[IWE] Garrison K.

[Ashton Brown]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/02/07/keillor/index.html?source=newsletter

> Sen. McCain <http://dir.salon.com/topics/john_mccain/> accuses 
> opponents of the war, including Sen. Hagel, of having no plan to bring 
> it to an end. This is brazen nonsense: You drive down the wrong road 
> and then you yell at the people in the back seat because they can't 
> tell you an easy way to get where you want to go. You lie to the 
> American people and invade a small country and four years later you're 
> bogged down and boys from Nebraska and Minnesota are trying to police 
> a religious-ethnic war that has nothing to do with us and you accuse 
> your critics of being unhelpful. Is this what passes for debate these 
> days?


[...]

> A couple weeks ago in Minneapolis I rode in a cab driven by a young 
> Iraqi exile who said, sadly, "My wife's family is Sunni and I am Shia 
> and this used to make no difference at all. We all lived together and 
> nobody paid attention to whether you were one or the other." That's 
> the voice of humanism speaking: live and let live. It's a quiet voice, 
> often drowned out, but persistent, especially in a democratic society 
> operating under the rule of law. Tread lightly. Be patient. Try to 
> work things out.
>
> Sen. Clinton <http://dir.salon.com/topics/hillary_clinton/> is 
> speaking in that voice and her poise and intelligence stand out in the 
> field of candidates. She's had so much experience in the limelight 
> that she's no longer enchanted by it. All of the articles about 
> Whether America Is Ready to Elect a Woman have been written, and now 
> we can move on and look at real issues. We need to figure out how to 
> accommodate the millions of good folks who are here illegally and have 
> become a part of our social fabric. Medicare should be extended to 
> cover everybody. Our infrastructure and industrial base need rebuilding.
>
> One of Hillary Clinton's visible assets is the army of enemies she has 
> accumulated, the carpet-chewers of AM radio and the right-wing trolls 
> who go berserk in their webby caverns whenever Madam comes trotting 
> over the bridge. One could not hope for better enemies. It is like 
> playing softball against drunks. They illustrate everything about 
> Republican dominion that the country has come to loathe, the 
> blithering arrogance, the cynicism and corruption, and this wretched 
> war that drags on and on.
>
[...]