Reading this article about servicemen and women who are losing their children because they answered the call to serve their country just saddened me.  The family court judges say they are only thinking of the child’s best interests, and in some ways I can understand that, but unless the military parent is proven to be unfit then they should get their children back.  It’s just wrong to take children away from the custodial parent just because they’ve been away serving their country.  Moreover, if I can piss off a few people, it speaks volumes about the sacrifice our servicemen and women are making fighting in President Bush’s war.  I mean, these men and women understand that putting their lives on the line is part of the job, but they shouldn’t lose their children because they were following orders.

This Newsweek article about what they refer to as “Iconic Republicans” thinking of leaving the party, or at the very least voting Democrat in 2008, is very interesting. These so-called iconic Redpublicans are the granddaughter of Dwight D. Eisnhower, the great-grandson of Teddy Roosevelt, and daughter of Barry Goldwater and they’re less than thrilled with President Bush and the party as a whole; moreover, they are hearing from many of their moderate Republican friends that 2008 is going to be a difficult election if the candidates are about nothing more than the status quo.  Anyone who’s ever been a Republican or researched the history of Conservatism should understand what these people are feeling.  Under President Bush, the Republican Party has sacrificed most of its ideals for the sake of power and it’s not something they can sustain, even with the far right.  The party’s reliance on the far right to win them elections is turning off moderate voters, and moderate Republicans in particular.  They risk losing the very people who actually make up a greater majority of their party. 

Now, when it comes right down to election time those are who die-hard Republicans, and Democrats for that matter, tend to vote for their party and as one person in the article pointed out rally around their leader.  However, I would be surprised if, as we get closer to the election, we don’t see more and more candidates distancing themselves from President Bush, or at the very least his policies.  In the end, they may have no choice.