an actual reason to thank the president

2006-04-25 - 3:24 p.m.

Last night I got a last-minute invite to a political lecture by Christine Todd Whitman. I know, voluntarily going to hear a republican would normally mean signing up to get my blood roiling.

Instead, it got my head roiling.

Don't get me wrong, there were many points on which I disagreed with her. There were even points on which I thought she was being rather misleading or evasive. So don't worry, I've not changed sides.

Not by her talk anyway. But something she said got me thinking about how my positions have changed over the last few years.

She's a republican but is pro-choice. She's what the other elephants are now calling a RINO...a republican in name only. Her talk focused on the need for democrats and republicans alike to focus more of their attentions on the moderates of the nation, a vastly overlooked population that has the power to swing elections. Instead, both parties are creating more focus on the extremes and the centrists are left feeling disenfranchised and are more and more often removing themselves from the process because they don't feel either side represents them.

Well, I have to agree with much of that. (of course, being a lifelong opponent of the 2-party system means I keep repeating my mantra that 2 parties never could represent even a fraction of such a diverse population, but I digress [no surprise, I know])

It's been years since I last took assessments of my political standing. I was routinely popping up in the centrist category, sometimes slightly edging into libertarian.

But what happens in any argument? Think about it. Someone's really pissed you off and adheres strongly to view X. That makes you far more inclined to argue against X, even if it might have some merits, or if your real belief lies somewhere in between. Greys dissolve and you look for more ways to contrast your point of view with theirs. You almost take the devil's advocate approach with someone who's being nasty and argumentative.

And what's happened over the course of this administration? I've been pissed off, disenfranchised, told I'm going to hell, and felt like everything I believe in and want for myself, my country and the world is being trampled over.

So that led me to last night's hypothesis that I've probably become far more liberal thanks to the efforts of Georgie boy and his cohorts.

Today, to test my hypothesis, I retook some of those same political tests. And sure enough, I'm consistently coming out somewhere to the left of Gandhi and the Dalai Lama.

So Georgie, I imagine the dems and libertarians will be sending their thank you notes to you any day now for creating a far more active, vocal and enraged liberal.

Pretend it's 10th grade. Leave me a note.

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