One Word Tells the Story

With one magic word John McCain ensure himself of not getting my vote. Even if he was running against Hilary Clinton... or even David Duke. I would not vote for him.

This goes far beyond me being grossly bored with his quadrennial runs for the White House. It goes beyond the fact that he is what President Bush would call a 'flip-flopper'. But with just one persistently used word, I know he does not have what it takes to be the president.

Pre-condition.

Cue former Indianapolis Colts head coach Jim Mora: "Pre-condition??? Pre-condition??? I'm not... Pre-condition???" (...and that should cover my sports reference in this entry... ...or not -- I think I've got one more.)

How about Allen Iverson: "We're talking about pre-conditions. We're not talking about conversations, we're talking about pre-conditions. The fate of the entire world could be at stake and we're talking about pre-conditions. This is about nuclear war, and we're talking about pre-conditions. Not diplomacy, pre-conditions..."

Really, Senator McCain. What the hell are you thinking?

For those of you who missed the Presidential Debate last night, the gentleman from Arizona attacked the gentleman from Illinois over Obama's willingness to meet with Mahmoud Amaddini... Ammahdin... er, um... the president of Iran (that would be, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) about his possible nuclear arsenal, without pre-condition.

Um... I'm not a legislator, not a representative of this government. But even I know you can't invite someone to dinner, then tell them there are rules about coming to dinner. The point is to open the lines of conversation.

Comedian Eddie Izzard jokes that Britain's foreign policy used to consist of closing its eyes and not wanting to hear what was really going on. Thanks to President Bush -- we're pretty close to that. We're more tunnel vision on terror -- and I still maintain you can't declare war on an inanimate object -- than ignoring. But it is still dangerous.

It leads me to believe that McCain, like Bush, would prefer to not talk to Iran (or North Korea, for that matter) because we don't agree with their views. I say tough shit. Nobody can tell anybody else what to believe, or what to do.

Besides, there is a common believe that in North Korea's case, they are developing nuclear arms in an attempt to get out attention. You know that movie/TV line "I've got you attention now" while holding a gun to someone's head? Yeah, this would be it.

As the most powerful nation in the world, we need to be diplomats first. That means, not trying to force anyone into something they don't want to do. It also means we need to lead by example. To do that, we need to open up to EVERYONE... not just our allies.

Think about it. The policy of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" as really gotten us into this mess. We armed Hussein in Iraq to piss off Iran. We armed bin Laden, and we installed Castro because we hated Bautista. Maybe we should stop messing with other governments internally, and just deal with what exists.

Talk to Iran. Talk to North Korea. Maybe all they want is to be seen with the cool kids. Diplomacy goes a long way when it is pure. The answer is not war, it's not arming up for nuclear holocaust. The answer is in talking through your problems.

Obama seems willing to explore that PEACEFUL possibility, while not excluding the option that if such diplomacy does not work, that then (and ONLY THEN) do you need to escalate to sanctions or possible military action.