I am tired of politics where the ends justify the means ... in particular when the ends justify lying to the public. Hillary consistently casts votes because they are politically convenient and then lies about them when the vote is no longer palatable. Hillary's explanation that she was voting to "go to the resolution" rather than voting to "go to war" is at the very least insulting to me as a thinking individual (her gender does not earn her a pass on this - nor does my gender require that I suddenly go brain-dead when analyzing her explanation). Ditto with regards to her explanation of her Levin amendment vote. She knew she was voting to go to war and voting to forgo oversight of Bush when she voted for the authorization and voted against the Levin amendment - just listen to her speech on the Senate floor when she voted for the resolution to authorize the war. After she spoke I started planning to emigrate to Vancouver - believing that my sons would soon be drafted into a rich old man's oil war if we remained in the States. I believe she voted for the war so that she would not "appear soft" on terrorism. Now that it is no longer politically acceptable to have voted for the war, she claims that she was not voting to authorize the war, rather she was voting "to go to the resolution" ... it's hard to follow her logic on this one. PRINCIPLES ONLY MATTER WHEN THEY ARE DIFFICULT. We have had too many leaders who act on principles only when they are politically convenient. The most important vote of her life was made to protect her chances of winning the presidential election six years hence. At the time, she knew that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 911. Yet, she voted to send young men and women to die - not for our country - but to protect her from appearing weak on terrorism - to protect her eventual bid for the white house. This is unforgivable.

Furthermore, the only way we can reclaim our democracy is to have true public financing of campaigns (which will take a constitutional amendment) thereby wrestling the control and influence away from the special interests, lobbyists, and corporate shadow government (NAFTA and Welfare reform anyone????). Hillary is more indebted to these constituencies then any candidate in history, and consequently she is unable to strip them of their power. I cannot in good conscience vote for her, and if she is the nominee I will for the first time choose NOT to vote for a presidential candidate.

I seem to remember a very liberal guy recommending that Democrats should start wearing their pins on a post on some blog a while back. Anyone remember who that was? Or should I just forget about that. Anyway, I'm glad to see them gone. When the Republicans wore them, they reminded me of a certain German insignia that we should never forget.

Non-candidate Giuliani is the only Republican who was still wearing a flag-pin in late 2007. All the other candidates, including all Democrats, were non-pin wearing back as far as June 2007 debates in New Hampshire. Congressmen Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich were both wearing a circular de-coder pin of some sort. Hard to tell what it is in the wire photos.
End of report.

http://www.jpshrine.org/lyrics/songs/jpflagdecal.html

Always glad to find out there's somebody out there listening, Grandpa M. I am that very liberal guy, all right. I slapped on my super-sized flag as a poke in the eye for all the sunshine patriots when I thought we had taken back the Congress in 2006. As soon as it became clear that we hadn't, I returned it to my bedside drawer to await better days. It may never come out; we'll see.

Thanks, Don, for running down the non-pin-wearing thing. I had noticed the odd round lapel devices too, but I thought more candidates than Kucinich and Paul wore them. I could never get a close enough look to make out what the hell they were. Anybody know?

And thanks for the lyrics, Martha. Prine pretty well nailed it.

I always thought they'd be more appropriate driven into their foreheads, but that would be pretty tough on the pins.