In the wake of the terrorist attacks, he did a very brave thing, a very patriotic thing... he joined the militNO WAIT he wrote a country song.

There's sort of a double witching going on right now with the 60th anniversary of the Normandy invasion and the death of Ronald Reagan. Naturally, comparisons between W & the Gipper were going to be part of today's interviews, but I was appalled at some of the parallels being drawn. First, they both acted on moral principle, Reagan for the Cold War, and Bush for the War on Terrorism. That's all fine and dandy and all, but as I recall, Reagan's deficit financing is what ended up bankrupting the Soviet Union into submission. Also, the Soviet people themselves really wanted no part of communism. Now, we're dealing with a terrorist group that's privately funded through oil-based riches, and are backed a culture of people who seem to think that terrorizing the infidel enemy is a perfectly reasonable mode of operation. So the praise being lavished upon Bush for taking the same approach as Reagan did is flawed given that they're tackling two very different issues.

Even Gore managed to point it out: in a rally he talked about how the nation responded to Pearl Harbor by attacking Japan, not Indonesia, and obvious barb at Bush's plan of attacking Afghanistan and Iraq when the suicide bombers were all Saudis. But this highlights the new complexities involved in an unwinnable War on Terrorism: there are no neatly-drawn boundary lines delineating who you attack and who you don't. Gore has it wrong, too.

Now, I'm a big fan of the Ronald Reagan story. He accomplished a lot more in his life than most boys from Iowa, most boys from anywhere, and he was a professional pundit. He knew how to speak to the people. Reagan, too, led to the democratization of the Philippines which, while I was in America at the time, is an important issue for members of my family who are still there most of all, as well as being a fundamental right to all countries.

However, the approach by which Reagan beat the Soviets set the country's finances back about a decade, but that was the style of the times. The 1980's were all about excess. But balancing the budget in times of war requires a nationwide sacrifice that I don't believe this country is willing to make. The 1940's and the 2000's should be no different in mentality, but yet America seems to view the war in Iraq as just another world event. We, as a nation, tend to be oblivious to very important issues that are occurring abroad.

Take, for instance, the fact that a German chancellor is participating in the D-Day Commemoraton events. This might seem to be a minor token; celebrities through out first pitches all the time. Yet, here are two nations who have been at each other's throats throughout much of their history. And ever since the breakup of the Roman Empire, many years have passed. It's long freaking history.

War requires the nation's full attention, and I feel that W has sorely failed at rallying the nation around his cause. Could it be because he alienated people through his other issues? I don't know.

More on my adventures in West Virginia later...