DNC - Tammy Duckworth Impresses

Tammy Duckworth, a candidate for the House in an Illinois district, just spoke at the DNC.  I must admit, she was quite impressive.  She is a former U.S. National Guard officer severely injured flying a Blackhawk in Baghdad.  I applaud her heroism.

She had one pointed criticism of the Romney-Ryan ticket - that Romney never mentioned Afghanistan in his acceptance speech.  Her criticism was wholly valid.  What to do with Afghanistan is a political hot potato.  That said, we are paying a President to lead, and with fighting men and women in Afghanistan, that is, morally, the single most important issue facing our next President.  That Romney sidestepped that issue is rightly condemnable.

Beyond that, Ms. Duckworth, without demonizing the right, expressed general, wholesale support for the welfare state.  I think she is misguided in that our entitlements, as they exist today, will break our national piggy bank and do not promote individual responsibility.  Those are both moral as well as pragmatic issues.  The rub is how to redesign the programs so that we can help people in there true times of need, how to redesign the programs so we don't bankrupt our country, how to redesign the programs so that people are encouraged to get off those programs as soon possible, and lastly, how to redesign the programs with unintended consequences in mind.

I don't know anything about Ms. Duckworth beyond my favorable first impressions.  Ms. Duckworth appears to be rational and willing to address facts.  That makes her a unique commodity on the left.            

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