"Osama bin Laden will never walk on this earth again" is the rhetoric we want to represent us?

[LiberalAndProud]

37. People like you are

the conscience of our party. I appreciate very much that your have raised these concerns.

I don't believe that we have become them any more than we have always been. Keeping OBL alive served Bush's purposes. I can think of no other reason that we couldn't bring him in "dead or alive" through the Bush years except for absence of will.

Looking at our Democratic history, our leadership has never been of a pacifist mindset. Our party has been framed as weak on defense because no matter how much our leadership budgets for the military, the other party will promise more. Look at Carter's military budget in comparison to previous years. Compare that to Reagan's military spending, then tell me if I am wrong. It has always been and will always be a matter of degree, I'm afraid -- at least until we are finally too bankrupt to continue the madness.

If we ever held the moral high ground in this arena, I don't remember that time. Maybe we have simply finally stopped fooling ourselves.

I am encouraged by the new commitment by this administration to reduce military spending, as I was with Clinton's administration. That, at least, is encouraging.