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Why I'm Not Voting For Bush    [ Politics ]

Top eight reasons why I'm not voting for Bush again in November:

(8) He's not a fiscal conservative.   Protectionist tariffs, huge government spending increases, reckless tax cut shenanigans and a ballooning federal deficit = economic irresponsibility.

(7) John Ashcroft scares the bejesus out of me.   I really didn't like Janet Reno as head of the DoJ, but the Ghost of Oliver Cromwell (State, meet Church.   Church, meet State.   Please, take away more of my liberties.) in that position is enough to make me want to toss #43 out of office.

(6) The whole they're-enemy-combatants-no-we-don't-have-to-follow-the-Geneva-convention bit for the prisoners held at Guantanamo is just wrong, plain wrong.   Regardless of how the US Supreme Court rules on this, the administration has botched their handling of "enemy combatants" and brought into question their willingness to defend basic rights and freedoms in other arenas.

(5) Abandoning any pretense of neutrality in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and coming in on the side of Israeli settlements is absolutely mind-bogglingly stupid, given what the US is (supposedly) trying to accomplish in Iraq.   Hard to make a Arab democracy work if you're on the side of those kicking Palestinians off of their land.   Both sides in that conflict have committed absolutely heinous acts, our policy goals in the region would be better served by maintaining the pretense of neutrality that we had before.   It may not happen this week, or this month, but this decision WILL come back to haunt this administration and subsequent ones.

(4) Kyoto, the Axis of Evil, "Old Europe" and the panoply of foreign-policy missteps that have wasted and burned the goodwill of the entire civilized planet that the US had following 9/11.   Yes, the French and Russians are annoying to deal with, but dear god, that's not new!   The US had an opportunity that it will likely never have again to forge a real international consensus, expand and strengthen its leadership role and work with our allies to deal with threats like terrorism, and tossed it all away because Cheney, Rumsfeld and the neo-cons wanted to burn bridges instead of mend them.

(3) Where's the WMD?   It's not just that there was an intelligence failure, those happen all the time.   It's not that there weren't plenty of reasons to go to war with Saddam's Iraq - killing and torturing millions of your own citizens, blatantly defying UN resolutions, hell, even repeated attacks on our military forces could have been sufficient.   It's that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the administration declared that Iraq posed a grave and immediate threat to the security of the US because of its weapons of mass destruction, and HAD to be attacked NOW before they used them.   And they've all been disseminating and backtracking like there's no tomorrow since, well, looks like there aren't any.   It wouldn't bug me so much except that it was the major justification they used - live by the sword, die by the sword.

(2) When the British Prime Minister delivers a stirring call-to-arms for the Western world to stand firm, hold fast and fight back against those who would destroy us in the days following 9/11, I had real hope for the future.   Unfortunately, the elected leader of my country came out sounding and acting not like FDR to match Blair-channelling-Churchill, but something more like Ronald Reagan in his last year of office, muddled and half-hearted.   It scared me, and I think it's scared the press too - don't want to point out that the emperor has no clothes.   Even compared to his father, who was never the most impressive orator, Bush Jr. comes off as a repetitive dullard.   No wonder his handlers don't like open questions and real news conferences.   Makes you wonder who's really calling the shots and making decisions within the administration.

(1) No plan for postwar Iraq.   Occupations are hard business, and running a country can be harder and is certainly a very different task than invading it.   The Romans had it easy, if a population resists or rebels, then they destroyed the resisters, their families, their homes, their towns and their farms.   We can't (and shouldn't) do that sort of thing, which admittedly makes dealing with internal dissent + terrorists + radical religious movements opposed to your presence somewhat difficult.   This is why you NEED A PLAN and NEED LEGITIMACY.   Creating effective, legitimate governments is not done overnight, and it's only asking for failure to go at it with the time constraints and resources that have been put towards it.   It's the middle of April, and the administration has no idea what sort of government or specific people power will be handed over to on June 30.   If I were an Iraqi citizen, I'd be mighty mad about the situation too.