Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

I was listening to the speech that Hillary Clinton gave recently at the Wisconsin Founders Day Gala this afternoon, and I just couldn’t help getting a tear in my eye when I heard Senator Clinton talk about her strong leadership on the issue of the war in Iraq. She said,

“We also have to do everything we can to make it clear that restoring our leadership and our moral authority in the world starts with ending the war in Iraq and bringing our troops home responsibly and quickly. I have said that I will start bringing them home within the first 60 days. From my position on the Senate Armed Services Committee I’ve been working to make sure that we are prepared to do that.”

This is what Barack Obama supporters are so unfair about. They never give Hillary Clinton credit for making America ready to bring soldiers home from Iraq in 60 days. Hillary Clinton has been working hard on the Senate Armed Services Committee, getting everything in place, and standing strong against the Bush Administration, like she has from the start on the issue of Iraq.

Finally, American soldiers are ready to come home within 60 days. Everyone recognizes that. But, as usual, no one is willing to give Hillary Clinton credit. There’s that glass ceiling again.

Without Senator Clinton’s hard work on the Senate Armed Services Committee, getting a firm withdrawal date set and pushing President Bush to accept the Democratic position on the war, we would still be in the middle of a war without any direction, and without any end in sight.

I will give credit where credit is due. Thank you, Hillary Clinton, for making this possible from your position on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

If we had listened to you from the beginning, Hillary Clinton, we never would have invaded Iraq in the first place. I will never forget the strong speeches you made trying to get Americans to wake up to the gathering danger of an unwise rush to war. Thank you, Hillary Clinton, for your forward vision.

It’s that vision, seeing the best course in matters of war and peace before anyone else, that makes Hillary Clinton my choice for President of the United States.

Barack Obama has got the endorsement of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The hometown newspaper explains,

Who wants to relive the soap operas of the 1990s?

Bill Clinton says his wife excelled at “making positive changes in other people’s lives.” Consider that construction. Then listen as Obama talks of bringing people together to change their own lives.

America needs a fresh start. Barack Obama is the Democrat to provide it.

Ohio Treasurer Richard Cordray has also endorsed Barack Obama, and was out in Youngstown campaigning for him yesterday.

Obama has the endorsement of Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman too.

Of course, the endorsement that matters is the endorsement of Ohio’s voters, and that won’t be given for another two weeks.

The mayors of Akron and Canton, Ohio, anchors of the old Ohio industry, have endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. They know Clinton is the one to bring the industrial majesty back to the Buckeye State. Akron and Canton are also anchors of rural Ohio, and as a rural American I know I appreciate Hillary Clinton’s plan to revitalize America’s rural areas with reinvestment projects and country-of-origin labeling that will stop our local products from having to compete with cheap foreign-made substitutes.

According to a study by the Wildlife Conservation Society, jackrabbits have suddenly disappeared from the area around Yellowstone National Park. They disappeared so quickly that no one even noticed that the jackrabbits were in decline until they were all gone.

Scientists say that they have no idea what actually caused the sudden disappearance of rabbits from Yellowstone. All they have to offer is a bunch of guesses: Disease, maybe. Predation, maybe. Weather events, maybe.

In the face of this ecological calamity, wouldn’t you rather have certainty? It’s time to turn to religion.

I say that Jesus is the explanation. It’s clear to me that the rabbits of Yellowstone have experienced the first wave of Rapture. Isn’t it just as the End Times prophets have predicted, that all of a sudden, people would turn around and notice that all the rabbits had disappeared?

The only proof I need is the Bible. Did you know that the Bible never once mentions rabbits? Just like there are no rabbits anymore in Yellowstone? It is as if God himself told the ancient Israelites that the Rapture of jackrabbits from Yellowstone would be a sign of the imminent return of Jesus.

The time is at hand! Prepare ye for the coming of the Lord! Greet him with carrots!

Fidel Castro is retiring, and I don’t care.

I won’t go so far to say that it doesn’t matter, and I’m not trying to say that Castro’s release of power, coming on February 24th when the Cuban government shall select a new President, is uninteresting, as far as it goes.

Still, in the larger scheme of things, it isn’t within the larger scheme of things. Cuba is now just an island. It never managed to overthrow the United States from our soft Gulf underbelly. There is no international Communist conspiracy any more, except for the one to have more potlucks.

Castro may be retiring, but outside of Cuba, he was already irrelevant.

Communism only matters politically to the extent that it serves as an insult that right wing zealots can hurl against progressive policies that they do not understand. To our everyday lives, Fidel Castro mattered in the end only to the extent that he interfered with our ability to get good cigars.