Cindy McCain thinks I am a brilliant Brain Surgeon

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Cindy McBeerBucks claims that GOP Vice Presidential pick Sarah Palin is qualified to be Commander-in-Chief because Alaska is the state geographically closest to Russia.

Ok...

If you follow Cindy's uh... Logic? Then I am qualified to perform brain surgery because I live across the street from a hospital.

Also THIS JUST IN! We have obtained a top secret video of Sarah Palin's first debate prep session to get her ready for her upcoming debates with Joe Biden.

Enjoy...

What the World woke up to this morning...

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So the GOP can rant all they want about the backdrop colums and the royal blue carpet at Ivesco Field last night. Whine all they want how accepting the nomination in front of 80,000 flag waving Americans is "arrogant". All it does is further prove the point that the GOP has nothing to offer America to vote FOR.

The Republicans slink into Minneapolis with an eight year record they are desperately hoping Americans won't remember. A Presidential Candidate who makes Bob Dole look young and vigorous, a VP candidate who makes Dan Quayle look Presidential by comparison, and who practically wears a t-shirt that says; "Hi! I'm Big Oil's Bitch!"

I imagine that the GOP party rank and file will attend their convention feeling a lot like the how the London Olympic Committee must have felt after watching the opening ceremonies in Beijing.



I truly wonder about the future of the GOP when the best they can offer for a convetion key note address is a desperate "noun-verb-9-11!" speech by Rudy Gulianni.

When the best counter punch the GOP can muster to John McCain not knowing how many homes he has, is to try play the POW angle like some sort of magic "get out of stupidity free" card. I truly have to wonder if the best thing for the Republican Party at this point wouldn't be to spend the next 4-6 years in the political wilderness.

Ok Grampy McSame... your turn

Dear Senator Obama...

Ok, This new ad is a good start. The problem is, this is August and this ad is only a good start.

I have been watching the game of poltical tetherball that the George W McCain campaign has been playing with you for the last month. What I have seen is disturbingly familiar.

The days and weeks following your incredible speech in Berlin, you had the momentum, the free world had stood up and cheered the hope that America would return to a path of sane, rational global leadership. A hope that now had a face and a name. Yours.

And then, your campaign dropped the ball.

You allowed attack after ridiculous attack to go basically unanswered. You allowed the campaign of the consummate lobbyist's pet to question your ethics. You allowed a man who has voted consistently against supporting the men and women of our military, to question your commitment to the troops. You allowed a man who employs lobbyists for foreign nations to question your love of country. You allowed a man who thinks that wide spread conflict in the Middle East would make a good Beach Boys song, to cast doubt on your willingness to defend America. In the past few weeks, you allowed a man with 10 homes, $500 loafers and a private jet to say that you were elitist and out of touch with the needs of working families.

In response? You mumbled tepid statements of disapproval of "old style politics." You frowned at the camera and said John McCain is honorable man who is running a dishonorable campaign. I have news for you. John McCain is not an honorable man, and at some point, unless you are happy with the idea of watching the McCain Inaugural from the bleachers, you are going to have to say so.

I feel like screaming at you. "HAVE YOU TALKED TO MICHAEL DUKAKIS OR JOHN KERRY LATELY???" Yes, playing defense will make you feel very noble and allow you to say how you are leading a "new kind of campaign." Sorry but there is nothing new about losing. Your campaign seems to be heading down a frighteningly similar path to 1988 and 2004.

I hate to break this to you but there is a truth to this Presidential race that you seem to be unable to grasp, so let me spell it out for you:

The Republicans will say anything and stop at nothing to win.

They will lie, they will cheat, and they will steal. They will call you a terrorist, they will call your wife a traitor, and they will criticize you for every thing you do, then turn around and criticize you for everything you don't do.

GOP Surrogates will spew the most insane nonsense about you with impunity on Fox News, which will then be repeated in the rest of the media as "covering the campaign". You CANNOT play defense. You will LOSE.

Not only that - you have yet to get your OWN house in order. This lunacy of having Senator Clinton's name put in nomination is a prime example. You WON the nomination, will you please ACT like it! Senator Clinton's campaign was historic yes. But it is OVER. The time has come for the Democratic Party to say to every Clinton supporter who is still whining about the need for "healing" a simple question. "Why do you want John McCain to win?"

You need to state in clear terms the choice in 2008 is this; "If you believe the right of a woman to control her own body is a bad thing then by all means support John McCain".

