It's articles like this one which make me think Kerry is going to win, maybe, just maybe, win big.
O'Reilly Network: Wow. The world is getting strange [May. 08, 2004]
I'm working on my next java.net article and having problems focusing. Why? Well, Richard Monson-Haefel is publicly broadcasting that he's looking for a job (depressing news about the state of the computer industry), the EU is posed to do the software-patent shimmy (ditto), and (and this one boggles me) I just realized that I'm probably going to vote for John Kerry.
As to the latter— I think Don Park nailed it. I didn't think the war was a particularly good idea to start with, but I thought it could be justified. And I'm actually okay with the (so far) non-finding of weapons of mass destruction. And I think that, for better or worse, the US has to stay the course in Iraq. Leaving now, or in the near future, or before Iraq is a stable and functioning society again, would be a very bad decision.
But wow— invading Iraq wasn't a no-brainer when the decision was made, and in hindsight it looks like a very bad idea indeed. Moreover, the follow through in the post-Saddam era is a mess; ; a total failure of foresight and planning. The sort of thing that causes boards to fire CEOs, if you ask me.
And how very depressing to see the recent flood of pathetic commentaries along the lines of America: Not as bad as Saddam. It's hard for me to even respond to most of those articles because they're so deeply steeped in moral corruption (briefly: if you invade a country on humanitarian grounds, and a major part of the justification for this invasion was humanitarian, AND if you want to take the moral high ground when defending the invasion, and the defenders of the invasion did take the moral high ground, then saying “well, the other guys rape too” indicates an inner emptiness that boggles the mind).
All this is subject to revision, of course. I'm well aware that there is a lot of information that hasn't been shared with the public (and a lot of that was probably withheld for good reasons). And that the media has a tendency to over-report sensational news and thereby blow things out of proportion. And the last thing in the world I want to do is post yet another silly article linking rapes in Iraq to the patriot act.
But, from where I'm sitting (very faint voice) Kerry in 2004
The original is full of links, by the way. [corrected @ 5:43pm]
