Couple of political notes

First, the blogosphere is abuzz about the potential end to Hillary's campaign. Will she end it? I don't know. I do know that watching some of the Hillary supporters fall into open racism toward Obama makes me more than a little ill. But I also hold out hope that most of the Clinton supporters are like most of the Obama supporters--united in their desire to see a Democratic president. I certainly hope that we don't see a repeat of 1968 when hard line liberals refused to vote for Humphrey and essentially allowed a moral reprobate like Nixon to become president.

This Kos diarist gives me hope, writing about a Florida town hall meeting where Congressman Wexler spoke to his constituents, most of whom voted for Clinton.

"I support Barack Obama because he showed better judgment on the Iraq War, because he has remained more forcefully against it. I support him because of his stand on ethics reform, and commitment to engaging our enemies. I support him because he speaks truth to power. He spoke in front of a largely Cuban-American organization in Miami. Everyone has told this organization the same thing for 40 years. 'We're going to continue the embargo against Cuba, no monetary remittances there, no anything.' Whether or not it works, that's all any politician dares to say. Obama suggested to them we engage with Raul Castro, and take steps towards ending the embargo. Obama told a crowd in Detroit that we should increase fuel efficiency standards, and he told members of Martin Luther King's church in Atlanta that we all share some of the blame for some of the race problems in America today."

As good of a defense of Obama as I have read anywhere, and hopeful that most in the crowd appeared to be annoyed with the primary, but not so much that they were going to vote McCain.

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We talked about Ricardo Sanchez' new book a last month and it is now out and not very positive about our civilian leadership

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, I watched helplessly as the Bush administration led America into a strategic blunder of historic proportions. It became painfully obvious that the executive branch of our government did not trust its military. It relied instead on a neoconservative ideology developed by men and women with little, if any, military experience. Some senior military leaders did not challenge civilian decision makers at the appropriate times, and the courageous few who did take a stand were subsequently forced out of the service.