You need to state clear terms the choice in 2008 is this; "If you believe our economic and national security, and the lives of thousands of American soldiers should be sacrificed for Oil Company profits, then by all means vote for John McCain."

You need to state in clear terms the choice in 2008 is this; "If you believe the Executive Branch of the Government has a greater right to privacy than the citizens who elected it, then by all means vote for John McCain."

You need to state in clear terms the choice in 2008 is this; "John McCain has no plan to repair any of the damage done to our economy, national security, global standing or environment over then last eight years. John McCain's only plan is to continue doing more damage. To do that the Republican Party can't offer America anything to vote FOR, they can only try desperately to scare enough of us to vote against anything different."

You must be willing to stand up and say out loud that John McCain has nothing to offer this nation but exactly what we have had for the last eight years. Economic disaster, loss of American lives in wars with no end, and a philosophy of Government that sees the constitution at best, as a nuisance, and at worst, a threat to its power.

Unless you are willing forcefully articulate the choice between the two of you. A choice that is, in fact crystal clear. You will allow the GOP to once again cloud that choice with mud, flung without conscience or restraint. The time has come to stop lying to yourself by thinking that deep down the Republicans want the same things as you do.

They don't. They want you to lose, that's it.

The time has come to call liars what they are. Time has come to call cowards what they are. The time Senator has come for you to stand up and say you are a better man, a better leader and the better choice to lead this nation.

Please Senator Obama, stop being the tethered ball on the GOP playground

Jack Cafferty Gets it Right!

Note: Jack Cafferty is the author of the best-seller "It's Getting Ugly Out There: The Frauds, Bunglers, Liars, and Losers Who Are Hurting America." He provides commentary on CNN's "The Situation Room" daily from 4 p.m.-7 p.m. You can also visit Jack's Cafferty File blog at www.cnn.com.

Commentary: Is McCain another George W. Bush?
By Jack Cafferty

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Russia invades Georgia and President Bush goes on vacation. Our president has spent one-third of his entire two terms in office either at Camp David, Maryland, or at Crawford, Texas, on vacation.

His time away from the Oval Office included the month leading up to 9/11, when there were signs Osama bin Laden was planning to attack America, and the time Hurricane Katrina destroyed the city of New Orleans.

Sen. John McCain takes weekends off and limits his campaign events to one a day. He made an exception for the religious forum on Saturday at Saddleback Church in Southern California.

I think he made a big mistake. When he was invited last spring to attend a discussion of the role of faith in his life with Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, McCain didn't bother to show up. Now I know why.

It occurs to me that John McCain is as intellectually shallow as our current president. When asked what his Christian faith means to him, his answer was a one-liner. "It means I'm saved and forgiven." Great scholars have wrestled with the meaning of faith for centuries. McCain then retold a story we've all heard a hundred times about a guard in Vietnam drawing a cross in the sand.

Asked about his greatest moral failure, he cited his first marriage, which ended in divorce. While saying it was his greatest moral failing, he offered nothing in the way of explanation. Why not?

Throughout the evening, McCain chose to recite portions of his stump speech as answers to the questions he was being asked. Why? He has lived 71 years. Surely he has some thoughts on what it all means that go beyond canned answers culled from the same speech he delivers every day. He was asked "if evil exists." His response was to repeat for the umpteenth time that Osama bin Laden is a bad man and he will pursue him to "the gates of hell." That was it.

He was asked to define rich. After trying to dodge the question -- his wife is worth a reported $100 million -- he finally said he thought an income of $5 million was rich. One after another, McCain's answers were shallow, simplistic, and trite. He showed the same intellectual curiosity that George Bush has -- virtually none.

Where are John McCain's writings exploring the vexing moral issues of our time? Where are his position papers setting forth his careful consideration of foreign policy, the welfare state, education, America's moral responsibility in the world, etc., etc., etc.?

John McCain graduated 894th in a class of 899 at the Naval Academy at Annapolis. His father and grandfather were four star admirals in the Navy. Some have suggested that might have played a role in McCain being admitted. His academic record was awful. And it shows over and over again whenever McCain is called upon to think on his feet.

He no longer allows reporters unfettered access to him aboard the "Straight Talk Express" for a reason. He simply makes too many mistakes. Unless he's reciting talking points or reading from notes or a TelePrompTer, John McCain is lost. He can drop bon mots at a bowling alley or diner -- short glib responses that get a chuckle, but beyond that McCain gets in over his head very quickly.

