I agree, Clinton was different then other Democrats. Gore and Kerry are a bunch of sissy la las, I also agree with you there. Like you say though, both parties are only different in rhetoric, but when push comes to shove, they end up doing the exact same thing--or close. There is still a tiny bit of difference between the two, but there is so much comprimise and everything else that nothing is done, and everyone simply conforms out of fear of innovation and new enterprise. I don't think low gas prices are superior to defense, quite the opposite. The defense industry realizes that fuel efficiency is the way of the future, and if U.S. automakers and the public actually cared about gasoline efficiency, we could have had the technology years ago, not in simply hybrids, but in biomass and tons of other technologies. It is not some conspiracy, it is simply massive shared ignorance and short term thinking, that is it. If our cars were more efficient, we would have larger federal reserves and it would increase our defensive capabilities. The Middle East would be strangled to death, as we could theoretically thereafter get most of our oil from deep sea drilling. Then, all that money we save on gas could be invested in our personal economy, which would give the government even greater power, and further increase defensive capabilities in the first place! We could even redo our highways with all that money and increase efficiency further! Cars could be converted in two or three years with only 50 billion dollars for personal automakers to invest in new tech, it would have been much cheaper and much more effective at spreading long term freedom then the war in Iraq. Toyota has only spent 7 billion on all its hybrid cars to date, if we had used the money from the scraped comanche, u.s. automakers could have had three times as many hybrids. That is barely even the tip of the iceberg. And the hybrids we have today are nothing--a common rail diesal hybrid electric can get 50mpg and have more power then a normal SUV on the market today. It would be easy and cheap to develop these vehicles, but they are ignored. Why is that?

And most of those troops you speak of that are in Iraq right now have to come home sometime. The military is having problems recruiting now, and supplies are weakened. We are already HAVE to pull out some troops now and rotate levels all the time. The military is being pushed to its limits as it is. And gas would go through the roof if Iran invaded, it would be worse then the 70s I bet.