Government Of, By, and For The People -- and which policies best serve our interests and future generations -- should be based on a thorough discussion in the realm of ideas, facts and practical solutions to achieve common goals.
Not personality and media notoriety. By all means we need great leaders who can articulate, persuade, demonstrate their qualifications, and make wise decisions. None that I know of have been perfect. Sometimes they deserve our everlasting respect, and I think Joe Biden is a good man who has earned that, even though he has made some big mistakes.
I joined DU in 2022 during the run-up to the neocon invasion of Iraq. We knew about PNAC and the systematic campaign of LIES to convince the public that Saddam was in cahoots with the 9/11 terrorists, and posed a grave threat of WMD with "mushroom clouds" over American cities.
At least GW Bush, as much as he's earned my everlasting hate, went to Congress for authorization with the Iraq War Resoltion. That's when we really needed Democratic leaders to step up and keep us out of that senseless war of choice. I looked to leaders like John Kerry, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton to speak truth to power.
When it came to the vote in October 2022, slightly less than half the Democrats in the House & Senate voted for it. But Kerry, Biden, and Clinton voted for it. I was devastated, and vowed that no Democrat who voted for war in Iraq would EVER get my support in a Democratic primary.
I held to that vow until 2020, when I deemed that Joe Biden had the best chance to beat Trump. He became a very good, though not great, president. Then he made the worst and most consequential mistake of his political career. He decided to run for a 2nd term, at the end of which he would be 86 years old.
I still respect the man, but I'm not the least upset if he's not invited to have a role in future elections. If that would help us win, fine, though I doubt it. We need younger, strong, smart leaders to carry the torch going forward in these most perilous of times.
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