The Real Hopemongers.

Huge day for the political campaigns, by tomorrow morning the race for both nominations could be completely wrapped up if Obama pulls out victories in both Ohio and Texas, or Hilary could have risen from the dead once again. The late polling numbers are not looking good for Obama in either state: he's still barely ahead in most polls in Texas and only a few points behind in Ohio, but the trend over the last few days has been towards Hilary. I'm hoping Obama cleans up and its all over tomorrow morning, but my gut tells me this might keep going for awhile. We'll see what happens.

In other news, Bob Herbert had a great (and incredibly depressing) opinion piece on the war in Iraq today in the NY Times. An excerpt:

"...the money spent on the war each day is enough to enroll an additional 58,000 children in Head Start for a year, or make a year of college affordable for 160,000 low-income students through Pell Grants, or pay the annual salaries of nearly 11,000 additional border patrol agents or 14,000 more police officers."

Remember this when Republicans tell you they're for "responsible government." By responsible government, they mean cutting taxes (something no other president has even done in wartime) while spending trillions of dollars to "succeed" in Iraq: with success defined as the continued presence of 140,000 foreign troops in a country with a population of only 25 million because of the vague hope that some day Iraq might become a self-sustaining liberal democracy. And John McCain has the balls to tell the American people that "To encourage a country with only rhetoric rather than sound and proven ideas that trust in the strength and courage of free people is not a promise of hope. It is a platitude."

Thank you for enlightening me Senator McCain. You're absolutely right. The American people don't need money for college, they don't need cheaper health care, and they certainly don't need to own their own businesses when the Saudis and Chinese are willing to spend 50 cents on the dollars for them. After all, what are tangible things like greater opportunities for education and health care going to do for Americans if they don't have the strength and courage to continue to piss away trillions of dollars into the cesspool that is the Iraq War? Who needs jobs when you have courage? Who needs health care if you have the strength to defeat disease all by yourself, without government help? After all, Americans don't need and don't want government, which is why we can spend trillions of dollars to build an ineffective one for the Iraqis.

Barack Obama wants the American people to believe that their government might actually work to improve their lives. John McCain and the Republicans want the American people to believe that the we will "win" in Iraq (Bill Clinton famously said "it depends what the definition of is is" but the Republicans are telling us that it depends on what the definition of "win" is). They want the American people to believe that somehow the economy will turn around even while we continue to waste money that could be spent on improving infrastructure, developing green-technologies, increasing funding for job training programs, and improving health care to make for a healthier and more productive workforce. They want Americans to believe that everything is going well, and that, if we just stick to our guns, things will work themselves out over time and America will be as strong as ever.

You tell me who the real hopemongers are.