Opinion: , Recommended Reading:

I will vote today...

...and despite snarky comments on undecided voters this late in the election cycle out there in blogworld, I still have not decided which way to vote. I am voting today to make sure my absentee ballot gets back to Texas from France early enough to count. I am taking this decision seriously and do not want to vote based upon an immediate, emotional reaction, despite the fact that regardless of how I vote Texas will give its electoral votes to Bush.

Daniel Drezner has the same quandary as I regarding this election. I am troubled by many of Kerry's statements on foreign policy, but I am appalled at how the Bush administration has handled foreign policy after Afghanistan. I have written before about the inability of the Bush administration and George W. Bush personally to admit mistakes, which in itself is a critical if not terminal mistake. Drezner's discussion encapsulates neatly all of these issues:

Given the foreign policy stakes in this election, I prefer a leader who has a good decision-making process, even if his foreign policy instincts are skewed in a direction I don't like, over a leader who has a bad decision-making process, even if his foreign policy instincts are skewed in a direction I do like.

If Bush gets re-elected, he and his team will view it as a vindication for all of their policy decisions to date. Whatever groupthink occurred in the first term would pale besides the groupthink that would dominate the second term. Given the tactical and strategic errors in judgment that this administration has made, I have to lean towards Kerry.

Even though it's long, the entire post (including the addenda) is well worth reading.

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Thanks to the Moderate Voice for the link.