Politics

It kind of seems like Bush is trying to implement Obama's foreign policy before Obama gets a chance to do it. 

He's agreed to a "time horizon" for withdrawal from Iraq (from an article in The Washington Post by Dan Eggen and Michael Abramowitz):

President Bush and Iraq's prime minister have agreed to set a "time horizon" for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq as part of a long-term security accord they are trying to negotiate by the end of the month, White House officials said yesterday.

The decision, reached during a videoconference Thursday between Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, marks the culmination of a gradual but significant shift for the president, who has adamantly fought -- and even ridiculed -- efforts by congressional Democrats to impose what he described as artificial timetables for withdrawing U.S. forces.

In recent weeks, Bush and senior officials have hinted that they would be open to "aspirational" goals for removing U.S. troops, as Maliki and other Iraqi politicians have voiced increasing discontent with the idea of an open-ended U.S. troop presence in their country.

and we're talking to the Iranians (from an article in The Wall Street Journal by Jay Solomon):

On Saturday the U.S. will hold its highest-level contacts with Iran since 1979, a marked thaw in the two countries' troubled relationship. At the same time, the U.S. is fine-tuning a package of new financial penalties against Iran that target everything from gas imports to the insurance sector.

U.S. and European officials said they will intensify efforts to impose these penalties should their diplomatic drive fail to induce Iran to freeze its nuclear program. The sanctions effort could also include measures to impede Iran's shipping operations in the Persian Gulf and its banking activities in Asia...

but it sounds like the new sanctions will be coming since Iran has preemptively said that halting enrichment is off the table.

Lisa has had some issues lately with her Obama magnet being stolen in the grocery store parking lot and the bumper sticker she replaced it with being partially removed in the center for the arts parking lot.  It makes me wonder what will happen when we put up the yard sign, but at least we haven't yet experienced this...

From The Huffington Post:

Robin Harris of Illinois can now claim having experienced 'dirty politics' first hand, literally. Harris, a Barack Obama supporter, awoke one morning to find that the campaign posters she had erected for the Presidential candidate had been vandalized, via fecal smearing. Harris says she "felt outraged that someone would do this to signs."

CBS reports that the Obama camp has been notified.

This is painful to watch.

I appreciated the recent contribution by Aileen Mory to npr's "this i believe" series: link (to listen to or read her commentary).  About the Iraq war she says:

I don't have a solution, but I think I may have figured out what's missing from my perspective on democracy: pain — universal, democratic pain. In terms of the Iraq war, this country's burden is being shouldered by a select few. Some families and communities have been devastated by the war. Others, like mine, have been far too insulated. We can't truly share the responsibility for our democracy until we all share in its suffering.

And so, in the name of shared pain, I support the reinstitution of the draft.

As a parent of two teenagers, she continues:

If every parent does not have to fear losing a son or daughter — if every politician does not have to face that fear in his constituents — decisions to go to war will continue to be too easy. I believe that a true democracy comes from shared responsibility for our collective choices. If that choice is war, we must all share in its tragedy.

I wonder how much difference a draft would make, though.  I have the impression that the powerful have always been able to avoid the sacrifice of serving if they wanted to do so, draft or no draft.  Also, I have the impression that...even if there isn't unanimity...the subset of the population that has born most of the burden has generally also been supportive of the war from the beginning.  Still, it seems like it would be more appropriate for the burden to be distributed more evenly than it is, and a draft would help accomplish that.

Lisa says this is a great example of why she respects Obama: