While I enjoy listening to him on sports, and reading him on politics: Charlie Pierce can sometimes be a blowhard (more often in sports) and holds grudges he should let go of.
Today is the finest essay he's ever written, after the jump ....
The world of tennis has one of the greatest terms ever invented: "unforced errors". And that is what has often bothered me about the Obama/Biden administration - not what the GOP has done, but what they've done to themselves. And this election, I've not made a campaign contribution to them.
Still, I never wavered in believing I would vote to re-elect them. And Charlie describes - in an essay you must read in its entirety - why he is not voting for the Green Party candidate, despite a friendship with her and many, many more misgivings about Barack Obama than I ever had:
However, I am casting my vote for him (again) because of something that Dr. Jill Stein said the other night on TV, when she was being interviewed in the wake of that third-party candidates debate that Larry King hosted. I've known Jill socially for some time, and I admire her, and I agree with her on a marginally greater percentage of the issues than I do with the president. I think a lot of the snark aimed her way is unjustified.
And I might have (voted for her) had Jill not gone on TV and talked about how those people who are voting for the incumbent president simply to make sure that Willard Romney is not president are doing so out of "fear."
Horse hockey. It is not fear. It is simple, compelling logic. It is vitally important that the Republican party be kept away from as much power as possible until the party regains its senses again.
Again, even if you've made up your mind not to vote, or vote Green or write-in:
read this essay - at the very least, he will explain why many of us are doing something you cannot fathom.