It's come to my attention that some of you may have viewed my Rant from Monday as a slam against the current efforts being made on the ground across the country. But the truth is quite the opposite. This is most organized effort I've ever seen from our side. Everyone deserves their kudos. I also get it that a lot of people HAVE made significant sacrafice to help elect a democratic ticket. I, in no way, meant to minimallize them or the great work they're doing. Some also took offense at the title of my diary, for good reason, so I made the decision to change it. I deeply and sincerely apologize to anyone and everyone I offended on the above counts.
More after the bump
What I WAS trying to point out that is that to win Obama is going to need even more people in the field. I assume he knows that, which is why he and Move On are sending e-mails asking for volunteers for Camp Obama.
I guess where many of you part ways with me is that I think Obama should make clear he plans to roll back the Bush changes and hold people accountable for their actions. That's what MANY of us here have been fighting for since the Iraq War Began and it became clear that we were deliberately lied to and misled. And even more so when it became clear the President was using the war to greatly and permamently expand the power of the Executive Branch and that he was willing to compomise intelligence gathering and just about anything else for partisan political advantage.
Maybe what Obama's doing now will be enough, saying "Can't you see their lying?", but he should reassure the American people that he'll fix it by providing specific examples of abuse (the Constitution; Torture; Habeous Corpus; spying on Americans; Signing Statements; partisan hiring practices in the federal government, etc) and detailed remedies and safeguards to ensure that in the future our rights are not subject tp the whims of our leaders.
These things matter, as much as any other cause, and more so when framed as defining WHO WE ARE as as a people. As I said Monday, our Consitutional Rights should be non-negotiable.
Those are commitments that I (and according to my pole almost half of you) am looking for our next President to make. Doing that is in the best interest of all Americans, regardless of party affiliation, and would lead to a significant increase in volunteers for the campaign. It's a winning strategy.
IF this diary is troll rated I will permamently remove both diaries.
Thanks for listening.