The President came to my town

Today the President visited the illustrious state of Minnesota. He flew in at 1405 on the dot. In completely unrelated news, people were taken to local area hospitals after complaining of throat and various irritations from fumes in the airport. The President spoke at the Marriot hotel here in Minnetonka about Health Care. Apparently, he thinks we pay too much for health care and that there needs to be more "transparency" in billing. As the president spoke, there were several people across the street protesting the President's visit along the lines of Health Care for all. At the same time there should be less Government involvement. However, I can't see how this policy can be implemented without such interference.

The other part of his stop here in the Land of Too Many Damned Lakes was to stump for Michele Bachman in her campaign against Patty Wetterling for the 6th Congressional District in Minnesota. Wetterling, in case this is unknown, has dealt with the dissapearance and apparent kidnapping of her son Jacob since 1989. She did not win her last bid for political office.

But aside from State politics, the Marines got the green light to recall 2,500 troops to active service from the CiC himself. I can see the tumult this will cause. I have friends who have served in Afghanistan and are now inactive and using their GI Bill to get their higher educations. I can only wonder what will happen to them.

Two other Bush bits before I move on to other topics of the day: Lebanon and Deliverance.

1. So the shaky truce between Israel and Hezbollah is more like a break to make more snowballs, but Bush has pladged $230M to Lebanon. However, that being said, an expert at the Brookings Institute believes that $1B (or thereabouts) is necessary to rebuild. I guess the rest of the world better pony up.

2. Bush pardons Moonshiner and bit player in the 1972 film "Deliverance". This article should be read just for the comments the moonshiner makes.

Ok, moving on to other fish: The Democrats. So this is an easy target I know, but bear with me. They all are. The Democrats say we should pull out of Iraq. Noiw is this just a way of continuing their stance from three years ago for the sake of voters? I would be one of the first to say "Hell yeah, I'm liberal" [enter spitting sound here] but this just bakes my moussaka. I was opposed to the war at the inset. I protested as well. But I knew in my heart that if we went through with it, we would have to do it 110%. 100% will not do and certainly 75% won't either. After pulling out of Lebanon in 1984 and abandoning revolters in Iraq in 1991, we have to stay the course. We have a reputation of cutting and running in the Middle East when things get hairy. If we ever want to be taken seriously on the global stage, this is the time to ensure it. Otherwise, everything we've done in Iraq would be for nothing and fruitless. So wisen up Dems. We need to stick around for better and for worse. Even though it sucks.

Another messed up coincidence. A poll released today says that while people belive the Democrats are better at handling the war in Iraq, they also think the Republicans are better at combating terrorism. Sure, they got Buchanan on their side. He wanted to build a giant fence to keep out the damned illegals. According to some, terrorists are now getting themselves smuggled into the US through the Mexican border. In the meantime, a party that wants nothing to do with a war would be the better one to run it? As the Nazi on 'Laugh In' would say, "Very Interesting".

One last note and its a very heartfelt one. The man who photographed the famous photo of Marines and a Navy Corpsman raising a flag on Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima, has died at the age of 94. Though his photo carried some controversy it nevertheless stirred feelings of patriotism and loyalty in soldiers, sailors and civilians. As a military kid, sailor, US citizen and amateur photographer, I salute a very noble man, Joe Rosenthal.