Hi Joe. I hope all’s been well with you. On Obama, I am not a fan of how his health care plan is structured, which while looking to extend health care to all Americans, is not a single-payer plan to which he has recently signed on (in a pending bill)–and single-payer health care would be less expensive especially in keeping down bureaucratic costs, would be more expansive, and is more efficient. Other industrialized countries such as France, Canada and Britain like theirs just fine, and what Obama currently proposes is closer to what the Clintons proposed in 1993 (which despite what critics said was NOT “socialized medicine”), an expanded corporate-provided plan. This would be better than what many Americans have now but is far from the best remedy, in my opinion. It’s an expansion of free market health care, and I’m in favor of bifurcating health care from free market principles. I was encouraged, however, to hear Obama say in the second presidential debate that he considered health care “a right” and not “a responsibility,” as McCain considers it. I agree, health care is a right.

I also think that Obama shouldn’t be so willing to tout war in Afghanistan. He is proffering an idea of a “good war” versus a “bad war” (Iraq), and should the US transfer much of its forces to Afghanistan, I doubt Americans would like them to stay there ad infinitum, either, which they probably would. I also think that there have been times, especially in the debates, when Obama is too willing to “talk tough,” to espouse hawkism to prove a toughness to his critics. hawkism has routinely proven a problem among American foreign-policy people and Americans generally, such as in Vietnam, Central America, and now (again, actually) the Middle East. War should not be an aggressive policy instrument but rather a last resort. It’s not been even close to that under Bush/Cheney. What concerns me about some of Obama’s foreign-policy proposals is that he may end up supporting and expanding America’s vast network of bases and military stations around the world. I’m against that. The War on Iraq is not about freedom and democracy, as the post facto rationalizations of the Bush/Cheney administration would have us believe. I believe it is essentially about control over a vital strategic and resource-rich region and its political powers therein, an essential part of which is the establishment of Iraq as an American base. While Obama might or might not end the War on Iraq, and we’ll see about that, I’m not convinced that there won’t be an American base in Iraq for a long time. I don’t consider the thousands of American and Iraqi lives lost thus far as having been worth that by any means.

Lastly, there have been times when Obama has hung back politically in the last year that concerns me. Part of me thinks that this might be because the Democrats have not wanted him out in front of issues on which he’ll have to take a stand, although the Democrats did have him as the point person in the meeting at the White House on the Wall St. bailout, the meeting into which McCain threw a wrench. I hope that Obama proves not just a competent leader, and I’m sure he will be, but an active, forward-thinking one right out of the gate. These times demand it.

In all, I see Obama as much better all around than McCain and infinitely better and more qualified that Bush, who has been a national disgrace from day one.

But I like how you admit to Obama having faults. I don’t know if you will explain what they are to us, I’d like to know if you do want to. But it seems that a lot of a candidates supporters tend to ignore a candidates flaws. And it seems that every person will have some stuff to disagree with, with whatever candidate they support. Those people don’t always want to admit to the flaws though, not to others anyway.

http://statisticianmagician.mlblogs.com/

mc cain seems to be fighting a war with himself, but in the end he IS to blame for the scurrilous and desperate acts his campaign is committing. he gets no credit from me for his hypocrisy at his “town halls”. sarah palin has proved herself not only to be be an ignorant ambitious parvenu, but a dangerous rabble rouser-

anyway–i’m really glad you weighed in on this -