McFreedom

I saw Bill Maher, formerly of Politically Incorrect on CNN on election night talking to Larry King. I find Mr. Maher funny when he's trying to be, but when he's not trying to be, he invariably gets me yelling at the television set. I didn't hear everything that he said, but he was very down on the then-unfolding Republican victory, because he felt the Republicans weren't doing a good job on domestic security, and insinuated that it was ridiculous that people who wanted to support the war effort had voted for the Republicans.

I agree with Mr. Maher that the Republicans haven't been taking domestic security seriously, and that it's a problem. But, what are you going to do? They're the party that takes the war the most seriously. The Democrats have gone along only to the extent that they knew they'd be completely turned out if they opposed it. If this election had gone the other way for the Democrats, we'd all be reading about how the American people have shown they don't want to go to war with this vote.

So, what does Mr. Maher suggest we do differently? Vote third-party? The Libertarians oppose the war, as do the Greens. The flakearific hNatural Law Party's platform on Iraq is unclear, but I'm guessing that they oppose war by their nature. The American Independent party doesn't give a clear Iraqi policy, although it does state that it generally wants a "noninterventionist" foreign policy. The Peace and Freedom Party opposes war with Iraq. The Reform Party seems to be in complete disarray, and their platform is unclear, but I strongly suspect they would oppose war with Iraq.

In short: If I want to vote to support the war, there is no one but the Republicans. On most ballots, you had the choice of a Republican who strongly supported the war, a Democrat who weakly supported the war, or a host of third-party candidates who either clearly oppose the war (in the case of the largest two, the Libertarians and Greens) or have no clear position on it. If I think the war on terrorism is the single most important thing facing us today - even if I think we are not being maximally efficient in prosecuting it - what can I do but vote Republican?