(I’ll get back to my regularly scheduled Day In The Life meanderings in a moment. But right now, I need to talk politics. You know what to do if you hate what you’re reading: respond intelligently or just do this.)

Believe me, I’m all for a change from the two party system. Two parties alone cannot possibly represent the feelings and interests of such a diverse electorate. But the Green Party in and of itself isn’t necessarily the answer. Nor is bitterly diving the Democratic party during a close, high-stakes presidential election, as happened in 2000.

But here we are. It’s 2004, and time to make some changes. It’s time to consider who Mr. Nader put into power.

I just don’t see how the American people can read articles such as this, and not want to march, fundraise, and vote this man out of power. He lied to us last year, folks, and now his entire administration is back-peddling, trying to blame the “intelligence community” for giving the president bad information about WMD in Iraq and the never proven Hussein/Al Qaeda link. But that’s like saying it’s not Jimmy’s fault that he beat the shit out of Tommy, because Mary and Suzy told him Tommy was bad. Jimmy didn’t know better. Maybe Jimmy was motivated by bad information, but does that absolve him from the responsibility of his actions? No.

If we are to believe what the president and his flaks are saying now about the erroneous reasons we spent millions of dollars and lost thousands of human lives (at least 3000 Iraqi civilian and 519 US military – most of those casualities occuring after he declared an end to the fighting on May 1, 2003) in the war in Iraq, it was because George W. Bush didn’t know any better. And this is who is running our country.

Forget for a moment that he’s eroding a woman’s right to medical privacy and choice so that when your wife is abducted from the mall and brutally raped by a paroled sex-offender with AIDS and carrying a genetic deformity which he will pass to his offspring, (rendering that child a vegetable upon birth and threatening the life of the woman carrying it), that she will be forced to carry this pregnancy to term and perhaps not survive — Forget for a moment he has turned a record budget surplus into a massive trillion-dollar deficit, the likes of which we haven’t seen in this country since, well, ever — Forget that, after eight years of prosperity, the economy is -dare I say – recessed such that job growth continues to stagnate while unemployment rates slightly drop only because people are giving up even looking for jobs. — Forget even that his ‘No Child Left Behind’ law will actually leave thousands, perhaps millions, of children behind by creating budget shortfalls.

No, just focus on this: George W. Bush either a) lied about whether Iraq truly posed an immediate threat to the U.S. or b) blindly trusted sources of intelligence – that he now disavows – and used the information from these sources to convince the American people to support this war, because he didn’t know any better. Doesn’t our country deserve leadership that will do its own homework?

Come on folks. Know better. Don’t give this guy a second term.

Incidentally, here’s how:

Head over to Ralph Don’t Run to send Ralph Nader a polite note asking him not to run in the upcoming election.

After that, go to MoveOn.org and their related site Misleader.org to access a plethora of information on the missteps of this current administration, and a squillion easy ways to actively participate in the campaign to give George a pink slip.

And click here watch the Bush in 30 Seconds Contest’s winning ad, and protest CBS’ blantant censorship. I sure miss the First Amendment, don’t you?

Then, plan to march with us on April 25, 2004. The March For Women’s Lives in D.C. will make history, and show the quiet majority of pro-choice, pro-family Americans out there that they are not alone.

Most importantly, REGISTER TO VOTE and then do it. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to your country.