Why Elections Matter

John McCain and other Republican leaders are up in arms this week, criticizing Obama for shaking hands with Raul Castro at Nelson Mandela's funeral. Perhaps the Republicans expected the President of the United States to give the Cuban President a menacing look, call him a commie pinko, and refuse to join the funeral proceedings until the "baddie" agreed to leave. Or in other words, how the GOP behaves in Congress.

But someone please explain how it's a bad message to shake hands with your adversary at the funeral of Nelson Mandela, a man almost universally lauded for his ability to forgive and embrace the very people who imprisoned him for 27 years. If you can't be civil at Nelson Mandela's funeral, doesn't it probably mean that you just aren't capable of civility? McCain even had the nerve to compare this handshake to Chamberlain shaking hands with Hitler in the runup to WWII. As if the tiny, impoverished nation of Cuba is some sort of global threat to peace and prosperity. 

This is one reason why elections matter. Had McCain won the Presidency in 2008, US troops wouldn't now be out of Iraq and their presence winding down in Afghanistan. We'd still be fighting both wars. And we would quite likely also be at war in Iran, Syria, and Egypt right now, with all the accompanying loss of blood and treasure. 

Because, after all, history tells us that diplomacy never works (or maybe that's just what FOX News says). Except of course, it often does work, like during the Cuban Missile Crisis when diplomacy prevented a nuclear war, or the Cold War, which ended peacefully without bloodshed between the two super powers.