I am sick and tired of the president of the United States embarrassing me. The world we live in is too complex to entrust it to someone else whose idea of intellectual curiosity and grasp of foreign policy issues is to tell us he can look into Vladimir Putin's eyes and see into his soul.

George Bush's record as a student, military man, businessman and leader of the free world is one of constant failure. And the part that troubles me most is he seems content with himself.

He will leave office with the country $10 trillion in debt, fighting two wars, our international reputation in shambles, our government cloaked in secrecy and suspicion that his entire presidency has been a litany of broken laws and promises, our citizens' faith in our own country ripped to shreds. Yet Bush goes bumbling along, grinning and spewing moronic one-liners, as though nobody understands what a colossal failure he has been.

I fear to the depth of my being that John McCain is just like him.

"The Drowsy Chapperone" - Pure Fun...

I went with friends and saw the touring production of "The Drowsy Chapperone" tonight at the Orpheum Theater. When it first premiered on Broadway in 2006 the show won 5 Tony Awards but was eclipsed for the Best Musical award by "Jersey Boys". Still it was great to finally get to see it.

The show isn't terribly deep, but who says all musicals have to have a message?

Once in a while it's nice to have show that is just lots of fun...

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Coming Soon to an Economy Near You ...

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My Thoughts on John Edwards...

Over the past day or so I have had numerous emails from friends asking for my reaction to former Senator JOhn Edwards' admission on ABC's Nightline, that he did in fact have an extramarital affair in 2006. Contrary to all his public statements in the days prior to his appearance on ABC.

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Ok, then...

Yes I am disappointed in Senator Edwards. Would I still vote for him if he was running for president? Yes I would. Does adultery disqualify you from running for President? Obviously not since John McCain is still running and is guilty of the exact same thing. Yet that is neither here nor there, as John Edwards is not any party's presidential nominee, nor is going to be anyone's running mate.

I will confess to finding Edwards' "concern" about legalized marriages for same-sex couples vs. civil unions to be a tad hyprcritical now. Just as Newt Gingrich's or Bill O'Rielly's pontifications on family values have been revealed to be stark contrasts to their own personal lives. Yet again, to say that somehow disqualifies any of them from participation in the public discourse is frankly, ridiculous and disturbing.

The idea that John Edwards adultury somehow has anything to do with Barak Obama's candicacy is like saying John McCain's adultury is relevant to George Bush's Presidency. John Edwards' adultury like John McCain's is an issue between those men and their families. A position that I am sure Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich would both agree with.

Let the Games Begin...

Having grown up in Wisconsin I will admit to being more of a Winter Olympics fan than I am of the Summer Games. Yet watching the opening ceremonies from Bejing this Morning you have to admit, China puts on one helluva show.



As I was heading home from work last night I passed a large anti-China / pro free-Tibet rally going on in United Nations Plaza. It is true that the human rights discussion is one that needs to happen in tandem with China's debut on the Olympic stage. Yet it is also important to remember that the athletes competing in Bejing are not the ones responsible for the oppression in Tibet.

I am not sure trying to make these Summer Games about those other issues is the best way to move China towards change.

Paris Hilton - Policy Wonk!?

I am amazed... I can't make fun of her any more.

I dont know if this was her idea, but in any case it's brilliant.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

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Uh.. Ok, um... Wow.

The McCain Meltdown continues...

Grampy McCranky needs to get a funnel horn for his ear apparently..

again... Wow.

Supporting the Troops vs. Saying you do....

Keith and Rachel get it right...

Last Sunday's Church Shooting in Knoxville, TN

As usual when something like this happens, I am never sure exactly how to blog about it... I think the best way to start is with the facts...
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From KNOXNEWS.COM:



Police: Accused shooter hated liberals, expected to be killed

The shotgun-wielding suspect in Sunday’s mass shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church was motivated by a hatred of “the liberal movement,” and he planned to shoot until police shot him, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling P. Owen IV said this morning.

Jim D. Adkisson, 58, of Powell wrote a four-page letter in which he stated his “hatred of the liberal movement,” Owen said. “Liberals in general, as well as gays.”

Owen said Adkisson specifically targeted the church for its beliefs, rather than a particular member of the congregation.

“It appears that church had received some publicity regarding its liberal stance,” the chief said. The church has a “gays welcome” sign and regularly runs announcements in the News Sentinel about meetings of the Parents, Friends and Family of Lesbians and Gays meetings at the church.

