Arkin hearts Richardson

Sorry about the lack of posts this weekend, but I just turned 25, so I decided to focus on birthday cake instead of blogging. Got a pretty sweet Canon SD1000 to replace my old S330. Letting the well-travelled, old clunker go is a little sad, but I think the new camera's seven megapixels of photographic goodness will help me get over it.

Onto to the news: After a long period of opinion estrangement, Bill Arkin and I appear to be back on the same page:

Now read how Bill Richardson handled the question of new nuclear warheads: "We do not need a new generation of nuclear weapons," he says, speaking as a former Energy secretary. "Under my administration, we will lead the world toward the reduction of nuclear arsenals, not their augmentation," he writes.

And then he tied it together with other objectives to make it real: "The Non-Proliferation Treaty commits non-nuclear states to forego nuclear weapons, and it also commits the nuclear weapons states to the goal of nuclear disarmament. Too often, this aspect of the Treaty is forgotten. In order to get others to take the NPT seriously, we need to take it seriously ourselves. We should re-affirm our commitment to the long-term goal of global nuclear disarmament, and we should invite the Russians to join us in a moratorium on all new nuclear weapons. And we should negotiate further staged reductions in our arsenals, beyond what has already been agreed, over the next decade."

Richardson also excels at answers on Russia, Iran and North Korea, on Pakistan, and on actual moves he might take to reduce the chance the nuclear weapons or nuclear materials would make their way into the hands of terrorists. "Negotiations to reduce our arsenal also represent our diplomatic ace-in-the-hole," Richardson writes. "We can leverage our own proposed reductions to get the other nuclear powers to do the same -- and simultaneously get the non-nuclear powers to forego both weapons and nuclear fuel enrichment, and to agree to rigorous global safeguards and verification procedures."

Although I don't agree with Richardson's aggressive stance on ending the Iraq War, it is only one negative in a broad range of positives -- most important of which is his libertarian-leaning domestic platform. As he said during Sunday's ABC News-hosted Democratic debate, he has both an interesting policy platform and experience as an administrator.

I don't like to wade too deeply into politics, but seeing as how Richardson's chances at snagging the Democratic nod are pretty long, I am endorsing his candidacy for the vice presidential slot on the Democratic ticket in '08. So vote [insert name here]/Richardson in '08!