Warning: Political Post Below!!!

Of course I watched the presidential news conference last night. Of course I have opinions about it. But before we get to that, I want to tell everyone a story. When I was in college, I dabbled on the intramural debate team. We got extra credit for doing it for my public speaking class. We'd done some parliamentary debate in this class and I enjoyed it. I'm normally fairly animated and all over the place when it comes to arguing opinions, so it was a great experience in being a little more focused reserved in topical debates. The best memory I have of this debate team was a Saturday morning where my college roommate Tana and I were on a team. The question posed was something along the lines of "Individual work is always superior to team work." Our opponents opened, so they argues that individual work was always better. They did this by arguing that Batman and Robin were superior to the Super fiends (Honestly, I'm not creative enough to make this up). For their full two minutes, they blathered on and on about the successes that Batman and Robin had as an example of the superiority of the individual over a team. In what may be one of the most beautiful moments of my college career, it came time for rebuttal. A favorite show of ours at the time (and one of mine currently) was South Park. There was an episode where Johnny Cochran guest starred and instituted the "Chewbacca Defense." The reasoning went something like this: "It does not make sense for a 7 ft tall Wookie to live on Endor with some 3 foot tall Ewoks. It does not make sense. If Chewbacca lives on Endor you must acquit." Tana then proceeded to get up and mimic the Chewbacca defense with what amounted to two minutes of "It does not make sense. What you just said had no relationship to the question posed. Batman and Robin are team, just like the Superfriends It does not make sense." Last night's press conference reminded me of that experience. Here is a suggestion to politicians out there - if you want to speak your agenda, and not deviate from it, then a speech is what is called for. If you want to answer questions from the press corp, then call a press conference. You cannot do both. Its insulting to all involved to hear a question and then blatantly NOT answer it. I think that most Americans would be hard pressed to make an argument for the "Sadaam Hussein is a hell of a guy, and I'd love for him to be in family" club. Thats not really the point of the war, or the criticism of the war. I think the world would be better off without Zima, brown M&Ms, and Lou Bega. Do I think we need to involve our armed forces in removing all of these things from the world? I think you might be able to guess my answer. I could write seventy pages about the alleged justification for war in Iraq. However, the simple fact remains that we are there. We've obliterated the governing system of Iraq. And now, our manifest destiny tells us that we must spread democracy to the Arab world, and it must begin with Iraq. I think this is why we are failing in Iraq (and yes, I think we're failing. No, I take not pride in that fact. It is not an "I told you so.") Instead of trying to understand their people, their culture, their religion, their values, we're moving in saying "We're the greatest country in the world. Of course you want our system of government." Democracy may be what is best for Iraq in the end. I don't know. I'm not well-versed enough in religion and political science to make that case. But I haven't heard anyone in our government make that case either.