The church’s Web site states that it has worked for “desegregation, racial harmony, fair wages, women’s rights and gay rights” since the 1950s. Current ministries involve emergency aid for the needy, school tutoring and support for the homeless, as well as a cafe that provides a gathering place for gay and lesbian high-schoolers.

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As I sit and write this here in "liberal" San Francisco, my thoughts are turning to people I know who continue to make excuses for the Anti Gay rhetoric of the GOP.

As a collective entity, the Republican Party and it's bankrollers in the Conservative Evangelical movement, have spent massive amounts of time and energy and money demonizing a LGBT Americans. Saying from the both the podium and the pulpit that Gay and Lesbian Americans are a "threat" who are "attacking" families and children. Calling for their followers to “fight" some phantom’ gay agenda’ and to "defend traditional values".

The Repubilcan Party and their conservative surrogates on the Religous Right like to paint a simplistic picture of the world where you are either in favor of "freedom" or you are supporting the "terrorist killers". Likewise the GOP has said loud and clear from the podium of their last four national conventions that if you believe that all American citizens deserve equal rights then you are "anti family".

The same people who criticize public dissent of the Bush Administration as "Motivating terrorists to attack us", continue to verbally attack LGBT people and will dismiss the hate crimes that follow as the "lone acts of disturbed individuals". The hypocrisy exhibited on the right is beyond belief.

Conservatives will say with great indignation, that I cant possibly blame them for the actions of one individual Yet to think that the flood of anti-gay rhetoric coming for people in power, people in authority, (both political and religious) has no effect, means you are either willfully blind, or deliberately dishonest.

Do I blame Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, Bill O'Riley, James Dobson and their like for the actions of Jim D. Adkisson in Knoxville TN last Sunday? No, conservatives cannot be blamed for his actions, but their rhetoric IS partly responsible for his motivation.

In Germany in the 1930's Hitler and his National Socialist Party, ranted against the "Jewish threat", and mobs of young men then took to the streets of Berlin, smashed windows, burned stores and homes and beat up men and women. THIS IS NO DIFFERENT.

To my conservative friends, (and yes I do mean friends) who continue to excuse the the bigotry and politically expedient HATE spewed by conservative mouthpieces on behalf of the Republican party , you either really do hate Americans who are different from you , or you don't mind profiting poltically from that hate.

This is no longer about Right or Left, it's about right and wrong. This isn’t about are you for tax cuts or gun ownership, it's about do you agree with people who believe that one group of Americans are lesser human beings than others.

This debate is no longer about public policy. This is about whether it is ok for our government to vilify an entire group of people for political gain, and then not be held accountable for the consequences of that vilification.

Are we a nation that truly seeks to "crown they good with brotherhood"? Or have become that nation that Martin Niemöller warned of in his speech on January 6, 1946, to the representatives of the Confessing Church in Frankfurt...

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

We see this on a much smaller scale, as John McCain gives in the temptation to demonize some Americans, in order to scare others into supporting him. Last week in an effort to divert media attention from his rival, John McCain accused Barack Obama of being more interested winning a political campaign, than winning the war in Iraq.

When talking about the "War on Terror", conservatives love to ask - "whose side are you on?" That is indeed the question we need to ask.

It's time to ask do you truly believe that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."?

Or will you stand with the Republican Party as it continues to seek political victory through social and religious division?

How many dead Americans are an acceptable number if it helps you win the White House?

10 things you should know about John McCain

(but probably don't):

1. John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has "evolved," yet he's continued to oppose key civil rights laws.

2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain "will make Cheney look like Gandhi."

3. His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.

4. McCain opposes a woman's right to choose. He said, "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."

5. The Children's Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children's health care bill last year, then defended Bush's veto of the bill.

6. He's one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a "second job" and skip their vacations.

7. Many of McCain's fellow Republican senators say he's too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: "The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He's erratic. He's hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."

8. McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.

9. McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his "spiritual guide," Rod Parsley, believes America's founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a "false religion." McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church "the Antichrist" and a "false cult."

10. He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year.

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Your weekly dose of "Awwwwwww!"

Ok yeah I'm a big sap... But if this doesn't make you smile then you're pretty much a grinch to begin with..

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Wir Sind Alle aus Berlin...

The days to come will be full of comparisons of Barack Obama's speech in Berlin to that of Presidents Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton. Fox News and various GOP talking heads have been desperately trying to spin today's events in Germany as anything other than what it was. Something that the world has not seen since the year 2000.

