Gone Baby Gone

Sorry all, no new post this week. I'm heading to the Black Hills to visit Werd Yelof for the 4th. Have a great weekend!

Thanks for reading.

P.S. anyone want to take a stab at PCorc's Barack Obama questions? Anybody? Bueller? To be honest, now that he's gone back on his word on public financing, I'm getting ready to write him off. Not that it's a huge issue, and I recognize that by foregoing public financing he has a huge fundraising advantage, but it's a matter of principle. He claimed he was a supporter of public financing, and that he was going to work with his opponent to reform the system. I'm personally a huge fan of public financing because it limits the amount of money these people can spend on their campaigns. I think it's sick that our economy is in the dumps, people are starving globally because of soaring food prices, it costs $60 to fill up my car (which makes me want to cry), and these people are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on commercials, buttons and billboards. What's wrong with us?

Obama's right to say that the system is broken, but I say the fix is to give each candidate $50 million to start (still a ridiculous sum, but it's a start), and any dollar spent over that amount results in a disqualification. All of a sudden political races are focused on issues, not star power fundraising and lobbyist donations. Policitians will actually have to focus on the people they represent. Imagine...

The solution is not, as Obama would have us believe, to give candidates the right to spend convievably limitless sums of money. I don't really care if you can raise and blow $500 million in the 6 months before election day. It's a question of should you. All things considered, wouldn't a demonstration of fiscal restraint be wise?

This was a severe lapse in integrity for Obama and I'm having a tough time moving past it (especially when my initially high hopes and expectations are taken into account). But don't get too smug, McCainanites...he's no peach. We don't need me to air his dirty laundry to prove he has no soul, but that doesn't mean I won't.

Truthfully, I'm starting to have slightly disconcerting doubts about the viability of democracy. Winston Churchill once said "democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." But I propose a new political philosophy: Intellectual Oligarchy. More on this to come...