here it is...the first post on my latest pet project. i'm hoping to recruit a few people with good opinions and knowledge of big words to help contribute to this thing and make it a decent blog. as if there aren't enough good ones already.

i guess the best first post would be the event that lit a fire under my ass to actually get this thing started. Recently, a friend of mine from my usc interactive media days sent me and many other people a link to the barack obama speech in response to his pastor's incendiary comments in church sermons. In response, i hit reply all and posted the following:

by the time he made that speech i was already gung-ho for the guy, but after seeing this, i'm just gonna go ahead and say it: this man will be the next president.

Naturally, this is a highly contentious issue, and i had an objection from the crowd of 20+ people, most of whom i've never met and probably never will. I won't repost what he said here since I don't have permission from the guy, but the basic question underlying it was: why, besides that he's a great orator and a photogenic personality, do i support obama?

it's a valid question. experience questions have dogged obama since he started his campaign, and this will be one of the most important questions he will have to capably address to win the election. I've been supporting the guy for a long time, so i felt compelled to really sit down and explain this for the guy (and honestly, to myself). I took a good chunk out of my work day today and cranked out this response:

those who dismiss presidents who are "merely" good speakers and leaders are missing the point of the office of president. he's the head of state, not a policy setter. Making laws is congress' job, according to the constitution. These are assets that cannot be underestimated in politics, which is fundamentally based on rhetoric.

obama possesses what the other candidates do not - a staunch brand of compromise-based politics that acknowledges opinions from the whole spectrum without being an apologist for his (or our) own beliefs. this suggests to me a certain level of deference to people who know more than him in certain fields, which is a marked change from the bush administration's top-down "unitary executive" theory. This administration's dismissal of expert analysis in favor of rigid doctrine has gotten us into trouble in such diverse fields as climate change, national security, and fiscal policy (if lowering the tax burden of the rich makes for greater affluence for all as supply-side theorists would have you believe, why have middle class wages been stagnant accounting for inflation since the 70s, while average ceo salaries have skyrocketed?).

make no mistake - the united states is in an extremely precarious position. america's military and economic hegemony is in rapid decline, the recession will get worse before it gets better, and global public opinion of america and its government is sinking like a rock. you want to know why i support barack obama? i believe he's the only one who has the best chance of getting us through what lies ahead with minimal damage.

I personally do not focus too much on the specific policy prescriptions of each candidate . policies never pass muster in congress as submitted by the president anyway. committees will shred the details, and add more earmarks and amendments than you can count. don't get me wrong - you're not going to hear me defend any expensive social programs. my biggest concern with the federal government is the debt we've accumulated (which, incidentally, has increased most over the years during the terms of post-Carter republicans). we don't have the money to institute a bulky, federally-run health insurance policy.

the democrat primary is exposing the clintons for what they are and have always been: extremely mass-media-savvy insiders who disguise themselves as populists. back in the '90s it was easier to put on a fake southern accent in the south and tell voters in south carolina or somewhere whatever they want to hear in a folksy tone that they recognize, but this is the youtube era - that stuff gets caught easily. the way she has conducted her campaign speaks volumes to her character, or lack thereof, and her willingness to throw her political party under the bus for her own personal glory tells me that she does not possess the proper kind of personality or moral fiber to be president.

mccain is and will continue to be perceived as an antiquated warmongering zealot who will do nothing but promote the foreign policy put forward initially by the bush administration. whether this is fundamentally true or not, it's not smart diplomacy to sing "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb iran" or talk about a century-long occupation of iraq. senator mccain was a faithful cold warrior, but it's the 21st century now, and the geopolitical realities we live in have evolved drastically even since his last presidential campaign.

does that answer your question?

i think this basically summarizes my opinions on the issue. i have more opinions, and i could go on with them, but that will be for another day. capitalization and proper grammar may come later as well. so what do you think, readers? if you're an obama supporter, does that basically sum it up for you? if you're not, why not?