Alas, I’ll have to risk being dragged out and shot. I’ll take a page from that nitpicker Keith Burgess-Jackson and note two problems in the ML’s post:

(1) That a past history of non-voting implies anything about future conduct. This violates the ML’s own sometimes-Humean position. It also ignores the plentiful evidence on my blog that I’ve been seriously mulling voting this time around.

(2) The claim that I’m a single-issue voter is based on… what, exactly? Here, too, plentiful evidence on my blog is simply being ignored. What I’m looking for is a candidate who will be (a) a defense hawk, (b) somewhat wise about the economy (at least wiser than Bush has been) and (c) better on social issues than Bush. All of this is documented in some form or other on my blog.

So: Bush seemed like the better choice to me, until Edwards bopped along. Kerry has never been a plausible choice: too spineless, too Vietnam-obsessed, too Clinton-lite, too UN-happy. None of these traits is appealing. Edwards, in his personal convictions about gay marriage, isn’t much better than Bush, but he scores points on (a) a somewhat-federalist outlook re: gay marriage (and here I think he does better than Kerry), (b) a better vision of fiscal probity, and (c) most important to me (since my blog apparently didn’t make this obvious enough) he’s a defense hawk. If I were to boil everything down to one issue, then this would be it.

Bush has indeed expended a lot of “diplomatic capital” among us moderates. I was willing to think of him as a viable choice, but he’s not exactly doing the best job on the economy, nor has he articulated much of a vision for what’s to happen with the Koreas (somewhat relevant to me because of where I am right now), and he’s royally screwing up social issues. Bush no longer presents himself as all that palatable a choice.

So I hope that clears things up. If actual links to posts are needed to prove I’m concerned about more than one issue, I’ll be happy to provide them.

See you at the firing squad!

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