Oh dear.

So I'm going to write about politics here, and I won't make a habit of it. Until recently I've occupied a corner of the fashionable apathetic tent. I do want to comment, though on what I find to be puzzling, and that's all this vitriol directed at John McCain.

It's baffling to me that McCain, whose recent political career contains instances of *gasp!* working with democrats, can't be trusted precisely on those grounds. This is crazy talk. One of the things that has moved me to stand outside of the apathetic tent is the possibility that there will be a candidate on the ballot in November who is thinking in terms of progress, and not entirely ideology. Politics in this country has to be pragmatic to a degree, and that's the lesson of the last sixteen years. Dynastic politics comes with divisive philosophical commitments, cronyism, and other skull-and-bones BS. That thinking has gotten us nowhere - people are still poor, our schools are still suffering, kids can't get the health care they need because costs too much (!), our soldiers can't get the care they need when returning from war, we're still arguing about abortion instead of dealing with the issues at the root of the problem, and so on, and so on.

Here's the thing. No Joe American wins when ideology is driving political choices, either by the administration or party in power or by the factions of people in this country who are similarly motivated. It seems like it's time to start solving problems - from what I can tell, John McCain and Barack Obama (or "Oback Arama" as one reader of this blog mistakenly mentioned one night) are the only candidates who have the sense and credibility to make progress. And it's high time politics in America focuses on some pragmatic mix of philosophy and progress.