Liberal and Loving It

Too much guidance for our kids?

Our 17 year old is at a basketball tournament out of state and called last night for advice on something. No big deal and it's nice that she still wants our (or to be more specific - my wife's) advice.

But the thing that hit me is that this generation has constant contact with everyone. With parents, with friends, with everyone. And this has to have a gigantic effect on how they themselves turn out and on society too. What does it mean when a child is always connected as they grow and learn and decide what type of person they are going to be?

A couple of things hit me about this - just guesses as anyone else's will be too:

• They will be the most collabartive generation in the history of the world. Everything they do includes contact with others to some degree. This I think is a very positive thing - they will be much more productive than we have been - in business, in research, and in their personal lives.
• They will be much more open-minded. Yes they have constant contact with their parents which gives their parents the ability to pass on their own fears and sterotypes. But at the same time they are in communication with their peers to a much greater degree than before. This is another positive thing - they will be more than any previous generation making their own decision about what kind of person they want to be.
• They will have the most public lives of any generation. No they don't have to create a MySpace page. They don't have to put pictures and notes about what they are doing. But they do. I'm not sure if this will play out good or bad. But I think it will makes us all realize that yes we are all imperfect and this just means that we know those imperfections.

I'm sure there is a lot more that we will learn bout this over the next 40 years. But I think the combination of this generation being the most scheduled in history (school to soccer to piano and no "open" time) along with being in constant communication means this upcoming generation will be very different from us.

Exactly how that will play out will be interesting to say the least.

Thank god Kerry lost in '04

The best thing that happened for this country (and for the Democrats) in '04 is that Bush won. And here's why.

In '04 a lot of the country was not sold on Iraq being a disaster. Part of the reason is that Kerry and the Democrats in general did a poor job of selling that view. Part of it was that many people were still hopeful. But the bottom line is that it was not viewed by most as irretrievably lost.

Now if Kerry had won, we would still be there today (he would not have started an immediate pullout). The right wing would blame the disaster there on Kerry's incompetence, not on what Bush did up to '04 to totally poison the well.

And the country would see validity in both arguments. So to the giant middle of the American populace the loss in Iraq would have been placed on both parties.

And the right wing, neo cons, etc. would "know" that it would have been successful if they had been left in charge. Just as Cheney and Rumsfeld used this time to "do it right" after they were "stopped by the Democrats" in Vietnam, the Republicans would in the future "do Iran right."

But none of the above works. Bush as president still has full control of the military and foreign policy as the President. Iraq is still 100% a Republican operation. Until January even congress is still Republican. And come January only congress switches.

So for '04 - '08, as it becomes clear to everyone, absolutely everyone, that Iraq was horribly incompetently prosecuted. That it was arguably the biggest mistake this country has ever made with the possible exception of our own Civil War, it remains 100% a Republican responsibility.

And so John Kerry's loss in '04 was a gigantic blessing for the country. The neo-cons cannot come back and say this time they'll get it right. By '08 neo-con will be the most poisonous political term in the country.

And it was a gigantic blessing for the Democrats. The Democratic party today is a much more robust and self-confident party than 2 years ago. And it bears no significant responsibility for the mess in Iraq. It has also started to discover a new paradigm for what being a Republican means today - in a world that is more global, has fewer unions, and faces different challenges.

So what should the Democrats do over the next two years? First, oversight. Take a look at everything the White House is doing. Don't oversell the possibilities or upcoming results. Don't worry - you'll find things - lots of things. Just do your job and look at everything going on.

Second, investigate the big mistakes of the past 6 years. Don't do everything - just the biggies. The things the public will see as legit. Did Halliburton and others bill properly. Was Congress given the best intelligence at the time about Iraq.

And don't talk impeachment. Don't talk revenge. Don't even get into pissing matches. Use the next 2 years to expose the facts and let the facts speak for themselves. Because the most important result for the future is that the people of this country see in great detail what happens when a bunch of crazies are given unsupervised control.

And it will take all of the next 2 years to get this story out.

And once it is - if you thought running as a Republican was bad this past election, imagine what it will be like in '08...