Let's put aside the sad pathetic desperate spew coming from the American Right over today's speech. Instead, let's look at it for what it was, historic. Historic because it was not a presidential speech.

Barack Obama is not the President of the United States. He is in fact, not yet even the offical Democratic Nomimee for President. He is the junior Senator from the State of Illinois. Massive crowds turned out to hear both Presidents Reagan and Clinton. That is understandable. It was the President of the United States who was speaking. In 1987 I was one of the people in that crowd at the Berlin Wall when President Reagan spoke. Once upon a time in our history it was only natural and expected that huge crowds would turn out to hear the leader of the free world.

Yet in the past eight years when the American President travelled abroad the only crowds that turned out were throngs of protestors to jeer, rather than cheer his presence. This alone makes today's events in Berlin nothing short of monumental. Over 200,000 people turning out en masse to greet, listen to and cheer an American politician.

I could perhaps feel some sympathy for John McCain. First he challenges Obama to travel abroad. So Barack Obama takes McCain's tripple dog dare, and the Republican Party finds they have scrable desperately to try to divert attention from the success that trip generates. You all most can hear the GOP temper tantrum. "Hey! John McCain has travelled extensively abroad, given countless speeches too!" *Stomps feet*.

Yet as I watch the McCain campaign reduce itself to child threatening to hold his breath until he turns blue to get attention; I remember the electricity in the crowd that day President Reagan spoke. I remember German friends of mine cheering themselves hoarse when an American Politician spoke of his vision of a free and just world. Over the past eight years I was convinced I would never see that again.

Today, twenty one years later, watching the cheering crowds in Berlin, I have never been so happy to be proven wrong.

Post Vacation Thoughts....

I was back in Chicago and Wisconsin for two weeks. Celebrated 4th of July in Chicago with my friends Kyle & Marc. Then up to Madison WI to celebrate my Dad's birthday.

It is always intersting going back to Chicago. I lived there for five years. San Francisco, as friendly as a town as it is, is not an easy place to make new friends. Part of it is my own fault I tend to be somewhat reserved when meeting new people. Now once I get to know you I will never shut up, but the introductions on the front end are something I never have been able to do as easily as others have. So as yet another birthday lurks menacingly at the end of this week I find myself a tad more introspective, and yes retrospective than usual.

Now dont misunderstand I love San Francisco, I have a fantastic job and moving here was one of the better decisions I have made. Yet there have been more an a few times lately where I have found myself, even after 4 years here, feeing like a stranger in a strange land.

Coming back to Chicago to visit is always good for giving me that broader perspective. It is like a tiny little trip back in time where you get to spend time hanging out with old friends and see a little bit of the old "me". That sounds so odd I know but oh well.

I am coming to the conclusion that my rumblings of discontent maybe slightly more than just geographic.

It's hard not to feel like the character Bobby from the musical "Company". When I moved to San Francisco, part of me thought it was to find my life. In retrospect, a very silly reason, and not to mention, a huge misconception. You dont find a life. You make one. Where ever you want to. My life has always been where ever I am. Be it Madison, Wisconsin, Munich Germany, Chongju, South Korea, Chicago Illinois, and even San Francisco, CA.

Or anywhere for that matter.

So why not?

Oh well... Blow out your candles old man, make a wish... want something.


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He's baaaaack!

Ok I am offically excited!

Apparently the World didn't end after all...

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Well it happened. Two by two, same sex couples trouped up the steps of San Francisco City Hall, went inside and got married.

Shockingly enough, we all appear to be still here...

Last Monday, while on my way home, I walked past City Hall. The scene out in front literally looked like something from a TV movie. On one side of the street you had hundreds of people cheering, singing, crying and celebrating as couple after couple came out of city hall waving their marriage licenses and certificates. The first were a couple that has been together for 55 years. Now finally able to "tie the knot" because of the recent CA Supreme Court decision on same- sex marriage.



Meanwhile on the other side of the street...

Members of the Fred Phelps family from Kansas were there holding up signs and posters to tell you just who God hates and why. My favorite was a sign held up by one member of this delightful little clan that simply proclaimed that "America is Doomed".



Two friends of mine, Felix and Freddie have been together for many years. In fact they have been together for longer than half of the average heterosexual marriages in the United States. They have a home, they work hard, they pay taxes, they volunteer in the community, they vote, they recycle, and they are faithful Christians who worship regularly at their church. They are everything you would think of when you hear the phrase "model citizens".

