"Facts are stubborn things."

And the facts are that different people have a very different evaluation of what is important to them.

I applaud the Military mom and her son's brave gift to our country, and I hope and pray for his health and survival.

As a first responder in NYC my life also depends to an unknown degree on American foreign policy and the efficacy of our defense and anti-terrorism efforts. Some people can more easily overlook those issues in this election. Your lives may not personally depend on who the next president is, so you can base your support on other preferences.

I know exactly who I want to have my back as Commander in Chief, and that is Hillary Clinton. I know we will never go to war unless there is dire need and no alternative, we will never go to war without a plan, and an exit strategy, and we will have exhausted all diplomatic channels that would otherwise provide a peaceful remedy. I know from how Hillary Clinton was there for us  first responders on 9-11, and stayed on fighting for us relentlessly, and still now, 7 years later, fights for us to get health care, that she cares about our lives. There's been no media back patting there for her about all she has done.

For those of us who do put on a uniform to serve our country, either here or overseas, our choice is clear, and it is Hillary. I hope we will soon be addressing her as "Madame President." Now that is change I can be proud of.

The Far left?  I am willing to accept that McGovern can be put in the left category, but the left has had a candidate win the nomination, must less lose the general.  Mondale?  No, the left's candidate was Jesse Jackson.  Dukaksis was a business friendly technocrat... Did he get painted as Mr. liberal, yes.  Kerry, as a lefty from Mass, def not.  It was a tough senate election fight for him with William Weld because there was so little difference.  He had just voted for the horrible welfare reform bill.  I believe he was so progressive that lefties that year were behind a gov from a small state who had governed with a budget hawk centrist view and who was right about Iraq early, then they switched to Edwards.  Kerry was not from the DLC wing, but still safe establishment figure.

The magical far left has not controlled the democratic party.  Up until recently it was in the firm hands of the DLC wing.

"Had he been[in the Senate], and given what mis-information Congress was being fed, and given the pressure they were under, he probably would have voted for AMF as did Hillary and many other Democrats."

We know from first hand accounts from former Senator Lincoln Chafee (see relevant quotes below) that the administration had a paper thin case for the war that it presented to the Congress.  I doubt that this fabricated evidence would have swayed Obama to vote for the war.

http://www.projo.com/news/content/LInc_C hafee_01-27-08_PD8NPTK_v102.182ab97.html

"As Mr. Bush pressed insistently for war, Chafee requested a meeting with CIA brass to examine the evidence against Saddam Hussein's regime. "Sooner or later, I have to vote on this war, show me everything you have," Chafee requests of the CIA."

"What they had, I discovered as the meeting stretched into an hour, was next to nothing," recalls Chafee. "They showed me what they had with little comment and no enthusiasm. Someone handed me one of the infamous aluminum tubes, the kind we were told Saddam was using to enrich weapons-grade uranium while plotting mushroom clouds over America, the `smoking gun' that Condoleezza Rice warned about.

"I looked at the aluminum tube, looked at the analysts and thought, I can go buy one of these at Adler's Hardware," the Providence hardware emporium, writes Chafee.

" . . . for the safety of my son and my country, I will have to cross party lines and vote for McCain."

Could you tell me how it is you believe John McCain would accomplish this?