Election Depression

As I watched this year's presidential election unfold, I grew more and more frustrated with all the candidates making promises they could not keep. Each audience had their own agenda and the candidates speaking to them chose to pander to that specific concern. When talking to union members, they were all pro-union. The same politicians were pro-management when addressing business leaders. Each chameleon politician put on the camouflage that would allow them to blend into their surroundings... with each public appearance.

Now, we've got a new president and vice president, and already the back pedaling has begun. When all the Democratic candidates were parroting the need to pull out of Iraq within the first 60 days of their taking office, no one really asked "once pulled out of Iraq, where will these troops go?"

If the military personnel are taken off of active duty and returned to their homes, we will be adding additional stress to an already depressed labor market. So, does keeping them in the military and employed answer the promises made on the campaign trail? I don't think so. If they are just sent from Iraq to Afghanistan is that keeping a campaign promise to bring the troops home and out of harm's way? Or is it just moving them from one engagement (where an intelligence failure led us to believe things were worse) into a situation where there is little to no intelligence??

Don't get me wrong, I want the administration to succeed. I want our economy to shrug off the recession and let Americans get back to work and spending like normal. But I am also appalled at the backsliding that is being done even before Barack Obama takes office in January. It appears that he's been given some national security briefs and now he understands what the general public did not know about the engagements abroad.

I know, I know. The cable news channels can be trusted to tell us EVERYTHING. There is never any kind of sensitive information that doesn't make it onto the TV news... but if there were, Obama knows it now. Thus the backsliding.

So, the Deomocratic party, of which I am a card carrying member, rode into the White House on the "get us out of Iraq" ticket. Who really thinks that is going to happen? Who really thinks that going from Iraq to Afghanistan fulfills that promise?

It makes me crazy enough to throw things.