Barack Obama voted "yes" on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008, H.R. 6304.
He talked about "faith-based initiatives", District of Columbia v. Heller, the Constitutionality of applying the death sentence to child rape cases, "refining" the timetable for Iraq withdrawal based on possible future developments, and late-term abortion.
For weeks now, the Recent Diaries list (and sometimes the front page) has been peppered with "I give up", "I can no longer support Barack Obama", "I'll vote but I won't donate", "I'll donate but I won't volunteer", and several variations on "convince me", the most recent being "Tell me again why Barack Obama is 'great'."
Here are the first ten reasons that came to mind while watering a West Seattle garden after dinner on a balmy Wednesday in July, 2008.
Ten Reasons Why...
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An illustrated Top Ten List, of sorts.
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10.
I am a Democrat. Barack Obama is a Democrat. Barack Obama is our nominee. Third parties are a noble idea, but there are two realistic choices for who will be elected as our next President of the United States this coming November. Barack Obama, the Democrat, or John McCain, the Republican. You have to pick one.
9.
I'm a first-time homeowner. It wasn't easy for my wife and I to get into our first place last fall - although it's a goal we'd been planning for and working towards for years, we 'got in' during a short window between housing prices in our area flattening, and the mortgage foreclosure crisis hitting the point where (relatively speaking) young, middle-class couples like us would have been hard pressed to find a first-time loan. We were, and are, lucky, but many others haven't been so lucky. It used to be a given that if you put in an honest day's work, you could own a home. Now, even in a two-income family, what used to be a basic, even expected part of the American Dream is slipping farther and farther out of reach for more and more people.
8.
I believe that Americans deserve a fair shake. An honest day's pay for an honest day's work. Affordable health care. The freedom from the threat that an unexpected medical crisis could tear your life, your family, your home, your life savings, your future, your childrens' futures apart - in a heartbeat, without warning. Reasonably safe working conditions. Wages that don't decrease in "real dollars" year after year. A chance for those born without silver spoons in our mouths to make our own start. Accessible and affordable education opportunities to help get there. Maybe I'm losing my youthful, post-punk rebellion, but I think I might like to be able to actually utter "the land of opportunity" or "the American Dream" without sneering, eye-rolling irony one day.
7.
The world can't wait. A science fair prize for improved car batteries ain't gonna cut it. It's nice that John McCain is such a "maverick" that he can acknowledge that global warming might exist, and can at least say "energy independence". But we're in for the literal fight of our lives, and we've been sitting out the last seven rounds. It's gonna take more than a Band-Aid. A George Bush clone who's already bent over backwards to pander to Big Oil for campaign contributions can't be trusted to lead the world when we can say, without a trace of maudlin hyperbole, that our very existence is at stake.
Yeah, gas is fucking expensive, and getting more so every day. There's not a whole lot of 'supply' left, and more offshore drilling, like John McCain's "gas tax holiday", is too little, too late - especially when the oil companies are already sitting on so much land that they're not using. The way to fix it isn't the drill here, drill now straw man of "supply", but doing something about the "demand". John McCain's policies aren't about solving the problem - they're about money, plain and simple.
6.
The suffragists didn't go through all that suffrage for us to elect someone like John McCain. John McCain is a philandering, disrespectful, chauvinist asshole who'd love to have womens' votes, but is a walking disaster on 'womens' issues' from freedom of choice, to equal pay, to sex education, to STD and AIDS prevention, to equal and civil rights, to you name it - whether you shovel on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt, or not.
5.
John McCain won't do shit for Darfur. He ate birthday cake while New Orleans drowned. He "hates the gooks", "the French", and "Californians". He thinks "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" and that exporting cigarettes to Iran as a "way to kill 'em" are hi-freaking-larious hijinks. He won't help fight against AIDS in Africa unless it involves proselytizing, abstinence-only, George Bush style "edumacation", human lives be damned. But he sure cares deeply about "victory" in...
4.
Iraq. Enough already. It's time to bring them home. John McCain doesn't think Americans care if we're there for 100, or 1000, or 10,000 years. It's not that important. It is that fucking important. We need to not only right the wrongs that have been committed in our names in Iraq and throughout the world, but do the right thing by taking care of our veterans in this country. For people like John McCain, "Support Our Troops" is just a yellow-ribbon car magnet slogan. While his words are hollow, his actions show active contempt for our men and women in uniform. How dare he speak about disrespecting his military service, with the disrespect he has consistently shown, time and time again, for other Americans' service?
3.
This election is no laughing matter. One candidate will lead with principled, tough diplomacy and was a leader in securing loose nukes. The other has a notoriously filthy mouth and hot temper, believes diplomacy is "capitulating", has already made not-so-vague illusions about Iran, says "I'm sorry to tell ya, there's going to be other wars," and thinks joking about annihilating the populations of entire countries is "funny ha-ha" in the same way Reagan thought "we begin bombing in five minutes", which caused the "in my country, humor gets you" Soviets to put their nuclear arsenal on high alert, was funny. I'm voting for the guy who doesn't saber-rattle and joke about death, destruction, and genocide, and understands the difference between Shia and Sunni.
2.
It's in the book. Barack Obama wrote two books. By himself. (John McCain's books are all ghost-written by his 'advisor', Mark Salter.) Did you read them? Because if you had, you'd know where he's coming from, how he thinks, why he's doing what he's doing right now, and why it makes sense. We need a smart president for a change. One who - even if you don't always agree with his positions - will explain to you, as an adult, why has made the choices he has. We need a president who is contemplative, deliberative, and pragmatic. Go read both of Barack Obama's books if you haven't already. He's been "walking his talk" this whole time, so it might behoove you to familiarize yourself with exactly what that "talk" is. Barack Obama may not be all things to all voters - no elected official can ever be that - but he hasn't been dishonest, and he hasn't failed to be straight with us, whether we agree or not.
1.
I don't want to explain to our children that we didn't do everything we could to make the world a better place. The America of January, 2009 that elected Barack Obama as our 44th president is not the same future America that elected John McCain president. The world where we fought for what we believed in is not the same world where we gave up and didn't even try, where we stayed home, didn't pick up the phone, didn't donate that extra $25, didn't talk to anyone, didn't write to the editor or wave a sign or a flag or vote.
That picture up there is our first child, from our first ultrasound earlier today. We're due in January, just a few days, give or take, before Inauguration Day.
It's about nothing less than the America, and the world, that I want our present and future generations to be born, grow, love, live and die in.
And we must fight harder for this one than we've ever fought before.
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