My dad mentioned to me a while back that Paul Wolfowitz was a childhood friend of his, all the way from elementary school through high school, IIRC, and they both went to Cornell for their undergraduate degrees.
Now, for those of you who don’t know my dad, he’s a professor, and a liberal Democrat. Paul Wolfowitz is Deputy Secretary of Defense, reporting to Rumsfeld, a so-called “neoconservative”, and is credited as being one of the prime advocates for invading Iraq, even before the 9/11 attacks.
How is it that these two boys, who grew up as friends in Ithaca New York, ended up having such a divergent view of the world?
I guess I don’t really have a great world-altering point to this, but I think for me it helps to ground the fact that the people that we read about on the news…they’re just normal people, ya know? And it means that we’re not that far removed from the decisions that people like Wolfowitz are making on our behalf. Just like my dad, these people make mistakes sometimes, except with far more severe consequences.
Even though there are only 3 degrees of separation from between me and George W. Bush (me –> Dad –> Wolfowitz –> Bush) I would like to endorse John Kerry for president. I hope especially that if you are in a swing state, you will realize the enormous harm the current administration has done to our economy, the deficit, our standing in the world, how it has botched the war on terror and the war in Iraq, and vote accordingly.
Groveronline 