Unmoved

John McCain's and Sarah Palin's speeches at the Republican convention have helped me make up my mind: I'm (probably) voting for Obama/Biden.

Don't get me wrong. I didn't think McCain or Palin gave bad speeches. I thought they were both good. In fact, I thought Palin's in particular was sizzling! Her intelligence and charm were evident, and her attacks on Obama particularly effective.

In fact, it's not because the speeches were bad that I was convinced to vote for Obama. It's because they were excellent. Because, despite the excellent speeches, I went to bed last night and the night before still unmoved by the Republican message or agenda. It's not enough to keep saying that the United States of America is a great place and is strong. And ecstatic cheers from a partisan crowd do nothing to convince me of an argument (The same can be said, by the way, for the Democratic nominees. Obama's speech at the stadium made for good theater, but it was the points he made, not the venue or the crowd, that convinced me.).

So barring some shocking piece of news about Obama or Biden, or an absolute knockout punch in the debates, I will be pulling the lever for the Democrats in November.

Still on the election but on a different note, a few days ago I posted that I thought Palin would be a real drag on McCain's ticket, eventually costing him the election. You might wonder if I sheepishly want to eat my words after the rousing speech she gave two days ago and the glowing praise that speech earned from all but the most liberal-leaning members of the media.

The answer is no.

Not yet anyway.

And here's the reason why: When I heard about the McCain choice of Palin as Vice-President, I had what felt like a hand in my back pushing me to complain about it. I can't explain it. It was an almost spiritual experience, like it was God pushing me. I guess the feeling I got would be the same feeling someone would have if, while standing at the overlook of Niagra Falls, a friend said, "You know, I'm pretty sure I can fly, and I'm going to give it a try now." Before you can say anything everyone around the person is sincerely saying, "Yes, I believe you can fly, too. Give it a try." It's a feeling of insistent panic. Like I said, as if God is pushing you to do something.

I've had that feeling before, but not often. The last time I had it was on the eve of our invasion of Iraq. I remember standing in the kitchen at Vent Haven with Lisa, and I had just a sense of agitation all about me. Lisa could read it in my body language. "What's wrong with you?" she asked me.

"I'm so upset," I said as I practically jogged in place, "because I KNOW--I just KNOW--that this invasion of Iraq is a mistake. And it's driving me crazy because I am completely, absolutely, and wholly unable to do anything about it." I almost had tears in my eyes when I said, "I've just got a bad feeling about this."

"Why?" Lisa asked me. "What do you think is going to happen?"

"Well," I told her, "if Saddam DOES have weapons of mass destruction--which he doesn't--but if he does--he's not going to go out without a fight. Hundreds or thousands of American soldiers are going to be killed by him. And if he DOESN'T have weapons of mass destruction--which he doesn't--here is what's going to happen..." I then described for her pretty much what has happened over the last five years, right down to the Iraqi army melting into the populace, and a guerrilla war being fought in the cities, to the covert involvement in the war by Iraq's Shiite neighbors, to the mounting casualties and the years--not months, as many were predicting at the time, but years--that we would be involved in what would amount to a civil war we'd be unable to extricate ourselves from.

When I finished she said, "Okay, if you're so smart, how's it all going to end then?"

"We'll find some reason," I told her, "some token reason for getting out of there. It won't be anything really. It will just be a token. Maybe the Iraqi government will hold free elections, or the Iraqi police force will arrest some terrorists, and at that point we'll declare victory and get the hell out. And six months after we leave cracks will show in Iraq's democratic veneer, and in two years the whole government will have collapsed and the country will no longer be a country and will have fallen into chaos. Most likely the country of Iraq will cease to exist and three new nations will arise, with the northern provinces ruled by the Kurds, a wealthy, central area ruled by Sunnis with Baghdad as its center, and a southern section that either becomes its own Shiite state or else becomes part of Iran. It'll take decades for the region to recover, and the prospect of real peace in the Middle East will have been destroyed for a generation."

Did I mention I'm an optimist?

Anyway, I guess my prediction wasn't completely accurate, because there have been plenty of token accomplishments when we could have left and we're still there. But I got a lot of it right.

I'm not bragging about my prescient powers, nor arguing that my two semesters of political science in my undergraduate studies 20 years ago have prepped me for a job at the state department. What I'm getting at is this: On April 9, 2003, when the U.S. Army marched into Baghdad with hardly any casualties at all, and when the U.S. soldiers toppled the big statue of Saddam in the public square, I was watching on television with my English classes (No, it's not English related, but this was history in the making!), and as I saw the Iraqi citizens cheering the U.S. soldiers, one thought entered my mind: I was completely wrong. That strong feeling I had the night before the invasion wasn't clarity or clairvoyance or anything. It was just a feeling.

Later, of course, I found out that I was more right than I knew then. And that's what I think will happen with this Sarah Palin thing, too. It seems I'm completely wrong. It seems she's the savior of the Republican party. It seems she can do no wrong, and that John McCain is a frigging GENIUS to have selected her.

We'll see.