Yet according to this angry person shaking their sad hateful sign in rage, the fact that my two friends are going to get married this August, has doomed all of America.

Wow, these folks drove all the way from Kansas to San Francisco just to tell us that their angry vengeful God hates us all and the rest of America with us. Just because CA decided to allow two legal adults of no family relation who had the gall to fall in love, to actaually get married.

Yet again, shockingly enough, San Francisco and the rest of the Country appear to be still here.

How disappointed the Phelps family must be today to wake up and discover that God prefers our California love to their Kansas hate.

The True GOP Legacy...

It was a warm and muggy day twenty one years ago today. June 12th, 1987.

I was an exchange student in (what was then, West) Germany. I remember standing there at the Berlin Wall watching the President of the United States, state in words so clear, so commanding that they seemed to reverberate through the crowd like an electric current.

"Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

An elderly man standing near me the crowd saw I was an American and tapped me on the arm, and asked if I spoke German, I said yes. He then pointed towards the podium and said "only the American President could say that and mean it."

It wasn't until days later back in Munich I asked the grandfather in my German host family what did he think the man meant by that. He explained to me at the end of World War II German soldiers were fleeing westward with one goal in mind: Escape the advancing Soviet troops and surrender to the Americans. It was a known fact that the Americans would treat captured enemy combatants in accordance with the Geneva Convention and if you were caught by anyone else you were taking your chances.

It gave America a moral authority in the post war world that the Soviets didn't have. It was "moral capital" that gave successive American Presidents from Truman to Clinton the ability to stand before the world, demand justice, speak for freedom lead the world and mean it.

It was moral authority that allowed Truman to fight communist aggression on the Korean Peninsula, Eisenhower to deliver his Atoms For Peace speech at the United Nations proposing an international atomic energy agency and peaceful development of nuclear energy. It was moral capital that gave Kennedy the ability pull the world back from the very brink of nuclear war and face down Soviet military ambitions in Cuba. It gave Richard Nixon the chance to move détente' from being a nice idea, to real dialogue in China, and over a kitchen counter in Moscow.

It was a moral authority that Americans and the world would find reassuring in hands of Gerald Ford, and it enabled Jimmy Carter to take two nations that had been at war since the time of Moses, and into the woods of Camp David and lead their two leaders to peace.

The moral authority that came from America doing the right thing, the fair thing and the just thing in war , forty years later would empower Ronald Reagan to call an evil empire by its name, and demand the wall it built through a city be torn down. The trust that America does the right thing, would enable George Herbert Walker Bush to say in his inaugural address "When America says something, America means it. Whether in an agreement, a treaty or a vow made on marble steps!" The faith that America does the right thing would let George H W Bush meet with that same soviet leader and end a cold war that gripped the world for decades. The idea that America does the right thing would lead skeptical Arab nations to follow that same President Bush to free Kuwait from Iraqi aggression.

The faith that America does the right thing, would lead a hesitant and fickle Europe to follow Bill Clinton when he said the world community could not allow the ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia to go unchallenged.

That authority, that capital, that faith in America as the nation that does what is right, has been destroyed by the Republican Party of George W. Bush. The pictures from Abu Ghraib prison, the FBI reports on torture and abuse of enemy combatants takes that great American legacy of doing what was right, and tears it to shreds.

Rather than lead with the moral authority stemming from generations of American soldiers and leaders doing what was right. We have a President of the United States who has to attack Amnesty International, ridicule the United Nations and insult traditional allies all to avoid admitting his own massive mistakes . Such as claims in the State of the Union Address, they have to be "re examined " when they turn out to be completely false.

Now we find when the President of the United States needs most to enlist the help and support of the global community the best he can do is "You are either with us or you are with the terrorists". Now we find when America goes to war, it is for reasons that are continually changed as they are proven to be fabricated, cherry picked and far more spin, than truth.

I was never so proud to be an American as I was twenty-one years ago today. The American President, MY President stood before the Berlin Wall and before the world and affirmed that American would demand what was right and mean it. Now I watch the President and cringe. For the last century when the American President spoke, the world stood up to listen.

Now when the President, or more importantly, when Senator John McCain - the man who would replace him, speaks; the best we can hope for is they won't be forced to "clarify" things when reality, facts and the truth continue to prove the President and his would be successor to be either wrong, or deliberately dishonest.

Game On!

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