THEY LIKE MY MONEY, THEY REALLY REALLY LIKE MY MONEY


I received earlier this week a very special invitation from our president to join him (and a squadron of GOP heavy-hitters) for dinner (all for a generous contribution to the campaign ). It was forced to share my mailbox with not one, but two appeals from the Kerry campaign. How exactly this happened is still a bit of a mystery. (Not the Kerry part, as clearly I am currently on at least two Dem mailing lists after giving to Lieberman and Edwards during the primaries), Still, it does make me feel wanted to be one of those precious swing voters. Now, to be fair, I am voting in New York and therefore don't really have to conisder the possiblity that my vote may enable a second Bush term, Still, it is a testament to how alienated I feel from the Democratic Party's national security and foreign policy to consider myself torn at this late point in the game to register a protest vote.


The member of the Bush Administration that makes pulling the lever for Kerry the most attractive has got to be John Ashcroft. Thankfully, the worst excesses of his assault upon the Constitution have gone checked by the Supreme Court. He has failed just about every test posed by the War on Terror - whether it be a sensible, targeting tightening of our immigration regime, or the need for a full-scale housecleaning at the FBI, necessary restraint in the curtailment of civil liberties for terror suspects, or resisting the temptations to expand the compromises of civil liberties necessary to fight the war on terror into regular law enforcement. Without a doubt, a Kerry Justice department will a dramatic improvement no matter who Kerry selects for the top post. As much as find Kerry's overreliance on the rule of law in the international realm troubling, his firm commitment to the rule of law domestically will be reassurring in what no doubt will continue to be a trying time in our nation's history.