Good for her. This will, of course, make her a little unpopular with all those naive centrist-lefty types who worship Clinton and think that Bush II is the first war criminal to occupy the Oval Office, instead of just being the first truly incompetent war criminal with virtually no redeeming features whatsoever. I think even Nixon started the EPA or did something useful like that.

Kudos to her for being one of the few to acknowledge the extent of corruption and warmongering in the Clinton-Gore administration. It's about time.

I think it is agreed we have not elected any saint. Cindy and all of us should question the president regardless of his party affiliating.

I'm no history buff so I have a question. Who was the last president who DID NOT direct the US military to kill, oh lets say, more than 1000 foreigners?

When I'm elected President I'm going to direct the US Army to sire over 1000 foreign children (PER WEEK!!!) to make up for all our past atriocities.

I'm off to rural Thailand to start my campaign.

I'm mean Atrocities...

You know what I mean...

I'm too busy fathering kids to take up spelling...

That's for the kids!

Carter tried to do good, and he got the hostage crisis for his trouble, and we got Ronnie.

It may not be that monsters hold the office, but the office entails you have to break eggs to make the omelettes it wants you to. It's a prison where the inmates run the show.

Carter blows. Look up Kwangju. Also East Timor... Khmer Rouge... Heck, supporting the Shah. His foreign policy was bloody enough, even if he dedicated no US troops.

I agree - I always get annoyed by those "Clinton lied, no one died" banners.

I am not comfortable with the position that intellectual honesty necessitates a blanket dismissal of every President as a bloodthirsty liar. This is different from disagreeing with the facts, which any reasonably well-read person knows. (...The Alien and Sedition Acts; Lincoln and habeas corpus; FDR and the internment of the Japanese-Americans; yadda yadda yadda...) I just think going down this road, while it gives one a certain amount of intellectual satisfaction, puts the price of positive change ruthlessly high. If, as En Ming Hee suggests, the office turns people into monsters (or only attracts monsters in the first place, or some combination of both), doesn't that throw the ball back to each one of us to live as morally as possible? What else can an individual do? No amount of bloggery, or even activism, can redeem the Presidency if indeed EVERY American President since 1787 has been more or less a monster. I'm not suggesting we gloss over the unsavory aspects of one President in favor of another simply due to party affiliation or consonance with our own personal style, but (for example) there is a difference between Clinton lying about a blowjob and Bush lying about Iraq--which is how I've always read that slogan. If every President is a bloodthirsty tyrant, then the problem is with politics, not Carter or Clinton or Bush. Or perhaps the problem is with the human animal; maybe we should all stop reading Jon's blog and go meditate until we've fixed our brains.

I mean no offense, I'm genuinely struggling with this issue, which I think plagues the left.

Mike,

I don't just mean that the Office turns people into monsters or attracts monsters or a combination of both. But to use the wildest analogy imaginable, think of the Office as a kind of Power Rangers megazord. It doesn't matter who's piloting it, you will still end up with some destruction involved, because part of its built-in functions is that it is meant to destroy. The office does not turn you into a monster, but it completes the monster and makes you part of it.

I sympathize, Mike, because it's something I've struggled with, too. But I think you're looking for an alternative answer rather than taking the implications to their fullest extreme. (This is why I'm no longer a Democrat.)

My position is that every president is a bloodthirsty tyrant, and so the problem is with politics, not Clinton or Carter or Bush.

And because the problem is with politics, the problem is with the human animal.

Unfortunately, here's where the big questions start hitting home fast and hard. I don't support blowing shit up like the Weathermen did; I do support lobbying like the Sierra Club does. As someone who considers himself an activist (and has remained strong enough to not become a blogger), it's frustrating to know that I'm working within an inevitably corrupt AND CORRUPTING system-- but I haven't yet figured out what else there is to do.

En Ming Hee: I gather that a megazord is a sort of gundam-like device? I have a disabled character in my books, and keep meaning to have him fashion a sex gundam. Anyway, that's a fascinating way of looking at it, and rings oddly true.

Sully: I may be misinterpreting here--though passably well-read, I am fundamentally illogical, ask Jon--but you're saying that politics selects for bloodthirsty tyrants, and thus makes it into a human problem? What that suggests is necessary is a whole new system of politics--one that does not select for bloodthirsty tyrants. Since "the tyrant problem" exists across every political system I've ever encountered, I believe that the only way to find that answer is to rewire the human brain, one brain at a time. Self-work is activism, in my opinion (and I'm not just saying that because I live in California). Solving the political problem clearly requires some sort of "2001" monolith-touching event, and that must happen on an individual basis. Of course one runs the risk of disappearing up one's own asshole, and I'm not in any way dismissing or denigrating conventional political activism, just going with my gut.

Mike: sad as it is, that's exactly what I'm saying. (The failed Alito filibuster confirms it.)

My asshole agrees with you.

Mike: Yeah, it's all part of the whole "giant robot" streak that runs through Japanese pop culture.