I attended an event today at which Koch was the keynote speaker. This dude is a WWII veteran, and so he is like 85 years old now. Today he spoke about some of his takes on the current political landscape. He is a very rambunctious man, a very proto-typical "New Yorker," which I've always admired from those folks. And he's very funny. Get this: He actually and intentionally dropped an F-Bomb at the end of his address, which most in attendance found to be utterly hilarious (it was the punch line to a story he told to close out his speech).Anyway, the main reason I'm blogging about this is because of some very admirable statements that Koch made during his address. He flat out said, "I'm a liberal democrat," but it was also clear that he has a lot of criticism and problems with the current regime in power in Washington. He said that he's just as much about "common sense" as he is tied to his democrat roots. One of his best proclamations, in observing how Washington has gone very wrong these days, was to say, "If you don't have the money, then you can't spend it!" He also questioned why we are trying to nation-build in Afghanistan when our enemy is currently located in Pakistan -- his message there was basically, get the boys off the ground and out of Afghanistan, and "bomb the hell" out of the locations where we think Al Qaeda and Osama may be located in Pakistan.
But I won't ramble on too long here -- I was impressed by some of the independence of thought exhibited by Koch. He struck me as a guy very devoted to his party, but also not afraid to criticize it when it's going off the tracks. We could use a lot more of the same from dems and repubs in this country.
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