Confession time.

I'm a registered Republican.

I know that's probably going to alienate me from most of you, our readers, but I'm asking you to hear me out.

First of all, I'm still registered to vote in Texas. So my vote in most major elections has very little impact on the rest of you. (Especially since we all know what happens with absentee ballots.)

Secondly, I don't vote straight-ticket anything. Most of the time, I have nothing but contempt for both major political parties. I try very hard to research the candidates and their issues and think very carefully before I fill out and submit my absentee ballot to the El Paso County Registrar's Office.

I sometimes explain to people that I keep my Republican registration because it enables me to vote in the primary election against the scarier of two or more candidates. That would make sense, though, if I were a registered Democrat, too. Voting for politicians often seems, these days, as voting for the lesser of two evils, rather than selecting the best man for the job.

My party sometimes (okay, often) embarrasses or angers me: I'm not Christian and believe firmly that we are not a Christian nation, I love my gay friends and think they should have the right to get married, and I don't think a bunch of male politicians in Washington have any right to tell me what to do with my body. I guess you could say I'm socially liberal. But there are still a few conservative (small-"c") ideals that I stick to. Usually they're fiscal. Not always.

Which explains why, despite the shitty evening I was having on Friday (look for it later this week), I was just a little excited to hear, on an extended layover at DFW Airport, that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was executed early Saturday morning in Iraq.

More than a little excited. I was glad the bastard was dead. And I was glad that it was an execution. I couldn't think of a more fitting end for a man who'd executed so many during his time in power.

That's right, readers, she's pro-capital punishment. It's a holdover from growing up in Texas, the daughter of a Rush Limbaugh-loving, Bill O'Reilly-watching, straight-ticket-voting, father.

When we invaded Iraq nearly five years ago, I believed, as did many people, that we were doing the right thing. When an ex-boyfriend of mine was killed over there, I still believed, or at least wanted to believe, that our presence over there was necessary, WMDs or not. And now? Now I just think it's a big mess that somebody needs to straighten out. I don't think that we can just up and leave, but every time I hear about another casualty, I second-guess my original opinion.

But I still think that one good thing did come out of our presence in Iraq: the capture, and subsequent execution,* of one of the most brutal dictators that the latter half of the twentieth century saw. Do I wish it could have happened fifteen years ago when our forces were first in that region? You bet your ass I do. But that doesn't make me sorry it happened now.

Today is January 2, 2007. It's a new year, and, I hope, a better one. One that will see an improvement in all things, the situation in Iraq included. It brings with it the usual hope that all new years bring, and also the fatalistic expectation that things can still get worse. I hope, and in a way even believe, that this weekend—the execution, and not just the end of 2006—will bring more of the hope, and less of the fatalism, to the Iraqi people. And maybe it will see a quicker return of our men and women in uniform, as well.

*I am aware that the execution was actually an Iraqi act, and not an American one. However, it was the American forces who found Hussein and, by extension, the Americans who can be considered at least partly responsible for the dictator's sentence.

Image via Columbian.com.