South Chicagoland Young Democrats: The Blog

Every day it seems, a new investigation is announced on TV related to a Bush appointee. Every one of them has been highly publicized most notably Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and Paul Wolfowitz. Each of these men appear, atleast to me, to be guilty of the charges brought against them. Overwhelming evidence exists showing that Gonzalez fired 8 States Attorneys for strictly political reasons and Wolfowitz, head of the World Bank, promoted his girlfriend to a high paying job when she was not as qualified as other possible applicants.

These investigations seem well warranted but I have to say that if we are going to go through all the trouble of indicting everyone that Bush has appointed, why do we not just do the obvious and impeach Bush. In the history of the US two presidents have been impeached. The most recent was Bill Clinton and I think we all know what he was impeached over (a highly publicized affair with Monica Lewinski). While I think it would damage the popularity of the newly elected Democratic majority in Congress, President Bush makes it clearer every day that he has broken more laws than any other president in our history. The Republican Congress of 9 years ago impeached Bill Clinton over a blow job, but we do not have the balls the impeach George Bush for causing the deaths of more than 3,000 American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

What I am trying to say is that it is time to stop attacking the at the bottom and go straight for the proverbial jugular. If we are going to be taking the time to bring charges against political allies of Bush let’s grow some balls and go after the big man. Every day I sit and read the newspaper and think to myself that this is the first time where all of the work has been done already and the only thing that Congress needs to do is officially raise the charges. We already know that he is guilty, how about we make it official. In the end, the thing that we need to think about is precident. Even though it may meen the sacrifice of the Congressional majority in the next election, although I am not certain that it would, we have to show the country and the world that even the President of the most powerful country in the world is held accoutable for his actions.

Let’s do it. Impeach the worst president of American history.

From the brilliant mind of Mike Kean, your friendly Sergeant at Arms

(Please read. I promise there is a point)
I am a teenager. I am extremely interested in politics and I like to think active as well. It is my opinion that it is my duty as an American citizen to pay attention to how this country is run. With that said, I do not blame the people my age that do not care about politics and have absolutely no interest in voting. For that, I blame the politicians in this country.

In my life, I can remember many elections. I say that very loosely because I do not remember what position most of the candidates took on important issues but rather, I remember what bad things the politicians did in their lives. In the politics of today, it does not seem that we elect people based on the legitimacy of their positions but instead on how good of a person they have always been and that is shameful. How can anyone expect my generation to vote when the only information that we have to go on is whether a candidate tried cocaine at one point in his or her lives or if the other has a gay daughter. Let us think back to the presidential election of 2004. I guarantee you that if anyone were to ask someone my age what they remember about John Kerry they would say one of two things, swift boat or flip-flopper.

Today as I watched the Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central, the only good source for political information because they seem to be the only ones that recognize how low politics have gone in this country; I saw news clips from the days surrounding the Virginia Tech shootings. These clips were filled with politicians and reporters alike attacking each other for trying to politicize that tragedy. Each side wanted to use it in the debate over gun control. I feel that this is a legitimate example in that debate but instead of talking about gun control, both sides fought about how disrespectful it is to use such a tragedy to push an agenda. The attacks flew back and forth over the tactfulness of using the event rather than an actual debate over gun control. This is a perfect example of how low attack politics have gone.

I am not going to blame this decent from responsible politics on either political party or on the media. Instead, I blame the country as a whole. We cannot allow this to happen anymore. I call my generation, the young Democrats and Republicans alike, to make politics right again. Make it about the issues again and not about slander. If you are against war, vote for the person that runs on an antiwar platform. If you are against the waste of federal funds, vote for the person that is running on a platform of reduced spending. Vote for who you support, not for the person that did the fewest stupid things throughout his or her life. Most importantly vote, because we can make a difference and anyone that tells you we can’t is wrong.

From the brilliant mind of Mike Kean, your friendly Sergeant at Arms.

An Iranian diplomat that was recently freed from captivity in Iraq has alleged that he was interrogated and tortured by the CIA. The diplomat was taken captive by an unknown group of armed men several months ago while working in Iraq. The US army denied any involvent and continues to deny involvement. Despite this denial, the diplomat appeared an Iranian TV yesterday claiming that he was taken prisoner by Iraqi troops under the command of Americans. While the White House and the Pentagon are both claiming that there was no such involvement and that this man was never a prisoner of the CIA, we must ask if we really believe them.

Ever since President Bush made it clear that he believes in the use of forms of torture and that we discovered that there were secret prison camps around the world containing detainees in the war against terrorism, we cannot ever truly know whether or not this man is telling the truth. As an American citizen, I cannot help but think that if I do not know whether or not to believe our government, what must the rest of the world think. What is worse is that this claims are coming from Iran, a nation that is currently under scrutiny because of its nuclear program and because of the recent fiasco with the captive British sailors and marines. One would think that the US would be more credible it does not appear as such.

While this is all merely speculation on my part, I cannot help but think that if I feel this way, more people, notably the rest of the world, must feel similarly. This is the curse of President Bush’s abysmal foreign policy, or rather, lack there of. His public feelings on torture and the treatment of prisoners at camps like Guantanamo Bay have damned our country to forever be questioned by the global community. How will we ever be able to achieve success in this “war on terror” if in the eyes of the rest of the world we are no better than the terrorists that we are fighting?

Some food for thought from the brilliant mind of Mike Kean, your friendly Sergeant at Arms.