super tuesday thoughts

so, i will be off later today to vote in the primary, and for once it will mean something. my good friend (and sorkin pal) meredith sent me a wonderful piece she wrote, and i feel the need to share it with y'all:

Hello my fellow friends and family - thought you might be interested in what I came up with at 11:30pm last night when I couldn't sleep:

My version of the (almost) perfect world. It's simplistic and idealistic, I know, but whatever. It's my (almost) perfect world. It is what I say it is. FYI - I limited myself to the "real" world, so while I would like to see a female president in my lifetime, I don't think there's anyone in U.S. politics right now that really fits the bill (and that includes Billary) and therefore I had a choose a different "perfect" president.

Enjoy!


In my (almost) perfect world, Al Gore would be president. Because we need a president who already has an Oscar, an Emmy and a Nobel Peace Prize. We need someone who actually cares about more than his (or her) political agendas.

John Edwards and Barack Obama would be Co-Vice Presidents. Because in my (almost) perfect world, I say two people can get twice as much done. Then maybe the VEEP wouldn't be such a do-nothing position.

Bill Richardson would be Secretary of Energy and Joe Biden would be Secretary of State. Mike Gravel would have some kind of Cabinet job because I like crazy Alaskans.

The Clintons would drop out of public life and retire to fight with each other for all eternity.

The Axis of Evil - Bush, Cheney and Rove - would be in jail in The Hague, on trial in the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The county would discover that, in a wonderful little twist of irony, Larry Craig and Rick Santorum have been having a secret affair for years.

All overtly radical right-wing media would be shut down - Rupert Murdoch would be bankrupt, Bill-O and Rush Limbaugh would be forced off the air and have permanent pieces of duck tape slapped across their mouths.

Education would be free and universal all the way through high school. Schools would be palaces, with the best equipment and technology. Competition for teachers would be fierce. Teachers would have passion and high salaries. There would be a national curriculum that still gives each state, school district and school its own flexibility and creativity. Classes would emphasize world history and culture, languages, math, literature, science, art and music. Creationism would be laughed at and everyone would recognize Darwin and evolution.
Every single citizen would have free and quality health care. No one would ever be turned down for coverage based on their ability to pay. Prescriptions for seniors and low-income citizens would be covered by health care and no one would ever have to choose between paying rent or buying medicine. Preventative care would help stop most emergency cases before they became emergencies. Stem-cell research would thrive and flourish and medical professionals would have all the funding they needed to eradicate diseases.

There would be no threats to a woman's right to choose. Abortions would be safe and legal (as they mostly are now) and free from radical attacks. Schools would be required to teach more than abstinence only in sex ed classes. And with the proper education about safe and effective birth control, abortions and teen/unwanted pregnancies would be less frequent because people would actually use the birth control.

Marriage would be possible for any two people who wanted to get married, regardless of their gender. Gay and lesbian couples would be afforded the same rights and privileges as any hetrosexual couple. "Family values" would actually value the family, in any form the family happened to take.

The U.S. would ratify the Kyoto Protocol and take serious and significant steps to reverse global warming and protect the environment. American cars would have better gas mileage, people would strive to reduce their own carbon footprints and the naysayers would be silenced. ANWR would be protected from drilling and the U.S. would develop alternative energy sources and ween itself off Middle Eastern oil.

There would be no such thing as the NRA and the U.S. would have strict gun control laws. It would be nearly impossible for anyone (besides law enforcement officials and the military) to own or buy a gun. Wal-Mart and Kmart wouldn't be allowed to sell bullets.

The War in Iraq would end. The U.S. and its allies would defeat the Taliban and Al Queda in Afghanistan and establish stable local governments (i.e. governments made up of the people of that country, not U.S. military forces) in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The U.S. would devise of policy to diplomacy over war and would never again invade a sovereign nation that had not attacked us first. It would use the military to help with humanitarian missions, esp. in Darfur (and possibly in Kenya and Chad).

There would be a multi-nation, multi-religion world peace summit to address issues and problems, especially in the Middle East. While world peace may not be achieved in my (almost) perfect world, the U.S. would at least try to get fighting countries to listen to each other. A real effort would be made to establish a Palestinian state. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wouldn't be allowed to speak publicly unless he had something constructive and helpful to say. Radicals and/or fundamentalists of ANY religion who would seek to harm people whose faith disagreed with theirs would not be tolerated.

No one, in any part of the world, would be discriminated against based on race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, or political views.

And Britney Spears would finally get her act together and behave like an adult and mother, but no one would be paying attention because they're all too busy with more important things.