Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Mikhail Gorbachev said last week on American television that the U.S. is spending over $600 billion on war materials, one half of all the money being spent on war materials by all the other nations in the world.

Back in 1955, a CIA poll was kept secret.  It revealed that 90% of Vietnamese polled said they would vote for Ho Chi Minh in a national election.  That did not stop the Vietnam War from proceeding.  It is estimated that at least some two and a half million Vietnamese and Cambodians were killed along with over 59,000 U.S. service personnel before American troops finally left that war weary nation.

Now Senator McCain complains that the U.S. should have won the Vietnam War.  This question must be asked of presidential candidate McCain:  "When a CIA poll told us that 90% of the Vietnamese people would have voted for Ho Chi Minh had they been given the opportunity, how can you make any logical, honest claim that the U.S. could have won the Vietnam War?"

Isn't your talk about winning the Vietnam War in the wake of its people's preference for Ho Chi Minh as its leader a blatant denial of democracy?  Was the U.S. fighting for a result, amid great numbers of dead and wounded, that only 10% of the people of Vietnam wanted?

Could those long, tragic years of being a war prisoner clouded your judgment?  This would be easily understandable as you endured bravely prisoner of war status.

Could it be that the stress and strain of your prisoner of war status prompted you to exclaim that you were willing to stay in Iraq for one hundred years or longer if necessary?  

In a poll taken in Iraq 70% of Iraqis polled stated that they wanted to see the U.S. leave.  The Iraqis have so far refused to sign an oil lease deal granting foreigners long term lease rights to 63 of their 80 oil wells.

Is that why the Iraq War was fought in the first place.  Can you answer that question, John McCain.  

How can you deliver U.S. style democracy to any nation on earth when 70% of the residents say "Get out, U.S.A.!"  Kindly answer that, John McCain?

John McCain, your choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is a revelation of judgment representing the height of hypocrisy.  In an August 30-31 Wall Street Journal article, Laura Meckler and Elizabeth Holmes wrote the following:

"Sen. John McCain chose first-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a relatively unknown woman on the national stage, as his vice-presidential running mate -- a surprise stroke aimed at picking up Hillary Clinton supporters, but which could undercut the campaign's key theme of experience.

" ... Instead, he picked someone who has the policy positions to thrill his conservative base ...

"But the 44-year-old's unconventionally thin political resume also gave Democrat strategists glee, given Sen. McCain's criticism of their candidate's experience.  They were quick to note that Sen. McCain, who turned 72 Friday and would be the oldest person to enter the White House, was trying to put a heartbeat from the presidency someone who has spent less time in the governors' mansion than Sen. Obama has in the Senate."