Response the Ebert's essay

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/12/things_fall_apart_the_centre_c.html
I was waiting for the political attacks to come before responding. I figured it would take about 24 hours for the dittoheads to re-write their talking points, dismissing global warming and the national debt as liberal codswallop.

A little about Yours Truly to illustrate where I'm coing from:
I play in a band in Southwest Michigan. Getting people to pay you money to perform on Saturday nights is hard. Bar owners don't care how good you sound. They care how many people you bring in. Realizing this, I had refrained from speaking publicly about my politics. Its just the way it is.

About ten years ago, I read an essay on the importance of civics. The free exchange of ideas is a foundation of our freedom. After reading the essay, I decided that I wasn't being a good American by not saying what I think. Being a good American is more important than having a gig every Saturday night. So I started saying what I thought. I joined the South Bend Tribune's political panel of concerned citizens this last year. Sure enough, the band started taking hits.

In continuing my commitment to encourage the free exchange of ideas, here goes:

There isn't a damned thing in Ebert's essay that isn't 100% true about the last eight years. We have doubled our national debt. The Administration, headed by the former heads of energy companies, pretty much ignored the ongoing threat of glogal climate change.

Consider where we were as a country in 2000. We had a budget surplus. We had friends around the world. Our Vice President had been speaking out about global warming for years.

In that year, a bunch of my friends on the left voted for Ralph Nader. I believe Ralph was right on the issues, but I lived (and continue living)in a swing state. I had read about George W. Bush's decision to greenlight more than 150 executions. I was appalled that this callous man could conceivably be President of the United States. I predicted the man who would laugh while mimicing a woman's plea to have her life saved would not be cautious before getting us into war. So I voted for Al Gore. Since that time, every Nader voter I've spoken to has expressed a wish that they had voted for Al Gore.

I can go one better than that, too. Nearly every Bush voter I've spoken to has wished they had voted for Gore.