An open letter to folks like myself who cannot in good conscience vote for Obama

[Spider Jerusalem]

377. Being realistic doesn't mean "giving up"

and I think it's profoundly unrealistic to assume that any American president would endorse the trial of one of his predecessors for war crimes, which seems to be what's being advocated. Sending Bush to the Hague for the Iraq war sets a precedent that no American president regardless of policy is going to tolerate; that's a simple fact.

Other simple facts: a president is not an omnipotent god-emperor; he is constrained in action by the Constitution, by the Congress, and by the inertia of policies put in place and set in motion before he took office. If you want a good example of that look at LBJ and Vietnam; the "domino theory" and escalation of US involvement was the policy of JFK's national security team, the "best and brightest", Macnamara and Bundy, and Johnson was dragged along by the tide of events beyond his control. Or for that matter look at JFK and the Bay of Pigs (a product of the Eisenhower CIA).

I don't really think that having an awareness of political realities and the actual workings of government, and the limits they place on any president's sphere of action, is pessimistic at all. Cynical, perhaps, but not pessimistic (there's a difference).