It’s almost mind-numbing to hear John McCain and Sarah “Putridly Perky” Palin go on and on about how the Obama campaign is living in the past, how the Obama campaign is thinking they want to run against the Bush administration and how the McCain/Palin ticket is a mechanism for change. John McCain and Sarah Palin regurgitate the mantra that they are thinking of the future, that solutions are found in the future and the past is not where we should look for answers. While that mantra may look good on paper, sound good to those who are blinded by partisan politics and lead the faithful to cheers of “John McCain”, the reality is that John McCain and Sarah Palin are the ones who are truly “living in the past.”

Take a deep breath, exhale and then here comes the pragmatic reminder of John McCain’s service to his country, in specific, his former status as a prisoner of war at the “Hanoi Hilton” during the Vietnam War. McCain can’t get through a single speech without using that POW crutch in attempt to solidify his “loyalty to country” and his honour. Should voters empathize with his former predicament and believe “That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger”, an old analogy that McCain would have us adhere to? Has he forgotten, “those who fail to study the past are doomed to repeat it”, another old analogy that McCain and Palin see as weakness in their competition?

Running a bombing mission over another country, a mission that would inadvertandly kill numerous civilians - men, women and children - is a risky business in itself. Now that Communism has fallen, the cold war is over and America has set it’s sights on a new enemy, an enemy McCain would seek “victory” over, why would he continually harken back to his prisoner of war experience as a foundation for his campaign?

As Americans, if we fail to study the past and study what conditions have produced the current economic recession as well as past recessions, we are doomed to repeat the past, without hope for any future. Our current indulgence in a “territorial war” in Iraq is costing this country trillions of dollars, not to mention a horrific loss of life on both sides. These scars will take generations to heal, diplomacy will take generations to mend, yet the real toll is still uncertain.

The cost of “victory”, as McCain puts it, has a price, the question we must ask ourselves as Americans is are we ready to look at the past and find solid solutions to the problems we are facing?