detonated nuclear device that could be placed just about anywhere. The administration has spent a great deal of capital, human and otherwise, fighting terrorism in Iraq, where it seems to me that those resources would have been put to better use elsewhere. Osama bin Laden, the bad guy of the decade, is still running free, probably somewhere in Afghanistan. Homeland security is being woefully neglected in very important ways, with only 2 percent of the millions of shipping containers reaching our ports every year being inspected.

I'm not even going to go into what a disaster another Bush administration will be for social policy, but suffice it to say we are likely going to see the clocks turned back to the 1950s in terms of rights for women and gay people.

I hope that everyone who is eligible to vote goes out and votes this year, and I hope everyone gives it some real thought and does some real research into the candidates and the issues before November.