Stump Lane

Your Montag is ready for a woman to be president. In fact, I think we need a woman to be president. We also need an African American president. One way or another, we pretty much need to break free of the whole powerful-backward-white-male-flat-Earthers acting like they own the world thing.

More importantly, I think we need a president who embraces a Good Neighbor approach to foreign policy. One willing to ‘take options off the table’ from time to time in the interest of fostering diplomacy.

So I have a problem with this:

ANNE MILLER: … I went to hear Senator Clinton speak in Concord and was not called on during the meeting, but afterwards approached the Senator and asked her about the comments [quoted below the fold] that she had made at the AIPAC meeting earlier in the week and asked her if she really would leave all options on the table and how could she threaten, in effect, other countries’ children with nuclear genocide. She looked me right in the eye, and she said, “No options are off the table. We cannot abide by a nuclear-armed Iran. It would be an existential threat to the United States.” [Democracy Now!: Sen. Hillary Clinton … Says No Options Should Be Taken Off The Table on Iran]

For fuck’s sake, can we at least take nuclear fucking genocide off the table?!

And, haven’t we heard this, “No options are off the table,” shtick somewhere before?

By the by, Edwards is talking equally tough on Iran, too. [Quotes below the fold.]

Shouldn’t Democratic Presidential candidates try to differentiate their war mongering rhetoric from that of the Bush crowd?

Obama does a little better. [Again, quotes below the fold.] While keeping “all options on the table” he first advocates a “more aggressive approach to diplomacy.” Clark— who may or may not even be officially in the race —speaks similarly. [By now you know where the quotes will be.] And while Clark leaves a military strike option on the table, he mercifully avoids the phrasing “all options on the table.”

If it were socially acceptable to speak his name in polite company, I’d tell you that Kucinich isn’t convinced that there is any “there” there. And that he’d see an unsanctioned attack on Iran by the current administration as some sort of high crime or misdemeanor. [And, if it were socially acceptable to quote him in public, I’d admit to there being such a quote below the fold.]

It is of significant importance to note, that whatever their stance on Iran, one advantage all of these folks share:

1. They are not George Bush.

Up to now, my presumption has been that the only direction we can possibly go from here, after this president’s term ends, is “up.”

But, given the way the front runners are talking, is there any reason to believe that installing a democratic president would result in anything more than a slight change in foreign policy?

All of the above notwithstanding, I think at E-minus 624 (or so) days, perhaps we shouldn’t be so concerned with presidential candidacies. Maybe spend a little more time cajoling congress into getting a grip back on runaway executive branch power. It has occurred to me to wonder, though, if the new Democratic majority congress will even want to do this. (They could very well be licking their chops at the prospect of wielding such power themselves. Which might be nice to find out sometime before the next elections.)

So today, when conversation inevitably turns to the question of ‘who do you like in 2008?’ It might be worth asking, ‘who do you trust with increasingly unfettered presidential power to declare war; to reject laws, in part or totality, through the use of signing statements; to decide who is to be considered an enemy combatant, spy on them, detain them and torture them indefinitely in an undisclosed location?’

Continue for the candidates’ takes on our Iran options, as promised. Read more…