Tophat665

That's two party politics for you. In order for the people who I do respect most to have maximum effect, it seems reasonable to me to support what otherwise might be some pretty awful folks. Joe Lieberman is another one who I might find myself forced to support at some point, even though I think the difference between him and Dubya are a haircut and one old dead hippy. Will I like it? No. Would I vote for a Republican? While I can envision circumstances in which that might be a viable action for me to take, in the current climate, polarized as it is, I do not see how those circumstances could come about in the next twenty years.

Now, as for why I respect or don't respect some of these folks:
Olympia Snow, Connie Morella, Lowell Weiker, and Jim Jeffords have been willing to tell their party (which I believe to have he wrong vision for this country) that it was wrong on occasion, and Jeffords even had the balls to back it up.

Dwight Eisenhower was a general, so he has the defense of country in the last meaninful war in which we were involved in his favor, but he recognized and spoke about the dangers of the "Military Industrial Complex. You hear that phrase so much from fringe leftists these days that it's easy to forget it's Ike's.

Abraham Lincoln kept the country whole.

Quentin Kendall has personal honor in spades.

Now, as for Clark, I respect his shrewdness in seeing that another Republican would be a viable alternative to Bush, but that he needed to challenge from the Democratic side to stand a chance of winning. I don't think it's a big chance, but I would vote for him if it came up. Further, it seems to me that Kosovo remains a pointful and successful operation, pretty well carried out. He has been plain spoken and direct, and able to change his mind when better ideas occurred or were presented him before, but, as his early poll performance has show, that doesn't play so well , so he has changed his style to suit. Frankly, I think he would make a fine Secretary of Defense.

That covers Republicans I respect, but that's as much time as I want to spend on it at the moment. Perhaps more later.

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