Sure you brought enough guys?

Well I watched the Republican debates that were on the other day last night. I had them on DVR, because I've got to figure out why it is that so many friggin' repubs actually think they're going to make it. In my opinion, they're all batshit crazy. Save perhaps one guy, that Ron Paul guy. Even though he looks like Sosa's assassin in Scarface, he was the only one that was trying to be truthful.

Romney lied bunches. Yglesias comments on his lack of historical knowledge in Iraq. Apparently he's used that "null set" argument before. I think someone should explain to him what a non sequitur is. I like how the entire time he kept comparing himself to Reagan who had "optimism for the future" and wanted to "move forward and not look back". Sounds like forget mistakes and make some more to me.

McCain was the darling of the military crowd, though as ThinkProgress notes, he didn't actually answer the fuckin' question. The media is portraying this as his awesome moment, when he stood on stage and orated to the crowd. Again I looked to Ron Paul and saw him hiding his personal embarrassment for the old soldier. He looked like he was having a problem sitting and needed to walk off the front of the stage into the audience to me.

That Guiliani repeated the move and started this BS precedent that while the other candidates sit, the real serious ones stand up like your dad and talk over you. Guiliani was in typical form himself spouting about how Democrats won't say that Islamic terrorism is our enemy and how he personally saved New York City and since Washington is screwed up, he'll fix them guys too.

Here I want to back up a second and mention that Romney and Guiliani, the two with probably the better polls among conservatives, don't understand the conflict we're in at all. Guiliani thinks he actually accomplished something worth praising on 9/11 when I've even posted here the criticisms of how first responder info was passed that day. I'm sorry, getting firefighters there is critical, making a lofty speech can wait. To believe that Iraq had anything to do with that(something both Romney and Guiliani asserted in the debate) is just flat out wrong. To claim that Iran is transporting weapons to Iraq and our enemies is also flat out wrong. We're fighting Sunni insurgents, why would a Shia country give them weapons? There was a question about Iranian diplomacy and whether nukes would be "on the table" as opposed to diplomacy, and some of them almost got the right idea, but dropped the ball. We don't need to pre-emptively nuke anybody. We didn't really need to do in in WW2, but it made things progress at a faster pace to save American lives. Granted it killed a large number of foreign civilians in the process, something we don't want to go through again.

So with all this bitching, what am I looking for? Because if you haven't gathered, I haven't found a candidate in the dem camp either. Well I think I'm looking for what most people want in a President. Much of the banter in the repub debate talked about straightening out Washington and stopping the reckless spending and I think people just don't give a shit about that stuff. I think people want two main things from a President. He has to look good and be optimistic. From that I mean, he should have an appearance that people can look up to. Someone with strength in character and ideals. I don't really think it matters if the President is white or black or mormon or islamic or whatever. What matters is someone that you want to like representing you and your country. The optimism goes deeper too. Optimistic people work together with others. They appreciate that while they have personal views, others don't necessarily have to change in order to prevent the sky from falling. Optimistic people see the good in the differences of our citizens. They see reasons to work together and reasons to accomplish things that America wants. Personally, I'd like to see a candidate that cares about public opinion. Not in the way that they change views based on it, but in the way that is honest with what they personally want vs. what the country needs and desires. I also think the next President should be someone that accepts diversity in a non-racist way. Someone that doesn't mistake terrorism with religious beliefs. Someone that respects that every time you verbally attack an unfriendly country in a broad comment that you're attacking every American that came from that nation. During the debate someone answered to a question of what it is to be American and said that legal immigrants should cut their ties with their old country and their family. I think that's bullshit. I know plenty of legal immigrant who have close ties with their "old country". It's like the banter over the pledge of allegiance. That wasn't something created to give praise to the flag or to teach young people patriotism, it was to force feed our culture onto immigrants who are raised by people still loyal to their old countries. Why? To prevent treason. Now I'm sorry, but I think what we need to do in this country is start honestly looking at our history. We need to stop praising the past as authoritatively better. We need to face the fact that the U.S. is just as wrong sometimes and the only way to make up for it is by setting a better example. Progress is change for the better. I want a President that understands that. Not someone willing to take away social freedoms to push narrow minded dogmatic agenda.