Trust and National Security

Personally, I wish John Kerry had become president. I want a president I have a reasonable chance of trusting when he talks about things like Iraq and where we need to go from here. I wonder how many more people might have voted for John Kerry if they had known that Bush was going to pass his Iraq mess onto the next president? Is this what Bush ran for? To twist in the wind for four years so he doesn't have to admit his mistakes?

And Republicans in Congress want to leave it at that instead of lighting a fire under the president. When things go wrong, isn't a Congress supposed to hold a president accountable? It makes no sense to me. I favor impeachment of Cheney and then Bush but that's unlikely to happen. I favor censure over the NSA spying on Americans and that's certainly doable but even this frightens the Republicans and the media talking heads (okay, and some Democrats too). But there's still some tools left to rein in a reckless president. Here's how it's supposed to work: Congress launches a few investigations; the president is embarrassed by the revelations; the president fires the old guard and brings in fresh faces; the new people have the advantage that they don't have to waste time defending decisions other people made, they just have to fix the problems. This is a time-honored solution in our country's history; it's supposed to be one of the advantages of being a democracy. It even works in corporate America. Like I said, our current Republican-controlled government makes no sense to me.

According to Kevin Drum of The Washington Monthly, Americans may no longer believe Republicans are the party to trust on national security:

REPUBLICANS LOSING THEIR LAST STRONGHOLD?....The DSCC just released a poll showing for the first time that Americans appear to trust Democrats more than Republicans on national security. The survey was done by a Democratic research firm, so I've excerpted a snippet from the report so you can see the exact wording of the question for yourself. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

Polls are slippery things, particularly when the numbers are close, but consider the record of Bush and his right-wing Republican Congress. Before 9/11, Bush ignored warnings about a possible attack. Bush went to war in Iraq though it had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack. He never captured Osama bin Laden. He's botched Iraq. His Homeland Security department botched their first disaster during Hurricane Katrina, showing that if we were attacked by terrorists, we would be woefully unprepared. Our ports are not nearly as secure as they need to be and instead of making them safer, Bush tried to allow the Dubai deal to go through. But Bush gets lots of points from Congress for talking tough.

Sorry, I just want the guys who can get the job done and I don't particularly care, when it comes to national security, whether they're Republicans or Democrats, just so they're competent and are permitted to tell the truth when the president needs to hear it.