I am a veteran, have served as an officer in two of the world's great navies, and for most of my life have been a slightly right of center life member of the Republican Party

Yet, I have now voted twice for Barack Obama and if Hilary Clinton runs in 2016, I will continue to vote for the Democrats for the indefinite future.

Why? This month and in next month's Eccentric, I will outline five key elements in my decision-making process: Wars, Finances, Witch Hunts, Civility and Obama himself.

**Wars**

George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz, and their Neocon friends have led our country into two disastrous wars at the wrong time, in the wrong places and for the wrong reasons.

They knowingly and willfully misused intelligence to justify an invasion of Iraq, even though there were no WMDs and never, ever, any al Quai'da in Iraq.

The 19 people who committed the 911 atrocities weren't based in Iraq. They were a small cadre of extremists, on a shoestring budget, led and operating from training centers in Afghanistan and other places, like Kuala Lumpur, where they met from time to time.

The appropriate response to 911 was not a global "war on terrorism," but straightforward counter terrorism and criminal investigation, jobs for which our Special Forces and CIA alone could and should have been the sole protagonists, along with the early air strikes from our Navy carriers into the Afghanistan terrorist training centers.

The great irony, and indeed tragedy, of the Iraq invasion is that it actually enabled al Quai'da to enter Iraq, and exploit the sectarian violence and social disarray caused by Paul Bremer's incredibly foolish mistake in disbanding the Iraqi army – the one bulwark against both sectarian and al Quai'da penetration.

The Bush administration willfully misrepresented the facts in justifying their actions to the world – with Colin Powell presenting totally bogus images to the United Nations of what most of us in the intelligence community knew was false information. If he had been under oath he would have been charged with perjury.

Behind him at the UN sat the lackey and eminence grise that George Bush used to manipulate Colin Powell, George Tenet, the CIA Director who muzzled his own people. Colin Powell has seen the error of his ways, and he too has changed horses – unable to live with what he did.

**Finance**

Many of us saw the financial crisis of 2008 coming long before 2005.

The Bush team, in the name of "compassionate conservatism" and "houses for all" abandoned all restraint on credit, allowing mortgage brokers and financiers to make hay until the day of reckoning hit us all.

At the same time Bush and his team were waging two wars on credit, funding one Supplement after another to the Defense Budget, and spending enormous sums on "nation building" while our own economy was going down the tubes.

**Witch Hunts**

Though a Republican, I have always supported certain critical social programs like social security, Medicare, education, roads, bridges, the FAA, and of course national defense and law enforcement.

For some in my old party these programs constitute stalking horses for "godless" or worse "European socialism."

American Democrats are about as removed from European socialism as Mother Theresa was from Genghis Khan.

The socialism we fear is the socialism of total state control of the means of production – nationalization in all its many forms – everything from the railways to the car industry.

Providing school, roads, hospitals, and pensions for the old is NOT socialism – they are accepted services performed by any modern state that cares for the basic needs of its people.

Health care and national defense are not unrelated in my book.

Is the Obama program perfect? Absolutely not, but it is a beginning.

The Republicans' now traditional stances toward social security and Medicare are also completely out of phase with the views of the vast majority of the American people.

Reversing or even seriously tinkering with the New Deal will garner about as much support for the GOP as taking the vote away from women, and waving goodbye to civil rights after long fought battles.

Next month, we conclude with a discussion of "civility" and Obama himself.