Last night's presidential debate, though in most of media's opinion was pretty bad as far as structure, but the content is a great reflection of how much the balance of truth in the U.S. is so lopsided, that it doesn't seem that American's know what to ask themselves what they expect of a leader. Instead, Americans have always lumped all the failures of the government on the shoulders of presidential candidates, in hopes that they can solve all their problems.
That's a huge responsibility to expect of two people, and is not even close to being reasonable. On the Republican stance for smaller government, if we look at the government's disposition under a Republican leadership, the government is huge. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the government's employee count comes in at 1.8 million employees, and that doesn't include the postal service (Federal Government, Excluding the Postal Service). With 488 congressmen, and 15 cabinet member within the Bush administration, there is apparently a large amount of government presence. The point here is presidents are not the sole solution to the country's problems. They only manage, and if they manage instead of controlling the government, then they can indeed solve all the nation's problems.
Something that really stood out last night, was McCain pointing out that Obama was wrong about the surge in Iraq. Well, he wasn't wrong. Yesterday afternoon, General Petraeus talked about the future of U.S. Central Command, addressing the Association of the U.S. Army, and he mentioned the surge, and stated that the surge was in fact not the reason for success in Iraq. So would you believe a presidential candidate or the general who is running the war? Obama wasn't wrong. To add to this, Obama wants to deal with fighting al Qaeda in Pakistan, because that's where they are. They are not in Iraq, and Afghanistan is not the frontier of this war. Currently the U.S. military is carrying out military attacks within Pakistan's border, and this is all while George W. Bush is in office calling the shots. Which leads into the next point.
McCain also accused Obama of not understanding national security issues, and that if Obama was president, there would be no time for "on-the-job training". First off, neither candidate has any experience with contending with foreign threats, outside of making ineffective votes in the Senate. Both candidates supported a war in Iraq that was a pseudo-declaration based not on intelligence and fact, but based on suspicions. Because, when the Bush administration went to the United Nations for the case to go to war in Iraq, Bush expressed a need to go to war based on the suspicion that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, not a fact. No one in the intelligence sector felt that was an adequate truth, and it “was [now] a guiding principle of the U.S. government that suspicion was an adequate threshold for preventative action." (Suskind, Ron (2006). The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11. (pp. 170-171) New York. Simon & Schuster.) No one needs training to be a fear mongering, and suspicious character, or a leader that cannot responsibly deal with foreign policies.
As far as the economy is concerned, which is a very heavy issue right now with Americans, both candidates were a bit weak, and there was no real backbone behind their statements in dealing with economic issues. But Obama constantly gets slammed for wanting to raise taxes. but, there was a statement made by a CNN correspondent, who said that McCain has an axe chop when it comes to dealing with the economy, where as Obama uses a surgical knife to cut away taxes, and dealing with budgets. Currently we don't need a president who uses volatile policies on a volatile economy. Obama wants to increase taxes for those who bring in more than $250,000 a year. There are billions of people in America who don't even bring home over $100,000 a year. It seems that Obama is more aware of the economic make up of the U.S., and McCain is so far out of touch.
Consider these points! Also remember these are issues that the candidates support, but will not directly have control over. It must be realized that they will only steer the policies into the direction that the people see fit. The president only has as much power as the people sacrifice to him.
Get out and vote, and don't leave the control of your future in the hands of leaders who won't listen.
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