What I never felt was a pathological need to inflict my views on anyone else.

After all, just because I don’t take Mexican wrestling seriously doesn’t mean I can’t occasionally enjoy a match.

You were never a political “agnostic.” There have been enough examples here of your pre-Zone views to nail that one.

TB, if you post here just to enlighten us barbarian Liberals on the subtler points of Conservative thought, then have no fear, you have succeeded admirably.

We’ve also gotten a crash course on Conservative methods and motivations too. I can’t speak for any other Zoners, but in my case, you have succeeded in turning someone who once viewed politics as a dreary pseudo-sport, somewhat akin to Mexican wrestling, into a very skeptical observer and highly partisan analyst, perhaps even a potential activist. I’ll give you full credit for that.

Go over a few political issues in your mind and put some pins in the board at various points. See if you notice anything.

Just one example: where is the “middle ground” on government health care? Right now, close to half of our health care is already paid for by the government. Is that the “half-way” point? If not, where is it?

Really, when you actually think about it, issue after issue, which side is really “their way or the highway?”

Yeah, I know what you mean about them. You don’t really disagree with them in principle, just in the details. It’s like you want to meet them half-way, it’s the reasonable, fair, LIBERAL thing to do, right?

But with them, its always their way or the highway. They seem to be unable to distinguish between cooperation and appeasement, between working together and complete surrender. And if you concede any point to them, they perceive it as cowardice or weakness, not open-mindedness. Agreement on any issue is not enough, they want uncritical acceptance of everything.

It’s like…, like, they are just…well, there just is no other word for it: pricks.

And if it turns out that the Europeans can’t handle it either, at least America is knee deep rather than neck deep. We’ll still take all the lumps if things go south, though.

As for Republicans…sheesh. I want to beleive, if I may borrow the phrase. In all sincerity, I do. I want to find conservatives candidates that I like and trust. But the aggressive “in your face” conservatives make that so damn difficult. They don’t want people like me onboard. I’m a stupid spineless moderate after all, and they’re having way too much fun pissing in my Corn Flakes.

Face it, Libya is Europe’s problem, not ours, they have to deal with it, we don’t. But we had to get involved, if only because NATO is reluctantly with us in Iraq and Afghanistan where they feel they have no pressing interests. So we had to provide them something or risk losing that middle eastern support. Quid pro yadda yadda. Those who so self-righteously condemn Obama’s Libya policy should remind themselves of this. These allies are dying for us, we owe them.

If Khadaffy had indeed carried out a massacre in Benghazi, the Republicans would never had let Obama forget it. Now they are bouncing off the walls trying to find some way of both defending their reflexive hawkish nature and still blame their Dem nemesis for anything he does, even if it was something they supported yesterday. I can’t help the feeling the Chicago community organizer is leading them by the nose in foreign affairs, actually enlisting them to help carry out his foreign policy. Whether this will make up for Republican efforts to sabotage his domestic programs remains to be seen, but at least you have to admire the way he is finessing them.

The funny part is that now the Republicans, in their desperation to find SOMETHING they can accuse Obama of, are starting to drift towards isolationism, a policy I suspect Obama is really for (after all, remember his campaign promises?). The Reps are practically begging him to do what he wants to do anyway, pull the troops out of the middle east. I love it. The “Democrats can’t handle national defense” meme is shattered.

The President, trying to follow a graduated, responsible policy, has resisted taking advantage of the bin Ladin takedown and revealed Pakistani treachery to just pull out of the middle east and southwest Asia altogether. After all, we do have legitimate interests there that will not be addressed if we just depart en masse.

This takes a certain amount of political integrity and restraint on his part. With Osama dead, Al-Quaeda crippled by his drone attacks and concentration on the Afghan (not Iraq) theater, and the Pakis disgraced and exposed as the lying cheats they are, American (and even Republican )opinion is primed for a full scale withdrawal from the Muslim world. But even though I suspect Obama is tempted to do exactly that, I also believe he knows it is not the right thing to do. The flak he has gotten from Left AND Right over his pace of withdrawal suggests he has engineered the perfect compromise.

I think this is really what is behind the sputtering fury from the Right these days. Maybe its not just their precious tax cut. Deep down inside, maybe even subconsciously, they know they are being…managed. The only way they can be sure of getting the White House back in 2012 is if they make sure the economy
is totally trashed by then. And as we can see, they are working as hard as they can on that.

Anyway, that’s how I see it. What do you think?