Politically Homeless

I’ve been looking for a reason to back John Kerry. Really I have. I mean, President Bush has lost any goodwill I might have had for him by racking up huge deficits, playing fast and loose with civil liberties, and starting a “war of prevention,” for which the justification has proven to be shaky to say the least.

But they’re not making it easy for me.

I tune in to the Democratic convention and listen to Wesley Clark, former commander of NATO and Democratic presidential candidate, give his speech in support of Kerry. John Kerry, Clark assures us, is a “warrior” who is ready to join the “pantheon” of heroic Democratic “war presidents” like Woodrow Wilson, JFK, and…Bill Clinton!

Now, look General Clark, you’re not going to win me over by invoking Woodrow Wilson of all people, possibly my least favorite president ever. This is the guy who dragged the USA into the pointless charnel house of World War I, slapped unprecedented federal controls on the economy, and had an attitude toward civil liberties that makes John Ashcroft look like a charter member of the ACLU (two words: Palmer Raids). Not to mention inspiring generations of messianic delusions about “making the world safe for democracy.”

JFK? Well, wasn’t he the guy who manufactured a non-existent missile gap to ratchet up the Cold War and almost started World War III over Cuba?

And Bill Clinton? Don’t get me started! This is the “liberal” who never saw a country he didn’t want to bomb, whether it was Iraqis, Serbs, or maybe just the sole pharmaceutical plant of an impoverished African country. Anything to distract from the Monica mess, I guess.

The Democrats abandoned their Jeffersonian roots as the party that distrusted militarism and large combinations of power a long time ago. Peace and freedom isn’t where it’s at these days I guess. And as a kind of Jeffersonian peacenik myself, there really isn’t much for me to choose from between the two major parties. I realize that my views represent a fairly tiny demographic in the grand scheme of things, and that I am not exactly the target audience here. But, seriously, do the Dems really think they’re going to beat the GOP in the flag-waving and saber rattling department?