Bill Clinton. Wow! (and Joe was there too)

This afternoon, at the Valley Forge Military Academy, President Bill Clinton spoke to several hundred supporters at a rally for Joe Sestak. It was one of those rare campaign events where a hardworking candidate momentarily ceased to be the center of attention. Instead, the candidate joined the audience and reveled at the easy with which Bill Clinton spoke to all our hearts and minds. It was as though I was hearing my very own thoughts on how the world worked, but far more eloquently than it normally sounds in my head.

Bill Clinton spoke about the differences between people with a political philosophy as opposed to an ideology. The philosophical ones will listen to an opposing argument and can be swayed by evidence. The ideological ones think they already know the answer and ignore facts to the contrary as inconvenient to their world view. Clinton addressed the Bush adminstration's concept of reality by refering to Ron Suskind's article on the subject:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Let's examine how the Bush reality has held up to the real reality where we actually live:
Iraqis greeted us with flowers as liberators and igniting a passion for Democracy that spread like fire through the Mid-East.
Iraqis greeted us as occupiers and we ignited sectarian violence and resulting in many actual fires.
Invading Iraq has made the world safer
Invading Iraq has made the world less safe
The levies will hold. Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job.
Satellite weather and live TV broadcasts showed the people suffering while the government sat idle. Brownie failed miserably.
Rick Santorum: Rumsfeld is doing a fine job. Bush is a terrific President.
Me: What color is the sky in Rick's world? Here on planet Earth, it is blue. Just like the next PA Senate seat.

Who in this campaign has ignored the REALITY and FACTS about Able Danger, WMD, justifications for Iraq, threat of global climate change, and wisdom of tax cuts to the rich while funding a war? I'll give you a hint: it's the soon to be ex-congressman from the 7th district.

Today, seeing Bill Clinton and Joe Sestak talking about important issues, brought home the stark reality of the poor representation we currently have in Washington and the representation we used to have and can have again.

The reality we need to remember is that we have to vote for change to get change.