Interviews

One of the parts of talk shows that I find essential to determining which candidate I want to vote for is the interview. Through interviews, I see how the candidate interacts with others and how they react to pressure and possible insults. The ability to stay respectful and calm is essential in dealing with world leaders and members of Congress. Hilary Clinton is not respectful toward her interviewers, and thus I think that she would have trouble in negotiations. We need a president who knows how to deal with other people and compromise or else we will end up in the same situation we are in now.

Clinton

Hilary Clinton has a habit of interrupting everyone who is talking to her. She either blatantly interrupts them, or she continues talking when it has been made clear that she is not answering the question or that she is out of time. I know she does this so that she may get across all of the things that she wants to talk about, but it seems that this strategy may be counterproductive and instead makes her seem very self-focused and inconsiderate.
I wonder if her pr people tell her that she appears this way, or if they just assume it is part of her personality and cannot be changed.

Bush

After watching Countdown with me last night, my roommate posed this question: Is Bush maliciously trying to destroy America and its relationship with the world, or he is really that stupid that he cannot see the negative effects of his actions? I think he lives in a world that is in his mind. He ignores anything that disagrees with his perspective and thinks of himself as a hero. Is he delusional? He is trying to pass advice on fighting in Iraq down to his successor, ignoring the fact that the next president will most likely be a Democrat whose platform will be based on pulling troops out.
I think Bush imagines himself as a Beowulf-like man, who will go down in history as a great fighter of evil. He does not see himself as the world sees him, a man who made other countries hate America.

Health Care

I wonder if Hilary can make another attempt at a health care plan, or if the failure of her last plan will carry over to the next one. It would be good if America can forget about the old one and focus on the new, but some voters, especially older ones, may blend the two together in their minds.
I think the best approach to health care would be a totally government-run system, but with the insurance companies already in our economy, that would be almost impossible to implement. It is quite ironic that once a civilization is advanced enough to figure out what is best for it, it is too late to do it, because the past has already established the path for the future.

Rather

The Rather case shows that journalists today do not take responsibility for the news they put on the air. It is simply their job to read the news, and they do not put as much effort into giving the public good information. They are pushed by deadlines, and thus do not have the time to determine what information is valid. This is a result of our commercial news culture, and they only way to fix it would to have subsidies that make the networks less dependent on profit, and to then require good news. However, in America, it would take a lot more for most people to realize there is a problem. Thus, when the news situation becomes unbearable, people will begin to want television regulations, but not before then.

O.J.

I wonder how big of a deal the media will make of the O.J. Simpson case. They are already talking about it all the time, and every time I bring up an internet window, there is an article about him in the yahoo news headlines. Will it be like last time, where the whole country seemed infatuated by the news coverage? The crime is not as bad this time, but his celebrity will make the case bigger than it should be. I wonder how he feels about this. Is he thinking, "Oh, no not again, what is it with these people?"Or does he like the media coverage?

The Future of Iraq

The goal of a united, democratic Iraq is unreasonable. The country does not have the history or culture to immediately change to this form of government. The factions will not agree to be ruled together. The most sensible and safest solution is to form more than one country, if they agree to it, and then move people to the country they want to be in. Perhaps in the future, when they have had more time to work out their differences, the countries will be able to merge and form a unified Iraq under a government developed by them. Trying to make a model of America is not a good idea, because it took a certain type of people with a special situation to form our government.

Picking a Candidate

Today, instead of reading about candidates for ourselves, we look to others to show us the way. We listen to those we respect, and use their logic and decisions to shape our own. This explains the importance for candidates to get a sponsor in the media world. When Oprah supports Obama, this gives him a bigger share of her viewer's votes. They listen to her, because that is what they are used to doing. They watch her for advice on raising children, dealing with their families, and everything else under the sun. They know and trust her, and they follow her because they think she is smarter than they are. The question is: is this a bad thing?
I think that complete compliance with the ideas of a popular figure is bad. However, we listen to those we respect when we are making other important decisions, why not when picking a candidate?

The Bush Book

I caught a discussion about this on television the other day, and the descriptions of Bush in the book Dead Certain scare me very much. He never thinks about the decisions he makes, he just knows somehow that they are right. Since when did we begin to teach people that first instincts are always right? How could you go to sleep at night knowing that you have not thought through completely your decisions, especially when they affect the entire world?

The Problem of the Divide

A difficult message to get across is that those against the war are not anti-American. They are not angry at the troops; they support them. They want them home, so that no more die in a war that seems endless. Questioning the actions of the president is not anti-American. It is our right and duty as citizens to tell the government what we want and how we feel. If we do not tell them when they are wrong, that is a true misdeed.
The fear of being seen as unpatriotic has held back the Democrats and some Republicans from speaking out against the war in the past. Hopefully they are past that now, and the government will be able to work with more input from everyone. It is the same as in our politics class. When someone does not speak, we do not hear their perspective and thus lose the chance to learn something.

The War, of course

Sometimes is seems that the government is shooting in the dark when it comes to the Iraq War. There are so many different opinions, and each one is tried. The original plan, the surge, and now the new withdrawal. There is so much talk about how this is a different kind of war; handbooks have been written on how to fight it. So, why exactly is America failing to complete the mission in Iraq? Has it been a failure in the civil leadership? Military planning? It will be many years before historians can be objective enough about the war to actually study what happened and why it happened. So well all can look forward to analyses of these times, and then maybe we can find out how to change America for the better.

Bin Laden

It is interesting that terrorists use the media against us. Osama Bin Laden, by sending another message to America, shows that he also knows how to manipulate the feelings and thoughts of the public through use of video. He dies his hair in an attempt to look younger and healthier and releases the video a few days before September 11. He understands how to play with the emotions of his enemy and taunt them with his apparent success. One thing that I find interesting is that he proposes that if America converts to Islam, the war will stop. This is the equivalent of saying, "If the moon falls out of the sky, I will give you a billion dollars." Even so, the hint of a deal makes him appear to be less malicious.

Craig

Politicians need to be more careful about what they proclaim to the American people. They make loud, deliberate statements that later turn around and bite them. For example, Clinton's lies about Monica Lewinsky, or Bush's proclamation that the Iraq war had been won. Larry Craig has recently joined the ranks of those who have spoken without enough prior thought. He plead guilty to his charges of soliciting sex before and after denying the charges. It is quite ironic that Clinton had a problem because he denied having sexual relations (and was then accused of perjury), and Craig's issue is that he admitted to it and then wished he hadn't.